AJ Powell is an athlete, motivational speaker, researcher & author of the book Tactical Pause.
Tactical Pause: www.armyveteranaj.com
AJ's Instagram: @armyveteranaj
Fit to Lead Instagram: @fittolead.inc
AJ Powell is an athlete, motivational speaker, researcher & author of the book Tactical Pause.
Tactical Pause: www.armyveteranaj.com
AJ's Instagram: @armyveteranaj
Fit to Lead Instagram: @fittolead.inc
AJ 0:00
The military is not forever at the beginning of your career, you need to understand in your brain that this is just the chapter in your life. It's not your whole life, and it will come to an end at some point. So you need to ask yourself, what are you doing right now today to set yourself up for future success. When that timeframe comes as an officer in the army, you have to deal with communicating to people all the time, I recognized that it's essential for leadership development to improve all aspects of your life, personal development, plus professional development equals leadership development period. And it's a never ending process. It lasts your entire lifetime, there's no peak to this. It's a mountain that has no summit, you will climb it forever.
Natalie Hayes 0:47
All right, thank you so much, AJ, for coming on here. We're so excited to talk to you about your story and about your leadership expertise. It's definitely not every day that I get to talk to an author of leadership tactics. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us.
AJ 1:05
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really honored and blessed to be here. Awesome.
Natalie Hayes 1:10
Well, before we get into everything that you've learned, I'd love to learn a little bit about how you learned it and just kind of talk about your military story and just tell us what really got you interested in the military in the first place? Okay,
AJ 1:23
so um, to start, I have two birth certificates. I have one from the state that I was born in, and I have another one from the United States Navy. Everyone in my family has been in the military. My grandfather's immigrated to the United States. And both of them served in World War two aunts and uncles that were in the military. And my father and my mother were both in the United States Navy, and I was born into it. And I grew up in it my entire my entire life. It's, it's the family business. So everybody served in the military at some point in their lives. Most people have made a career out of it. My father, you know, made a career out of it retired in 1994. I grew up during the golden age of the military, the Reagan era, and the Cold War. And when I was a kid, I was fascinated by it was a different time. And it was a different culture entirely. And this is something that I learned when I joined at that time, it was a lot like family, you know, you see that things like, you know, the movies that came out of the 80s, the military where, you know, people worked hard and played hard, and you're at work and you did it, you did your job. And then afterwards, everybody still hung out and was together. It was really like that. It really was. People loved being there. And you could see it, families were constantly together hanging out at the hangars on base, and it was a completely different atmosphere. When I was growing up, I thought that that's what I wanted to do. And then I became a teenager. And I became, I became an angsty troublemaker I grew really bored with with with lots of things. You know, this was all teenagers kind of do. And I graduated from high school early, I was done with high school by the time I was 15. So I was 16 years old. And I was 16 years old. And I was trying my hand at college. I was in Springfield, Mass. And I was going to Springfield Technical Community College, kind of pay my own way had a part time job. And I found myself surrounded by a bunch of people who are many years older than myself. And I didn't quite like it. I wasn't enjoying it. And so I started skipping classes. And one day at that at this point in my life, I wanted nothing to do with the military. I had a pretty much had an angry spiteful hateful relationship with with my parents, you know, my dad, my mom, and I was just, you know, I was just a troublemaking teenager, and I was skipping class. And I remember I was walking down the main street in Springfield, and there's this big building, they would call it the government building. And on the first floor, they had all their recruiting offices. And there was this lady, she was a staff sergeant, I believe, and she saw me in the window, this punk kid, right? And she was like, you need to come in, come in, come in and talk to me coming to talk to me. And I did. So I walked in the building. And I walked right by that office, and I looked in the door and I looked at her in the face while I walked right into the Navy office. And on a whim, on a whim, completely out of spite, I sat down with Petty Officer Polo. That was his name. He was my recruiter, and I said, What do you got for me? I'll join the Navy. And he told me all these jobs, you know, and he was like, we got all the Will you want to do and I said, Well, I want to work in aviation. And my dad was search and rescue. I would like to do that. Like oh, you know, slow down, they're slick you know, you grab this stuff. And so I did. I took the bag and I got a good score. And when I came back he's like, you can do any job in the Navy you want What do you want to do? And I said, Well, I'll search and rescue I want to fly. I want to be an aviation like okay, yeah. So I joined the Navy on a whim out of spite at a time when I wanted nothing to do with the military.
Natalie Hayes 4:51
So out of spite because of college. You don't want to be in college.
AJ 4:55
No, no, it was it was the recruiter in the window. Oh, yeah. And all that. Yeah, I was just I was just this I was a terrible kid. So I went I went to boot camp. It was December let me back I was a desperate for like almost a year because I was young. I don't wait till I turned 17
Natalie Hayes 5:11
Yeah, wow, super young.
AJ 5:13
Yeah, I had to wait until I turned 17. And my my mom had signed the paperwork for me to go. And so I remember I flew to Great Lakes Great Great Lakes Illinois we called the Great mistakes, I flew to Great Lakes. And I had this idea in my head that I thought I knew everything about the military, especially the Navy because I grew up in the Navy. And I ended up bootcamp SB three and I vision there's in the Navy, there's, they have two different types of divisions, they got everybody and then they have 900 divisions and they're all the divisions are 100 something 100 200 300 the 900 divisions were people who were going to special programs, like if you were on a seal contract, or EOD, or diverse swix, our air crew, you know, some kind of special program. Or if you could play an instrument, you know, then they put you in a 900 division. And I learned pretty quickly after like midway through boot camp, and then afterwards, when I got to Pensacola, I didn't know as much about the military as I thought I did. And what's worse is the culture that I grew up with in the Reagan era wasn't around anymore, it completely changed. And I had no idea I didn't see this. And I suddenly was in a completely different culture with a completely different type of group of people who were in the military for completely different reasons than what I would thought that they would have wanted to be. And it didn't turn out how it didn't have the same feeling to it. And it grew pretty toxic pretty quickly. There was a lot of visceral, there was a lot of hatred. amongst my fellow service members, there was lots of people that were there for no other reason than self-gratification glorification, or the college money there was there was a handful of people that joined because the 911, because they felt like there is some kind of patriotic calling or like me, it was a family business. But there was a large number of people that just hated their life in the military, they couldn't stand it. And they didn't want any part of it. And they treated it like you know, like they were in some kind of gang or they were in a hood on the street or something like that. I remember being at a great deal of odds about it. And it drove me kind of insane in my head thinking like you hate it so much. Why are you even here? Why did you join? So I was I was a really motivated person. And I wanted to do really well. And being ambitious and being young and having an attitude like young kids have and stuff. You know, I kind of bucked the system a little bit, I got yelled at a few times. And I think that that kind of helped me grow quite a bit. But I never kind of lost that sense that it wasn't right. And I ended up growing to hate myself hate being in the Navy. And I thought that the Navy was just this horrible, toxic place. And I didn't want any part of it. And so I thought about getting out and I came back from deployment. And I was like, that's it. This is enough. I don't want any more of this. I started thinking to myself, What am I going to do with my life? If I leave? I'm like, well, I'll go to college, that that really? I don't know, I wasn't thinking too much about that. And I'm like, well, maybe it's not the Navy. Maybe it's just maybe I'll just move to another branch and then continue on that way. So I went to the recruiter in San Diego. I went to some of the recruiting offices, and I went to the Air Force first I'm like, well, the Air Force, you know, they got a pair rescue and combat controllers and stuff like I'll go do that. And I didn't realize this, but I had this disease that I'd gotten in the Navy called prior service, and they wouldn't touch me with a 10 foot pole.
Unknown Speaker 8:20
Oh, wow.
Natalie Hayes 8:21
Is that right?
AJ 8:22
Yeah. They wouldn't take anybody in 2005 2006 they wouldn't take anybody who was car service.
Natalie Hayes 8:28
What sorry, what year did you did? Again? Were you said there was a lot owner 2000. Okay, okay. Wow. So right there.
AJ 8:33
Yeah. So 2005 was coming up on the end of my contract. And so yeah, so I, the Air Force wouldn't touch me. And I'm like, well, I'll go to the Coast Guard. You know, the Coast Guard, I've been told was a great, keep secret. And you know, and they got rescue swimmers to get asds and amts. and stuff like that. I'll go work in aviation with them. And the recruiter laughed at me and told me to call them back in two years. And he was like, you know, the Coast Guard is very small. We don't have any openings calls back in two years. And I was like, What? So then I was like, oh, if I joined the Marine Corps, my dad would disown me. So I can't join the Marine Corps. That's out of the question. And I'm that kid, you know, that kid and the old 1920s cartoons, you know, but the hands in the pockets walking down the street kind of feeling sorry for yourself. You had hanging low kicking the rock down the street kind of thing. And something on my face must have screamed. I was desperate. And this army recruiter came, you know, and they were like, last?
Unknown Speaker 9:26
Yeah, last time.
Unknown Speaker 9:28
I'll take anybody.
AJ 9:29
And so they were like, they were like, son, what are what are all your rows? You know, tell me all your rows. And so you know, I did, like gave him gave him all my paperwork and stuff. They're like, why you could do any job in the army? What do you want to do? I said, Well, I want to fly. I want to stay in aviation. And he's like, you want to do anything else? I said, Well, since you're asking, I want to go to college. He was like, he was like, you know the, the army will make that your full time job. I was like so yeah. So I went to reserves and I applied for college. I went to Wichita State for biochemistry and then The weekends I flew in a medevac unit and an air ambulance unit out of Topeka. And I did that from 2006 to 2008. And then in 2008, I got a letter in the mail from the Department of the Navy recalling me to active duty telling me that I critical skills, and they were ramping up, they wanted to deploy me. And so I was baffled by it. I took it to my retention NCO name is like well are already in the army. You don't have to go to the Navy, but you do have to go back to full time active duty, you can't go to college anymore. And I'm like, Well, I'm like a semester away from graduation. You know. So in 2008, mid 2008, I had to go back to active duty, and I decided to stay in the army. And I went to Virginia for the summer. And then I got stationed in in Germany. And that wasn't my choice. When I was coming up. At my time at the university in Virginia. They were like, We got like detachments all over the world, where would you like to go? And I said, I want to go to Japan. And they said your bid is you know, and they sent me to Europe.
Unknown Speaker 10:49
Classic.
AJ 10:50
Yeah. So I didn't want to be there. And after a couple of weeks, I just grew to love it and worked with some amazing people at an amazing mission, got to travel the entire continent, and went everywhere, our area of operations was Europe, to everything from Iceland, and England, all the way to the Black Sea, all the way from Sweden down to North Africa, like the entirety of Europe was our area of operations. And I had a great time. That's amazing. And I ended up getting injured a number of times. And my medical record by this point in my career was already a volume, like you could wave a headache that I was causing the department, right, I ended up hurting my back and they put me in the medical evaluation board, I got sent back to the States. And they said, Well, you know, your back's really messed up. And we're gonna have to do surgery, like, Well, I'm not doing surgery, like you're not touching me, like, what are the odds? Like, what's the success rate? Yeah. And they're like, Well, you know, it's a 40% success rate. And I'm like, to me, that tells me that translates to a 60% waking up as a paraplegic like you're not doing that. So I like to do two years of physical therapy, and basically learning to function and walk again, it was getting to the point where like, the nerve damage that I had, like, I would pick up a pen, and it would just fall out on my hands like I couldn't hold any body parts would just go numb. And yeah, so I went through two years of physical therapy. And slowly over a long period of time, I was recovering to the point to where I passed all the return to full service physicals and I passed the PT test the brand new flight, physical, and I was ready to go back to work. And then I got a letter telling me that they were retiring me. So I fought it, I plead my case for like, an hour in front of the panel. And they're like, that's great. But Obama's trying to get rid of like 40,000 people, and anyone who's disciplinary or medical are the first people to go. So take your 60% disability rate and good luck with life. And I was pissed, I was pissed. And I was very angry, and
Natalie Hayes 12:42
frustrated and helpless. You know, I
AJ 12:44
was my goal was, you know, I wanted to do 30 years CW five retired, like, that's what I wanted out of life. And I didn't get that far. So in 2014, it was the beginning of the year. And I'm like, Well, I need to do something. So I began doing what I always did, I like I reverse planned my method to success, I got a bunch of paperwork, and I wrote down a goal. And I said, this is what I'm going to do. And I began backwards planning it from time of execution to make sure that I would reach that goal. I knew that if I want to do that, I need to go to college. Again, unfortunately, which I'll tell everybody later on that college is not the path. It does not directly equal or translate to success. Yeah, but I knew that I needed to do it for this pathway that I chose. So I started applying for schools. I applied to seven different universities. I got accepted to all of them. So I had my pick of the letter. I chose Penn State and I retired at the end of April 2014. So may 1, I was done with the army. And I began from that point, like I started up 2014 2015 2016. I started three businesses, I began consulting professionally, I did a bunch of talks with service members who were leaving or retiring. I helped nonprofit organizations do C suite analysis and root cause analysis to find opportunities for leadership development improvement finished to different degrees. And that three year period of time I conducted three independent inductive research studies, all of which got published. And then I wrote about 100 different other research papers that all got published, and peer reviewed and published. I was doing all that those three hours, but every night every single night, I was drinking myself into oblivion. Oh my goodness, I was fall passing out. I was falling asleep on the couch and I was waking up and habitually recovering from the night before outside everyone I knew said that I was like the epitome of success.
Natalie Hayes 14:25
Yeah, that's what I was about to say. That's what I was about to say as I say, Yeah, well, I said no time like getting after your goals and dreams. Like right away. I was killing myself. And nobody knew it. Not even people that were closest to me. I was just dying inside.
AJ 14:39
I even came close to you know, suicide, constantly suicide. So
Natalie Hayes 14:43
I was like, what was driving you into that behavior?
AJ 14:46
I was legit. I held on to my previous goals and aspirations and dreams. You know what I wanted to do? And I felt like all of my hard work 14 straight years of my own hard work and effort was ripped away from me. You know, that's I felt like and I'll tell you, I've seen other people a type personality peoples who bust their butt building a career and a life for themselves to lose it. Yeah. And they go on a path of destruction like no one else. Yeah, I can sympathize with that. I see. So many people like really like, give their life, you know, put the military before their family, their friends, and then you just hate to think what would happen, you know, so anything could happen at any time. And this could all be taken away from you. So I can understand why that would be so crushing in a way, 14 years. That's a lot of time. It's true. What's worse about it is you spend a lot of time dedicating yourself towards something. But most people, I kind of learned this the hard way myself, most people don't actually stop and think and consider that the military is not forever, you know that life is not forever, there will come a time when it ends. And you have to ask yourself a hard question, what are you doing specifically, to set yourself up for success post service for the time we take the format that should start very early in your career, if you intend to do you know, five years, 10 years, 15 or 20 years or 30 years and uniform at the beginning of your career, you need to understand in your brain that this is just a chapter in your life. It's not your whole life. And it will come to an end at some point. So you need to ask yourself, what are you doing right now today to set yourself up for future success when that timeframe comes and I didn't do that. And I learned that the majority of servicemembers don't do that they don't think that far ahead. So when it was pulled away from me way earlier than I wanted, I wanted that 30 year long career, when my career was basically ripped away from me, I was completely unprepared for it. And I directed all my efforts outwards, towards just, you know, accomplishing the mission of the day. But inside I mentally was just not prepared for that kind of suffering. And I turned toward silently destroying myself with it. And in coming very close to doing so before I finally realized that's not me, that's not who I am. And I needed to change, I needed to do something 2016 I woke up one day, literally crawled off the couch, crawled across the floor into the bathroom and pulled myself up and looked in the mirror. And what I saw was was kind of horrifying. And it was a rude awakening, then I realized that I needed to start fixing my life. And so that's what I began taking all of the things that I was learning and researching for the past three years in college and doing sociological studies, and probably, you know, personal development and self improvement. And I began writing notes, planning a daily a daily mission to fix something I would look in the mirror and I would find one thing that could be improved about myself. And I would spend that day trying to think about great dental these notes. And I held on to those notes. And after like a solid year, probably I think it was about 14 straight months of doing this. I ended up moving to another country got another job and started posting these things and little tidbits I did the one thing he did the most during that time I started a social media account. I hate social media. I've done lots of research on it. I despise it. I can't stand what it does. That's so exciting. Yeah. And so at the end of 2016, I decided I would take the thing that I hated. And I would use it for my own personal therapy. So I looked through a bunch of different types of social media. And I said, well, Instagram is the most positive one. And so I started an Instagram account, and it was locked at first and a bunch of my friends were like they found out I was honest, and they all friended me. And I was like, okay, that's fine. And so what I would do is every day, I would take a picture, and I make a post and I would write myself something I needed to hear something I needed to tell myself and I would do that in about it wasn't long, a couple months into it. I think I got a message from from one of my close friends. And he said, Bro, I really needed to hear this today. Thank you. I was like No, I was taken back by it. I was actually pretty rude. I was like, throw this thing for us for me back off. And then I got it. It wasn't long, I got another message from somebody else telling me the same thing. And then another message from somebody else telling me the same thing. Another message from somebody else told me the same thing. And then one day a really close friend of mine, Adam Burt wasn't the owner of heroes Media Group, right? He messaged me, and he's like, Hey, you need to unlock your account and make it public. Because there's so many people out that out there that need to hear this stuff. And I fought with him about it. And then eventually.
And then it was about a year after I started that accounts. So it's about 2017 started him and Heather Dobson, another good friend who works at GoDaddy, air force fed and a few other people started hounding me and they start saying, you know, AJ, you need to write a book, you'd write a book you need to write a book. I was like No, I you know, writer would think that you know, this. And for like a year for like a year, they hounded me every day, and it was nonstop. And eventually it's like, right, if I do it, you guys leave me alone. And so I decided that and did some market research. And so I did some market research and I was like, okay, veteran written books. And what I found was 1000 veteran written books for all these post 911 And all these books are like self glorifying self gratification. Me, me, me, look at me look at the amazing thing I did look at my career. I'm a Navy SEAL by my stuff, right? Yeah, I was like what this is horrible. Like, this is the antithesis of everything that I want to be as a person who talks about leadership to people publicly, if I'm going to grant a leadership book, I'm going to write a real leadership book, I'm going to write a book that teaches people the things they need to know in order to be effective at being a leader. So what I did is I took my notes, I took the notes that I use to fix my life. And the research that I used, that I wrote and been published on and the research that I used to fix my life. And I literally wrote a book based off of that. So when people read my book, what the reading is reading my story, and they don't know it, like yeah, it's a secret that I finally admitted. But when you read through it, you may not realize it, but you actually you're reading what I personally had to go to teach myself all the things that I learned early on as a veteran when I first joined the military. Wow.
Natalie Hayes 20:50
So you so just so I can understand you found yourself in this kind of alcoholic dark place, but you brought yourself out of that by this personal reflection every day. And just like really coaching yourself out of it. That's how you like dug yourself out of that hole.
AJ 21:05
Well, that's exactly how I did it. And I wrote down, I kept the daily journal, a daily log, and I wrote down notes on what, what I needed to know what I needed to focus on what I needed to do every day. And then what I did with that is I went and I researched that stuff. I used sociological, social, psychological, psychological research to find out the information I needed to know in order to make the progress I wanted to make.
Natalie Hayes 21:31
Yeah. Can you give us an example of maybe like, one day, like what would be like just so people can see like, how big or how small are we talking here as far as a daily goal or daily research?
AJ 21:42
So mine are what I would recommend for other people.
Natalie Hayes 21:44
Let's go with yours. If you're comfortable with it,
AJ 21:46
that's fine. Give me five seconds. Okay. Yeah, no problem. I'll take one day. Let's pick a random day.
Natalie Hayes 21:51
Okay, here we go. Everyone, you're not watching the video, we have the book, tactical pause, and we're getting it right from the source. So this is gold content.
AJ 21:58
Alright. So day 28 is communication apprehension, okay, okay. This should be something that you're personally familiar with. As an officer in the army, you have to deal with communicating to people all the time, and communication apprehension, in a nutshell, our inability to communicate effectively with groups, mostly secondary groups. So they're not primary groups, not like close friends and family, but people that are work acquaintances, and people we don't really know, because we're nervous or scared, or we feel a sense of intimidation, from that communication, that requirement to communicate with other people, right. So I recognized that it's essential for leadership development to improve all aspects of your life, personal development, plus professional development equals leadership development period. And it's a never ending process, it lasts your entire lifetime, there's no peak to this, it's a mountain that has no summit, you will climb it forever until the day you die. And one area is learning to be a better communicator learning to effectively communicate your message to other people. So what I would do is I invested in tons and tons and tons of books like this, this is a textbook, this is something that you would probably seen in a undergraduate, you know, leadership development course of some kind. And you notice, there's all these tabs on the top. So all of these tabs are pages where actual research has been conducted by people who are specialists in their fields. And some of these include Shockley, and xyla. Beck, for example, who are noted, researchers are psychological and sociological researchers in the field of leadership and communication. So I would go purposely look for research in the areas where I was working on specifically that day. And I would find, I would focus on the results where they're saying what became effective, what did people do to produce a positive end goal, I would write those down, I would write those down in a very simple journal, just like just regular writing rain Notepad, like everybody has, right I would write down those notes, and then I would stop and I would reflect on it for the whole day. Okay, this is what research says, this is where you know, people say this actually works. This is effective. How am I doing? How am I like compared to what needs to happen? Like, where am I? Where do I need to be? What needs to happen? And then how can I make that change? A lot of that has to do with personal responsibility and accountability, quite honestly, it's the ability to look at yourself and say something is wrong, admit that something's wrong. I chose to write mine down. I chose to write my issues, my problems down, own it, I accept that this is the case and then take a serious effort towards finding ways to improve that one thing and that's just one thing. Now I don't recommend everybody take a huge chunk on something called that one thing, right. Most people have a problem with personal motivation, even servicemembers. Most people have a problem with being willing to recognize There's issues that there's parts of their life that could be improved. And then even when they do, lots of people become apprehensive about it, they become apprehensive, like, you know, they seem to think, Oh, you know, what was me? What can I do? How am I ever going to, to scale this this massive mountain across this massive ocean of issues that I have, I don't suggest that everybody you that you're going to fix your life in one day, it took you 30 years to get where you're at, right? It could take you 30 years to become way better than you are. That's like, people go to the gym. You know, if you're 30 years old, and you're a fat slob, you're not going to go to the gym and become a rock star in a week, it's going to take time. So what I tell people to do is focus on one tiny little thing at a time, focus on one small thing, it doesn't have to be hard, it can be something very simple, right? Write it down, research it. And then from there, I keep a log, keep a journal and over a long period of time, let's say for example, you're really just not that motivated. If you stick with it over a long period of time, you'll be able to look through that journal, see that log and look back and reflect and you'll see real growth. And that should be the motivation to fuel you to keep going in the future. Over the course of time, you should become much better than you were the day before, a decade before.
Natalie Hayes 26:07
Now that's a great that you know, personal improvement, step by step day by day is a long game, something that we can do overnight. I think that's so important to remember, especially as you hit walls or you get frustrated when you are going through your growth phase and which I know is forever but you know those really important ones right after you got out where you are August 2016. Are there any walls that you hit that made you like almost want to like relapse back into your old lifestyle? And how did you get past those if you did hit any?
AJ 26:33
I mean, that's a tough question to everybody hits walls, we don't always recognize people like myself, like I mean, I know people that have type A personalities, you know, they set goals, they methodically execute those goals. These are people that do scale mountains that do take the hardest jobs that complete the hardest trading that run marathons that you know, these are highly exceptional motivated individuals like that I chose to read like I do with everything I chose to reverse plan my process, this is where I am, this is where I want to be this is the outcome I want to manufacture and create, and how am I going to get that? How am I going to create that reality? And then well, if I need that, if that's the reality, I want to exist, these things need to happen. Okay, so then plan those backwards, then break those down into smaller goals, break those down into smaller goals, break those down into smaller goals and keep on going all the way back to the time of start and then develop, you know, contingency plans. You know, for example, first time you encounter problems, something's not gonna work out. Okay, let's shift gears, we'll go to this pre planned process that would get us back on track and keep doing that. So I did do that, like I said, for the greater part of a year, or longer initially, when I first started rebuilding my life, basically, can
Natalie Hayes 27:40
you tell us if this makes sense in context, but like, at the time, what was your goal or what what was your peak that you were working towards? Or maybe still are working towards? Okay, so
AJ 27:49
my goal was really simple. I wanted to unfuck my life.
Natalie Hayes 27:53
Okay, okay. All right.
I wanted to, but I didn't, I didn't know if it was, you know, something else. But that works. That works.
AJ 28:01
Yeah, I wanted to get back on track. What I'd lost is I was aimlessly working towards a bunch of superficial goals, right, I wanted a master's degree and, and I wanted this really high paying job. And this, this wonderful career, like these are all superficial goals. When you leave the military, many people fall into depression. And you know, lots of veterans contemplate suicide, because they lose purpose. You can, but if you strip away everything, and you get rid of all the other life events, and all the other things that happened to people post service, they lose a sense of purpose, I had lost my sense of purpose, my sense of purpose was back in uniform, I needed to develop a new sense of purpose. I started off developing that sense of purpose, when I realized that I had run off the railroad tracks after recognizing that accepting it, owning it taking responsibility and holding myself accountable for it, Then, and only then could actual reform and growth begin. So my new sense of purpose at that time was I need to get back on the railroad tracks I need to get back on the right track. Yeah, after that I needed to find a new sense of purpose. And that new sense of purpose was okay, we need a career change. What am I interested in? So backwards plan that, you know, what are my hobbies? What are my goals, I'm unfortunately, I'm like the squirrel, I have entirely way too many things I'm interested in and not enough time or money to do them all. So I tend to do something and I'll do it really well. And then when it's done, I really don't take time to enjoy it, I'll find another project and immediately move on to that. And then when that's knocked out of the park, I'll do the same. I'll just shift focus on to something else and keep going. Many people have a clearly defined sense of purpose. They love, whatever it is, they love to do. Love being an engineer, they love music, or they love business or marketing. Maybe they're really great cook, and they're like I want to cook for the rest of my life. That's your sense of purpose. Great, define that in a very clear way. Now you need to figure out how to turn that into reality. And so that for me was what I did, I had to create a new sense of purpose and I had to manufacture how I was going to produce that into reality. That's what noncommissioned officers do best. Right? We turn, we turn reality ideas into reality. Right? Yeah. So that's exactly what I did. You know, I said, Okay, how am I going to manufacture reality here and what I want to happen at the end result, and then backwards planet and execute. So that's what I needed to do. And that's exactly what I did. And that's the thing that allowed me to get out of that hole. I encountered roadblocks along the way, there were days when I woke up. And I was just like, you know what, screw it like, this is too hard, you know, this isn't working out. But then what I would do is I would go back to that log book. And I would look through it, and I would see all the days and all the notes and all the goals that had a line through them, because they've been reached or accomplished that day. And that motivated me to want to keep going. And so I encourage people, even at my job to do this to this day, you know, I encourage people, hey, every day, you should have a daily schedule, like a planner, a day planner, and you should write down your duties and responsibilities and your goals for that day at your job. And at the end of the day, when you've when you've accomplished those things, cross them off, it feels really good to do that to say, Yes, I accomplished that. And then over a long period of time, six months or so when your boss is asking for report, what did you do? How were you productive? You can boss it out and say, Look how great I am.
Natalie Hayes 31:13
Yeah, absolutely. Those little steps add up and and momentum, I think is so important to just like doing one thing, right? That gives you the inner self confidence to just keep going and to be taking on more tasks. So I think that's so great. Yeah. So I'd love to ask you some more questions about what you've learned about leadership and all your research sounds like you've really taken the time and taking it seriously. So I'd love to know how you define what is a leader? I know you said a little bit it has a personal and professional side, but maybe someone who may be in the military right now. Maybe a young soldier or noncommissioned officer. Yeah. How do you define leadership? And what is it based on? Is it rank or position dependent? Or is it personally dependent? Just kind of your take on that?
AJ 31:56
Yeah. So to start, there's a lot of really great definitions for leadership out there. I know every branch of the military has a definition, there's tons of university classes that have their own definitions. And there's lots of companies and corporations that have definitions for leadership. So I don't want to knock any of those. I do want to say I personally love the Army's definition of leadership. And I think that the reason I like it so much is not because I'm the soldier. And because it does a really good job and encompassing all the different aspects of what leadership really is, right? The ability to influence people by providing purpose, direction and motivation in order to accomplish the mission in the organization. But in that there's there's volumes of books and novels and research that have been written off of that one sentence alone, you can take any word in there purpose, define your purpose, people won't do anything without purpose, you can work this sentence backwards, in order to say how do you effectively create leadership? Or how do you measure the success of leadership? Right? Well, you won't achieve mission success and improve the organization unless people are willing to do something, they won't do it until they have a direction which to move towards the reach, or they want to have a direction in which to go goals in which to reach and you need to provide them something to go towards. And that that can motivate them when they see it. So that's the you know, that's the direction and the purpose part of it and doing all those things together is influence right? So all of these things, it's all encompassing, of leadership is in this one definition. That's why fight is so beautiful. But there's something even simpler than that. About, that's what leadership is, but what qualifies a person as a leader. And I think the army did a really great job with that, too. And they have this philosophy called be no do.
Natalie Hayes 33:35
I would say you act as if like, you want to lead from the front, kind of like set the example. So you embody like what your personal leadership philosophy is? I think that's a great answer.
AJ 33:46
B No, do you know do is short for character, knowledge and actions, right? Be the example that you want others to follow? Know your job and know how to take care of people. And, you know, all the knowledge that you gained about your profession, and knowledge about other people's lives about things that need to happen, things that go on is, you know, the whole world around you that global kind of perspective, right and do do the right thing at all times, even when no one's looking. Leadership is influence, right? Most leadership is indirect influence. Most leadership is you doing what needs to be done without anybody around to see it. In that respect. leadership can be exhibited by any person at any time, anywhere, at any level. You can be a leader without anybody to follow you, if you know that but you can't be a manager without people to manage. So this is a difference between leadership and management, right? Lots of people have this. I love you seen it? There's this. I'm going to go on a little tangent. There's this picture. There's this picture that you can google and it has I hate this picture. It has silhouettes of some people. And there's this guy behind a desk right on the top part of the comic, if you well, and some bunch of people that are over rope and they're all pulling the desk, right and he's cracking away. Oh, yes. And it says it says management, right. And then below it, you see the same guy that was wanting to desk and now he's at the front of the line pulling the rope with everybody else. You guys follow me? And it says leadership, right? That's wrong. I disagree with this completely right. Leadership and Management share a lot in common like a Venn diagram, right, there's a bunch in the middle that they have in common with each other. But they're different ends of the totem pole. Right management is process management is all the things that need to happen in order to make the cogs of the organization turn. Right. So personnel actions, paperwork, all that stuff. That's all management duties. They have a lot in common with leadership. But leadership is influence. So process and influence are totally different things. And lots of people have visceral in their mind for management, and they say, Oh, that's, you know, you're bad. You're a manager, and you're not a leader? Well, no, you can be both, you can be a leader and a manager, but you can't manage it without people to manage. Whereas on the other hand, you can be a leader all day long without anybody to lead simply by doing the right thing. So
Natalie Hayes 36:04
would that be a personal ship, but you're just taking leadership of your own life. In that case, if you have
AJ 36:10
no one to follow, you won't, I would say its intrinsic. And all actions that qualify as leadership are inherently intrinsic, right. Just like everything that qualifies as leadership is inherently positive and good. There's no such thing as as bad leadership. There's no such thing as toxic leadership, I hate these terms. These are just made up buzzwords that people have to try and dismiss to describe the antithesis of what leadership is what you do the demonstratable actions, that you either have a positive or constructive influence to the world around you either, you know, it qualifies as leadership. And if it doesn't, if it has a destructive or negative impact, it doesn't really qualify as leadership. Because if you think about it, everything in every definition of leadership you've ever read regarding demonstratable, positive constructive influences, right. So in order to be a leader, it has nothing to do with your position, it doesn't have anything to do with your rank or level of authority, or the amount of experience that you've gained in your lifetime. It has everything to do with how you impacted the world around you, the environment, you're in the people, you're with the mission, the organization, right. If your actions, demonstratively create a positive and constructive influence to the world around you, you are acting as a leader. But if your actions don't, if they have a negative or destructive influence of some kind, then you're not you're not acting like a leader, you can be in a position of authority, and you could be a manager. But that doesn't mean that you're being a leader. Because the state of being no do the state of being the leader. The first part of that is character.
Natalie Hayes 37:49
Yeah, I hear the term toxic leadership so much. But really, it would just be the absence of leadership. In that case,
AJ 37:56
it's true. And I can't tell you when I was active duty, I sat in so many classes where this term toxic leadership was was thrown around all the time. And I just cringed at it so many times, you know, I couldn't say anything, because it's rank and position and order, like, you know, who are you? What do you think, you know, quite honestly, when you look at everything of what leadership is, right, not who's in a position of authority and saying who's in a position of leadership, like what is leadership leadership is inherently positive, and everything about it produces a positive or constructive influence. So if you're not having that effect on other people, or the organization or the mission, then you're not being a leader, quite honestly. So when I talk about like, what qualifies a person as a leader, well, its character knowledge and actions, what are they doing to produce a positive influence in the world around them, if they're doing something to create a constructive positive influence, you're acting as a leader, the best way you can do that without impacting or influencing anyone, any or anything else, the easiest way for you to act like a leader is to focus on personal improvement, accept responsibility, and accountability for your life, your actions, and your shortfalls, your shortcomings, accept them, take a cold, hard look in the mirror and focus on improving yourself. And if you do that in just one area at a time, you are exhibiting real leadership. Because somebody at some point is going to see that when you improve yourself over time that shines other people see it like a candle in a room, it lights the room and people can walk in and they can see that there's a change, there's a positive change in you. And other people who are affected by that are the same people are gonna say, I want to be like that person. I, I want to be like that, right? A person who's in a position of authority who acts like a leadership who acts like a leader, and exhibits real leadership has a great amount of impact on the people that work for them and with them, and leadership is not restricted to vertical chains of command. Lots of people have that mistake in the military member, you know, you're asking about like, well, what would you say for servicemembers who are young in the military I would tell you that leadership does not exist in a vertical chain of command. authority does absolutely management does. But But leadership doesn't. Leadership exists horizontally across an organization at all levels. And what this means is that there is no restrictions to influence in leadership. Every single person at every level is capable of influencing everyone else at regardless of what their level or position is. Right. And if you embody the example you want others to follow you, you take the time to study and thoroughly understand your job and your duties. And you behave in a manner consistent with more values, then you're going to be what other people say it what right looks like, and that will influence others to do the right thing as well. So even if no one is around, and you're by yourself in the middle of field, and the closest person is 1000 miles away, and they can't see you, as long as you're striving for personal improvement and self betterment, you being a leader,
Natalie Hayes 41:01
yeah, I couldn't agree more with that definition. You know, I've seen influence happen horizontally up down, you know, every which way across the chain of command, so to speak. So I couldn't agree more that leadership is really a personal endeavor. And you can easily influence others just by trying to be the best version of yourself. And you never know who's watching, you know, truly somebody is even if you don't notice, for someone who may be in a situation where they don't feel have any support, or they may be feel like they're in a negative environment at work, but they want to be a leader or they want to achieve great things. Is there anything that you would advise someone to do that may be living in that situation just biding their time until they can get out of whatever negative situation that they're in?
AJ 41:45
So I feel like this is a common question that many, many, many service members have encountered in their time? Yeah, right. There's lots of jaded and disenchanted one time, you know, first contract service members who are young, at an all rates for, you know, junior enlisted NCO sworn officers, well, maybe not warrant officers, because they're typically come from people who are in their mid career engineer officers, right, who become disenchanted and jaded with the idea of the system and in the service. And outside the military, even even in corporations and businesses. Some people you know, they'll get into things and they're probably young in it a couple years in and they just don't like it and they're like, oh, man to the company, or the command or the organization doesn't support me and my boss is an idiot, and I don't like what's going on and what you know, Woe is me kind of situation. I think the first mistake that people make is the woe is me mentality. If you look at yourself, like you're a victim, you're going to be a victim. If you focus on negativity, the world around you will be negative. negativity is the greatest destructive influence to your personal growth and success and achievement in life. You'll never ever ever see an interview with a marathon runner, or a triathlete and Olympic gold medalists who ever told themselves they couldn't do it. Yeah, it won't happen. Every single person who's ever achieved greatness in life, and some accomplish some remarkable endeavor did so by positive thinking they did. So by telling themselves they could do it like the little engine that could write
Natalie Hayes 43:17
Yeah, even maybe if I had no evidence that they could they just believe that it's true.
AJ 43:21
It's true. Just the belief that you can, is good enough to get the ball rolling. Right? So the first thing I would say is that it's extremely easy for us to pay attention to negative things, right? Our brain is hardwired permanently from birth, to pay attention to negativity and pessimism. It's a survival instinct. It's a survival mechanism. It's what allows us to look out for danger. All right, this is something from ancient human history. When you when you lived in lived outside and you need to pay attention to what could possibly kill you. It's an innate it's an innate mentality. were negative and pessimistic by nature, you need to start and first of all, I would say remind yourself of all you're thankful for Yeah, just be happy you were you were blessed with what you have it no matter how small And next, start small and serious focus on finding something positive, to be thankful for every day you need to create a habit habits are they're the most addictive things in the world. They're they're more addictive than hard drugs habits typically only take the average human being on the planet can develop a habit after only 23 times of doing something. Habits don't require any cognitive effort to develop. You can you can develop them subconsciously without even trying. And if habits are tied to an emotional state, they become solidified. And they're so powerful that they're virtually impossible to get rid of. This is why smokers you know, you see people who are like, yeah, I quit for a couple years and I went back to smoke didn't quit, right. Smoking has two habits. Yeah. Number one is the physical addiction of putting the chemical in your body. Right. And the second one is the emotional state that elicits It's the action of putting the cigarette in your mouth says white gum is really popular with people trying to quit smoking instead of just quitting. Right? They will the sheer willpower of doing it. They'll stop and they'll chew gum because the habit is not the cigarette, the habit is this right? And it's tied to an emotional state emotional every time you get pissed, yeah, every time you're angry, frustrated, this is what you're doing. And so this became the habit after 23 times of doing it, it's now become a habit habits take the average human being more than 200 times to break. And it's not 200 times of just not doing it and not thinking about it, it's 200 times of seriously consciously being old ware of it, forcing yourself not to do it. So they require nothing to create a habit, it requires a world of willpower to break a habit. So I would say develop a habit of positivity, develop a habit of focusing on the positive. And once you do that, tie that to happiness, feelings, good feelings, and it will become a set in stone thing, right? Get rid of pessimism and get rid of negativity, cut it out of your life, like a surgeon does cancer, because it is a cancer and it will destroy you from within. It's a toxic, it's a toxicity that will kill you. So that's the first step I would say is develop the habit of focusing on positive things. Next, start small, you may be surrounded by pessimism, and garbage all day long. Focus on yourself and what you're trying to accomplish. Define your purpose, define your goals in the path you want to go toward. And start small, seek to accomplish one tiny little thing each day. stay disciplined and keep at it, even if you don't see results immediately. But I guarantee you over a long time over a period of time, and it could be weeks, months or even years, you will see significant growth and progress and remarkable strides towards achieving those goals. And before long, I promise you this, you'll be able to look back and reflect and what you'll notice is an amazing change that nobody can take away from you, no matter how horribly toxic the world around you may have been. The third thing is I would remind you that these things are temporary. Yeah, okay, people come and go, organizations come and go, you won't always be in the same place. You may be there now. But this is temporary. This too shall pass. All right. You may be biding your time, for the next piece. Yes. Or until you ETS, that's okay, I'm not going to tell you that, you know, you should spend your life in the military. If that's not what you want to do, I'm not going to say that, that your decision to move on to something else in something bigger, better and greater is is the wrong decision. What I will say is that if all you're doing is biding your time, you're missing an amazing opportunity to set yourself up for success in the future. And if you did strive towards using that time and the toxic environment until the time you left, towards personal growth and self betterment, even if it's in secret, even if it's by yourself after hours in your room, or whatever the results of that down the road will be something that nobody can take away from you. And all those people who treated you like garbage or all that the people in the command that didn't support you, they'll never know the achievement that you've that you've that you've accomplished and they won't get there themselves. Those are probably the same people who are going to be stagnant their entire life, they peaked in high school, that was the end of their life. It's all downhill from here.
Natalie Hayes 48:27
That's great advice, to focus on yourself and your goals and to guard your mind from negativity. I think that's so important. And something I see a lot of people struggle with. Because in the military, we often find ourselves in situations that we just can't control. And we couldn't leave him if we wanted to. So we have to just find the positive a lot of the time. So I love that advice. Thank
Unknown Speaker 48:50
you.
AJ 48:50
I think, you know, having a career in aviation and scuba diving has probably taught me that lesson. More than anything else, right, I'll use diving because it's more recent. I know I work in aviation right now. But I also work passionately as a diver in the ocean, we have a saying and I as an instructor, I teach people this as well, that less is more you can't control all the chaos happening around you. But you can control yourself and how you react to it right? Life is you know, 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. So you know, if you're in the ocean and you're you got waves and you surges and things happening all around you, you have no control over that. It's better to accept it, instead of trying to fight it. Instead, you have all the world of control over yourself, you are your own little universe, nothing will bring that to light but you know quicker than having like an apex predator in front of you or, or a bunch of rocks coming away really quickly. When you suddenly realize you have no control over everything else, you've become confronted with the thing that you do have the control over and that's you. So if you focused on improving yourself and you focused on ignoring the chaos going around you when you don't get it What was that saying? There was some there was this prayer when I was a kid was, God grant me the serenity? Have you heard that one? Yep. Except the things I cannot change to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference between the two, right? I can change myself, that's the one thing I have control over. I can't change, I can't change the world, I can't stand on top of a cliff and shake my fist at the world and demanded the change. The world doesn't care about me, I care about me. And that's all that matters. So I accept that I can't change the world, I can change myself, I need to understand there's a difference between the two. And if once I do understand that, then I can actually begin to make real progress.
Natalie Hayes 50:36
Yeah, absolutely. You're gonna waste a lot of energy being upset or holding resentment towards your situation, but think, how much better would it be to turn that energy into working on improving yourself? So I definitely think that is the path to greatness, as you might say, my next question is, you know, maybe looking at someone who knows that they want to move on to their next thing, maybe they want to get out of the military or move in a different direction, but they're not sure what it is that they want to do that, you know, they know they want to achieve greatness, but they're not sure what it is that they want. Do you have any advice for somebody who's kind of like in that soul searching phase?
AJ 51:14
Okay, this is gonna sound childish, get a couple pieces of paper and write down a pros and cons list. I'm dead serious. This This works. This actually works. It really does. I know, it's something you tell like a five year old to do, right? Or some kid in middle school, I would highly recommend. And so I tell I tell servicemembers this know, when they're getting out of the military. Define your purpose. Most of the time, our purpose is and what we think it is a lot of times is when you when you don't clearly define it, you may be just you know, your life may be generally going towards a certain direction. But lots of people become disenchanted with their life and what their career and things that if you know how things have turned out, because they didn't clearly define what their purpose was. And so when they eventually get there down the road, it's not what they thought it would be. And they become apathetic and, and depressed about it. Right. I'll get to the point of it. But what I want to say is, this happens a lot to college students to lots of kids go to college, because it's the next step. Because they're told, and they're taught by their parents and great marketing for 60 years, that college is directly attributable to success. It's not. But that's the that's the message. That's the marketing message, right? for 60 years, we did a we did a great disservice to our country by preaching and telling children that college if you want to be successful in life, you have to go to college. So there's lots of things that came about from this economic wise that I won't get into. But the point is that lots of kids have this idea that they need to go to college, did you know that 12% of all jobs in existence on the planet actually require a college degree? That's it? Yeah, well, not a lot less than that. And out of those greater than 90% of that 12% are stem degrees. So we got news for you, your history and your generous gender studies to create that ain't worth anything, it qualifies you to flip burgers at McDonald's, right? So stem is 90% of what college demands, and less than 12% of all jobs in existence require a college degree, it's why do you go to college? Well, because it's next step, what people don't do and when I talk to college kids, when I talk to kids talking to you know, high school kids about going to college, I say you should use the military decision making model, it's possibly the greatest tool in your toolbox, reversed your success. And the best way to do that is to get a piece of paper and write down your hobbies work backwards. So think about this, could you name five things that you thoroughly enjoy doing? That you love doing five hobbies, not jobs, not work, five hobbies, five things you love to do? That you could honestly see yourself doing for the rest of your life? Write them down. Okay. Next, now that you've defined those five things, the next thing you should do is go find five career fields that closely match associate, or actually involved those five things. Next thing you do write down five degree programs that closely associate or directly match or interact with those five things with those career fields? All right, you haven't even looked at college. I know kids that are like, well, I want to go to Penn State because my dad, he went to Penn State, he says Penn State's best, or Ohio State or whatever, right? Or Harvard, right? That's not the reason to go to that school. What if that school don't have the degree program that aligns career fields that align with your with your hobbies. So now that you've done that, now go looking for universities, seven to 10 universities that have degree programs that align with the career fields that align with your hobbies, you see where I'm going with this, you're working backwards, you're going to college backwards? You should do this with your life. Define your purpose, what is the thing that motivates you the most that you love? That you could see yourself working toward forever? Okay, after you define your purpose, what do I need to do to get there? How am I going to work towards that there's something has to have to reach it is there you know, a list of accomplishments or a piece of paper that I need in order to get that to reach that goal? work backwards, right? Reverse plan the methodology that's going to allow you to manufacture the reality. That's how you do it. That's how you accomplish the mission. That's how you become successful. Yeah, so
Natalie Hayes 55:09
it all starts with understanding your purpose and taking your hobbies, you know, even if someone maybe doesn't have a idea of their career field, they should know like, what they enjoy doing, you know, you can think about what is something that when I do it, I don't think about the time time just passes really quickly. I've heard that before, that type of thing. So it's less
AJ 55:27
about the career field. And it's less about the career field and more about the actions and activities, right, the end goal in mind is to be able to enjoy what you're doing. If you've lost your job, you'll never work a day in your life. Yeah, we've all heard that we've all been told that I'd also say that people make the job also. So if you're like, Well, I have to have this job. Because the job makes a lot of money. Let me tell you something, you can show a picture living, but you've worked with some amazing people, you're going to love that job. It'll be the best job you've ever had. You'll talk about it for generations. On the other hand, after you've shoveled picture for four years, and graduated school, and you know, you've got that banker job, you may hate it, and you work with toxic people who treat you like garbage. And by the time you're 40, you're going to be depressed in the career field that you don't like doing something you hate contemplating suicide and draping yourself in a plane every night. This is the plight of many people.
Natalie Hayes 56:13
It's true. It's true happiness is the true currency or that true, like wealth, and definitely agree. So what about someone who maybe, okay, they've taken your steps, they have an idea, they have their whole step plan written out. But they're just so far, they're almost paralyzed with self doubt, no one in their family has ever done anything like this before. They've come from a very like, go to college, get a job type family, and there's just a lot of fear there. I've taken those first couple steps.
AJ 56:41
This isn't for you is
Natalie Hayes 56:44
asking for a friend. Yeah, of course.
AJ 56:48
Asking for a bribe. Again, I'd have to say, if you focus on negative things, those negative things will be all you'll ever see. Right. So I'll just go back to what I was saying before, train yourself to be positive, start small, seek that accomplishment of one goal, you know, per day, or one goal at a time, keep a log that that visual representation will literally become the motivation to keep you going. Right, and then take time to reflect take time to look back and see that you progressed and then reverse plan your your way to success. you've defined your goal. You just don't know how to get started. Well, if you defined it, and you reverse plan that and you say okay, well, in order to create this, I need one, two and three things to happen in order to make those happen. I need other things to happen in order to make those happen. I need other things to happen. And then the one thing that gets it all started is this one thing, okay. And I want to start on this date. This is the date I want to be finished. And this is the date I need to that I'm going to start and this is my timeline for execution to make reality go, it's hard to do that. It's hard to stay disciplined. It's hard to stay focused on it. And that's why I'm saying it sounds childish. But get some paper write it down.
Natalie Hayes 57:58
Absolutely. stay disciplined. Write down your goals. Remember your purpose. Awesome. So let's talk about your book. You sold a lot of knowledge here just in this short podcast, but tactical pause first, I'm curious from your perspective. You know, there's a ton of leadership books out there a lot of which I'm sure that you've read. Why would someone benefit from learning leadership tactics from a veteran specifically from a combat veteran, someone with your background?
AJ 58:24
So I would say that military servicemembers as a whole, rightfully so and I'm an advocate for military service members, for the for the military community as a whole pop up publicly and politically, servicemembers are the best that society has to offer, quite honestly. And that's a bold statement to say, We are the best bank our society has to offer. Regardless of where you come from, or your previous walk of life, you did something that the 99% refused to do, and that serve you entered a life of service. You placed the lives of other people before yourself. And that is a really tough thing that it's clearly data shows 99% of the human population won't do that, right. They will make any kind of excuse or justification for why they can't why it's impossible, why they won't service members raised the right hand and offered up their lives exchange for defending everybody else. So right then and there, you're the best society has to offer servicemembers today are more educated, better trained, better equipped, and better acts are more experienced than ever before in history. We have an education system and a growth through progression system in the United States military, that makes us the most effective lethal force on the planet. And it's not because of all the equipment and the money and the funding. It's what's here and what's here that allows us to do that right service members learn leadership from day one in uniform. So the second you join, whether it's boot camp, OCS, whatever your entry method is, day one, when you put on the on the uniform, you're learning by example what leadership is what right looks like how to execute the mission, how to be a part of a team how to function very well in high performance teams. How to accomplish the mission. You You're learning leadership from the very first day in uniform. Every service member learns leadership, whether they know it or not, it's being instilled within them. I would say that the only thing that you can do to improve upon that experience, and this is a double edged sword, it's probably the worst thing you could do to improve upon that experience is combat combat veterans have often executed leadership at the most challenging, demanding and asymmetric levels and environments around the world that the vast majority of civilians have never encountered and will never encounter in their lifetime of experiences on executing leadership and operational temples. And that degrees of influence beyond what most people think is possible and say most combat veterans have also developed a mental fortitude and resilience to such degrees civilians also impossible making them also making combat veterans better equipped to handle stressors required in leadership development at that Apex level at the CEO level, right. The biggest problem that I've seen, however, for most veterans is an inability to translate that experience in a way that's recognizable and applicable to operations outside the military to organizations in a way that those other 99% can understand. What I did with tactical pause is I used real life sociological research, I used leadership development expertise in my field as a scientist who studies the science of influence, which is leadership, as a sociologist that specializes in leadership, the psychology of learning and personal experiences in overcoming adversity, trials and hardships throughout my entire career. And that part where I had to rebuild my life and unscrew myself right for the express purpose basically, of helping other people learn, benefit and grow from those lessons and ultimately achieve a measure of success in their life. That's what tackle pause is, it's a mentorship guide. It's It's a 90 day, mentorship guide designed to engage not just read but purposely to engage the reader in critical self evaluation, promote them to work towards self betterment on a daily basis. That's that's what it is. Tactical pause is what NGOs do best in the military. We teach coach, mentor and guide. That's our job. As noncommissioned officers. That's what we do. Our whole job of being a noncommissioned officer is we do five things, and CEOs do five things and we do them really, really well. You NCO is out there watching this, you pay attention, okay? We teach coach, mentor, guide and lead. That's what we do. We do that by having two basic missions, the accomplishment of the mission and the welfare of your soldiers. If you accomplish the job, and you take care of your soldiers, or if you do these five things really, really well correction. If you do these five things really well. You will accomplish the mission and take care of your soldiers. So that's your life as a noncommissioned officer. That's what this is. This is teaching coaching, mentoring and guiding for 90 days providing you sociological research, development, expertise, psychology of learning, and experience designed to help you evaluate yourself at a critical level, so that you can grow and achieve
Natalie Hayes 1:02:59
I love that. So it's a 90 day really engagement process, not just another book, but something that you can really apply to your life. And I love that you've taken all the textbooks and you even showed us one put it into this more easily digestible book for young leader to take and apply it to their own life. So I'm so excited. I'm definitely gonna get a copy. So tell people where can they find
AJ 1:03:23
tactical paws tactical paws is available worldwide on Amazon, it's print on demand. So I don't have any copies of it. It's not like there's a stock out there. When you buy a copy, it gets printed that day and shipped directly to you. So you can go to Amazon and just type in tactical paws for daily growing leaders, or tactical paws named Jay Powell or Google and it'll pop right up. Additionally, you could also find a link for it on my website, Army Veteran, AJ calm and there's a section in there under books, and there's a link directly to it from there as well. You can find out more about myself my experience and the things that I talk about on a regular basis at Army veteran AJ calm or you can find me on Instagram under the same handle. Army veteran AJ, I keep all of them the same just for simplicity.
Natalie Hayes 1:04:10
Awesome. Army veteran, not Navy veteran. Team army.
AJ 1:04:14
Yeah, it's true. No, no, no, I will. I will tell you this. I grew up in the Navy. And the first branch I served in was in the Navy. So during America's greatest game, America's game the Army Navy game, I do work for Navy. You can imagine the entire time I was in the army being in a hanger, you know, with 100 other guys in the army and the only wall and going donate me and then getting you know, balled up picked up and thrown out of the hangar.
Natalie Hayes 1:04:40
Yeah, I can imagine that'd be a rough spot to be in. Awesome. Well, everyone closing comments, AJ, oh, man,
AJ 1:04:47
I don't really have any closing comments. You'd be you. Yeah, just be the best you you can possibly be.
Natalie Hayes 1:04:51
I love that. That's a perfect way to start on your leadership journey. So everyone go check out AJ on Instagram and check out his book tactical pa And start your leadership journey today. Thanks, AJ.
AJ 1:05:03
Thanks for having me on.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai