Debrief to Win: How Failure Builds Unstoppable Leaders

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It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous episode for you today, a conversation with Robert "Cujo" Teshner. He is a combat veteran, former F-15 Eagle instructor at the prestigious US Air Force Weapons School, as well as Air Force Top Gun program instructor.

He's a former F-22 Raptor fighter squadron commander, having commanded one of America's most prestigious operational F-22 fighter squadrons. Cujo is now a leadership coach, a peak performance personal development coach, entrepreneur, speaker, and his book, Debrief to Win, is a must-read for leaders. It is a must-read. It's called Debrief to Win. I'll have a link in the show notes.

If you haven't read Debrief to Win, stop what you're reading right now. Pick up this book. If you are in a leadership position or aspire to be in one, in one someday, this is a book you do not want to miss. This episode is gonna blow your mind. It is absolutely incredible.

If you're in a leadership position or ever want to be a leader, lock in, friends, because we got one for you today. With all that said, and no further ado, let's get on to my good friend, Cujo. Cujo, I gotta tell you, I have been so incredibly excited to chat with you because a mutual friend of ours, Chris Paradiso, uh, met you, spent time with you, and since that moment, hasn't stopped talking about you, um, and, and mostly positive. No, I'm kidding. And, uh and I just, uh, obviously I've read your book, Debrief to Win, and, you know, I just want to dig in, so I appreciate your time, uh, that you're spending with us here today.

Yeah, listen. Thank you very much. I mean, uh, so Mr. Paradiso's been singing your praises, and I've been looking forward to this. Uh, we do all kinds of different things, but this is, this is the kind of thing that I like to do almost the most, and I'm really excited to be able to present, like, an, an, an idea, a thought coming from what it is that you've read in Debrief to Win to your listeners to help them in what it is that they're doing.

I think it's the exact right audience for what it is we're talking about, so this fires me up. Awesome. So where I want to start is... And, it, it's, and most of these I turn into basically personal consulting, just so you know. Like, I basically do the podcast so I get free personal consulting.

No. Um- So many people reach out to me today. My life as well, it's freaking hectic, right? Like, there's so much coming at us, and we talked a little about it before. You said you got so much going on, you know, in your brain.

So do I. S- Much of your philosophy, m- my understanding, is taking time post-action to reflect, to, as you, as the title of your book, Debrief to Win, taking time to think about what happened. And I know for a fact that the vast majority of leaders, of executives, of, of sales individuals, we just don't, we don't, we don't do that. We take action, and then regardless of outcome, we just move on to the next action. So my first question is actually, uh, kind of hyper-tactical.

How do we f- build that time in? How do we actually stop ourselves or slow ourselves down enough to reflect, to kind of debrief on action? Yeah, great question. Uh, how many hours do we have to discuss this? 17?

As long as you want. Okay, good. Um, I tell you what, uh, the brute force method seems to be, um, probably the entrepreneurial spirit. Like, let's just go out there and attack and dominate and do whatever it takes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Like, I'm on fire with this concept, and we're just gonna go, and we're gonna make mistakes along the way, but we're just gonna keep on plowing forward, and eventually we're gonna win at this thing just because we've just been so power-focused and energetic all the way through, and that's definitely an option.

Uh, and I think both you and I have been, uh, have been squarely focused on that kind of an option in the work that we do, and so it kind of makes sense to us, and it, there you go, and it can be successful. Question is, is it the best option? And that's a really worthwhile question for all of us to think about. Like, is brute force the best way to move forward? Or is there something else that's missing that could make this whole experience of building and leading a little bit better?

So I would contrast what it is that we do in the world of business, and specifically the entrepreneurial world, with the way that we attack it in military high-performance teams, high-reliability, high-consequence, uh, organizations, I might add. And that is though we have a lot of brute force that we can bring to the mix, for sure, and we're talking a lot of Type A players and folks that are, you know, in it to win. We've gone with the intentional route that says we owe it, we owe it to those who we serve to do this thing as effectively as possible, which means learning constantly and baking in, making it a cultural focus to bake in the time for reflection, uh, always. Not occasionally, not only when there's been a disaster, not only if it best serves us or if we feel like, okay, this is the one that warrants it. No.

We're gonna do it always, and we're gonna bake it in to where generation after generation after generation will always do it that way. And, you know, you might ask, "Okay, so what? Like, how does that apply to me?" The answer is, in that world where so much is riding on the outcomes, we know that we can't afford not to take the time to do it that much better the next time. And I think there's a lot of cross-applicability there into all that we do.

I, I completely agree. Um, you know, I, I-- So my entrepreneurial career, uh, in its most recent iteration was I started my own independent insurance agency and, uh, similar to Chris, we, we know each other from the insurance indus- from the insurance industry. Um, and it was funny, you know, I had never run a sales team before. I'd always been, um, more either more of like a executive CEO role or a marketing role, but here I start my own business. Now I'm, at least at the beginning, head of all the departments, and you're running these sales meetings.

And what I found was, you know, f- it was very difficult, it was very difficult to get my team to do postmortems on, on sales, right? It was like, it was almost like they didn't wanna think about it. Like, if they didn't get it, if they won, they'd like, they'd love to tell you that little trick or that little thing they did to win. But on the losses, they, you know, it was like they just wanted to throw it from their mind or they became, you know, kinda maybe shameful or they had, it, it, they were worried it was gonna bring in self-doubt. And how do we work through being comfortable not just discussing the wins and debriefing on the wins, I guess that's the fun part, but how do we become culturally comfortable discussing our losses?

Good. Um, so now we get into the, the real deep, um, psychology of all this, and it starts with I, I was recently interviewed, uh, somebody was interviewing me about whether or not, uh, they should hire me to deliver a keynote at their conference. And, uh, so the, the one big question that, uh, that the principal asked was, uh, you know, "What, what is the thing that has equipped you the best to learn?" And I instantly responded with, "My failures." And he said, "I thought that's what you were gonna say."

And then he proceeded to say that most of the people that he asks that question of talks about like how great they are and it, you know, positions them, uh, to learn because of how open they are to, you know, just knowledge and wisdom and power and might and whatever, whatever it is that's top of their mind. He's like, "It's actually failure. Failure's the thing that equips us to learn." And it's through navigating those failures that we figure out a better way, hopefully. And that's the, the philosophy that's at play here.

So if, if, if we won, yeah, it might be fun to celebrate that I suppose, but really we had to ask ourselves on the winning side, did we win due to us or due to the fact that we got lucky? Was the person that we were having the sales call with gonna buy no matter what and we just happened to stumble upon that or did we actually do something to truly earn that win? That's, that's, you know, those, those are some of the questions we need to be asking on that side. But on the loss side, like if we can figure out why we lost this deal, didn't sell it, then hopefully it, it equips us with the ability to go in with higher confidence into that next call that we're gonna win this thing. And so it's those failures that if we can extract the lessons that are potentially available to us there, they equip us with a brighter future, and that's the thing that all of us need.

So it's the failure side that has always revealed the most to me in my previous career, for sure in this career, and the people that I really am impressed with the most are the folks that lean into that. Yeah. It, it's funny, um, I, I completely agree with you and most of my career has been failures with some nice victories sprinkled in intermittently. You know what I mean? And it's funny, when you talk to people who've, um, I'm gonna call, you know, successful entrepreneurs that have kinda maybe hit escape velocity, right?

There's all different levels of success, but I, I don't want it to just be like someone who's got some big huge exit. It's all different levels of success. We'll cap success at escape velocity. You're not, you're not, uh, wondering if you're gonna be able to pay your bills this month. You've kinda hit a point where you...

Okay. So anybody who's hit that level, right? When you really dig down and whether that's, you know, whatever it is you're unwinding, maybe it's a nice glass of scotch or a cigar, whatever you unwind, golf course, whatever your thing is, they nev- people never t- those type, people who've won, they don't tell you about their wins, right? When you're on the golf course and you're-The holidays are here, and that means it's the most wonderful time of the year to save with Rakuten. Use Rakuten to stack cash back from your favorite stores on top of holiday sales.

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Breaking down and you're yucking it up. You're not like, "Oh, you know, we made this big sale the other day." You're like, "You know what? I had this thing on a tee. I was gonna knock it out of the park, and then I barfed all...

You know, and then it didn't, you know, this didn't happen." Or, "Man, this was the easiest decision I could have ever made, and I just, you know, just didn't do it." It, it's always the losses that, that those type of people talk about, yet when you get into, say, the social media world or the people who haven't hit escape velocity, all they wanna talk about is the wins. Do you think that that's just part of the growth process, or do you think the fact that those individuals haven't hit escape velocity is because they focus just on the wins and they don't wanna address the losses? Yeah, I think it, it's, it may be part of that.

It may just be that we feel as human beings that in order to get to escape velocity, we may have to make it seem like we're winning bigger than we actually are, and that if we were to evidence any insight that it wasn't that way, that people would think less of us and not buy what we're selling, and so we posture. And I mean, you mentioned social media. I mean, I that's the place where everybody... It's a learned skill, 'cause this is relatively recent that this thing is a phenomenon. We've learned to posture.

Mm-hmm. Highlighting how grateful we are for how successful everything tends to be around us, and there it is. The reality is vastly different, and if we believe what it is that we're reading there, then we're, we're probably placing our belief in the wrong thing. I, I, go academic for just a second. I'm a big fan of the work of Dr.

Amy Edmondson, and she's written numerous books. Probably my favorite of her books is "The Fearless Organization," where she's discussing the role that psychological safety plays in, in organizations that want to win, all right? So if you're talking about team learning, you gotta have a psychologically safe environment, a place where you can be okay being vulnerable in the effort to learn, and her work has influenced mine a lot. One of the things that's interesting about Dr. Edmondson, uh, at Harvard is that, uh, when she started her work on her PhD, and I'm just gonna summarize, uh, in my words what it is that I think I learned from her.

When she started working, her theory was, was that the best teams made the least amount of mistakes, and it stunned her as she began her research to find that that was actually incorrect. The best teams made more mistakes than the worst teams. It was so upsetting to her, actually, that she almost capsized her PhD work and went a different route. But then she was so frustrated with this that she decided to dig deeper, and once she dug deeper, what she found, it wasn't that the best teams, uh, were making more mistakes. It's that they were talking about all of them, and the worst teams were covering them up or just, or just ignoring them, and in the, in the, in the process of that, repeating their mistakes.

So the best teams were talking about them. They were exposing them to the light. They were learning from them and working to not repeat them, which that describes my background in the high-performance team world of fighter aviation. Like, we made mistakes. It's impossible to be perfect in that world.

So many things coming at you. But our idea was, if we can go back in and scrutinize why things went the way that they did this time, then hopefully we're equipping ourselves to have a better next time, and that, again, serves the interests of the people that we are here to serve, and where would that not work? And, and the, the only thing that we have to contend with as entrepreneurs and leaders in the business world is, is that the culture that I'm talking about, this one of ritualized learning post mission, as we call it, it's not the culture in business. And so then it requires us to be intentional about building a culture where learning post mission is the way, and then that sets conditions for success. We, we just have to create that culture.

Um, one anecdote to your social media, uh, story. Um, in 2020, when I was growing my agency, uh, we're coming out of COVID. I, I launched my agency seven days before COVID hit, so I had a, that was an interesting entrepreneurial experience. Um- Timing's everything, isn't it? Yeah.

So, um, gyms open up August of 2020. I'm, you know, miserable because nothing's happening, the world's shut down, I've invested all this money, blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, "Screw it. I, I'll start going to the gym," 'cause no one's picking up the phone and answering my calls anyway, so. Um, so I, I set up, uh, uh...

I had never deadlifted before. I'd always been an athlete, but I had never deadlift. I said, "I'm gonna try this new exercise, and I'm gonna set a goal for myself." Okay, great. So I do that and, and I said, "Okay, to hold myself accountable, every day that I deadlift, I'm gonna just record my last set and post it on social media."

And at first I look like anybody who's never done an exercise before. I mean, I'm athletic enough, but certainly not, you know, whatever. And I got these people c-call, you know, s- I mean, people say crazy shit to you when you post stuff on social media, and it's all, it's all good. I don't care. And then, like, about a year and a half in, uh, to my journey, um, I had, uh, I worked with a branding expert to help upgrade our brand and what-whatever.

And she's like, "You know- "Why are you posting this stuff?" She's like, "Look, you know, you look like this. You look..." And I'm like, "Because I want people to know that, like, you don't start at 450 pounds at 41 years old deadlifting, you know? I s- my first day, I, the max I could do was 185 pounds.

I, I don't know, you know what I mean? I haven't been a college athlete for 20 years, so," You know what I mean? Like, it, it's like, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't about, I'm not trying to be a pr- fitness professional. It was about showing, like, hey, as an entrepreneur, I believe physical fitness and wellness is very, very, uh, important, and I bring a lot of health and people on the show for that reason, and all I'm trying to show them is, "Hey, it's COVID, and it sucks, and I got a mask on, but we can work through it." That's it.

And I'm telling you, she blistered me, and, and she wasn't doing it to be a jerk. You know, it... She was being accurate. She's like, "People are gonna see this as you failing. Like, they're not gonna take this as," like you said, like, putting your, you know, presenting this thing that like you're all this stuff, and you're this powerful guy.

And I'm like, "Well, I'm not that. I can only do 225 today, you know what I mean? What am I supposed to do?" And it was wild. She was like, she was so...

I didn't take it down and whatever, but she was, like, really adamant that that was having a negative impact on the brand, on my brand and the brand of the business, was, like, these videos of me lifting weights. And, um, any- but here's the opposite to it, and this is where I wanna get back to your, uh, to your, uh, psychological safety piece for a second, was the other side was I must have gotten hundreds of messages, mostly from guys, but, but from a few women too, that were like, "Dude, like, I've been struggling to get to the gym, and you're pissing me off that you're going, and now I'm going too." You know what I mean? Like, and, you know, and all that kind of stuff. So I'm like, you know, I think we have to...

The other side of this is, yeah, you're, you're gonna get some feedback that you might not like, but you're also, if you're being authentic and, and really trying to help and, and, you know, get better, there's so many people that are also gonna see you for what you're actually trying to do. And, and I, and that's why I hate this, like, fake life stuff. It, it really is bad. Um, okay, sorry. Sorry for that, uh, side note, but it is my podcast- No, this is great ... so I can, I can do whatever I want, Joe.

This isn't even a side note. It's my podcast. This i- First of all, you're exactly right. It's your podcast. Secondly, this is, this is really important.

This is a very important point you make. I'm gonna, if I could just put a little bow around this- Sure ... from my perspective. You think back to different leadership styles, and probably at the early part of the 20th century, uh, you know, the, the in vogue thing was the heroic model of leadership. Like, the, the leader knew everything, had all of the answers. Like, all hail the leader.

You better not question the leader's decision. The leader is perfect. Uh, again, like, you know, we will never question, which is so not true. Like, there's zero people that are walking around perfectly solving all problems and- Mm-hmm ... giving the answers to every question that, that... But anyway, there was a model at one point where that was how things were, and it was, it was a dangerous one.

I mean, if you apply that to the world of commercial aviation, if we don't question the captain, then there's a good chance that at some point we're gonna die, because the captain is not infallible, and if the captain misreads something, if, misanalyzes, doesn't process the whatever, and nobody else speaks up, then this, then this thing is probably headed for disaster, and there's plenty of evidence of that, many accidents that were preventable because nobody spoke up, uh, in that same kind of a context. And so, so this whole idea of leaders being potentially fallible and highlighting what it is that they're struggling with, it actually, it's, it's part of the thing that connects us as human beings, and knowing that you're struggling the same way that I am, but knowing also that in your struggles you're willing to highlight where it is that you're not exactly perfect and, you know, the journey that you're taking to getting to a better state. It does inspire, like, 'cause that's the reality of, of life. Like, nobody came out of the womb like, everything's solved. You know?

We, we have to constantly force and struggle and learn and fail and c- pick ourselves up. And, and so what you did was excellent, and good job- Yeah ... not listening to that advice, uh- ... from the PR expert. Well, hey, going back to our buddy, Chris, that dude gets up and runs every day at 3:00 a.m., and every day I get a text message from him, "Your ass better be out of bed." Now, I don't get up at 3:00- ... 'cause I think that's crazy, but he's... But, you know, I'm up at 5:30, 6:00, and I don't work out that...

I work out later anyways. But, like, that's motivation, right? Like, here's a guy that I respect, that's successful, that has his head on his shoulders, and he's up doing the work every day. I can't do that? Like, you know what I mean?

Like, I can do that. Like, if he can do it, I c- you know? And I, that's how we push each other. But to your point, and this is where I wanna circle all the way back around to psychological safety, like, I do think that I have to feel like I can ask him questions about why he does it, how he does it, and know that he's not gonna turn around and be like, "You know, just do the work, motherfucker." You know what I mean?

Like, like he's g- You know, he'll say to me, like, "Dude, I, on the days that I'm fasting, I might just walk a couple miles on..." You know, so, s-so understanding that not only do I respect him and do I want to emulate parts of who he is because I, I value his, his journey, but that I can ask him questions and know that I'm gonna get real feedback even when I'm missing, right? Like, so if I am off track for a week, you know, h-he's not gonna judge me for that. He might give me a little shit, because he should, but at the same time, he's gonna give me real feedback on how I might be able to realign myself. So, uh, I would love to know, 'cause, 'cause to me, where psychological safety goes wrong, and c- and correct me on this, so much of it starts with ego, and a big part of my work on this show is highlighting where ego Just, I believe just destroys our life.

Big, big... You know, I'm Christian, but also a huge fan of stoicism and, you know, enlightenment and all of these really progressive mindsets, uh, progressive in the positive sense, not in the, uh, leftist sense, um, uh, are rooted in, in removing the ego from our lives. How, how do we do that organizationally, especially in your situation where you are surrounded by the alpha of alphas, right? I mean, the egos in that room were probably enormous, but you guys were able to work together and create massive outcome. How do you, how the hell do you do that?

Great question, and I think it started with the, the, the culture was preexisting to me, and so it was very easy because if you didn't adapt to the culture, then you were off the team. So if you couldn't be vulnerable in front of your teammates, then you were gonna be off the team. Like, we would not tolerate that from somebody. Why? Because again, nobody's perfect, and our ambition post mission, and that's exactly how we look at these things.

We're, we're executing missions. We don't do projects, we don't plan events, we don't do things. We're not overwhelmed with tasks. We're-- we execute missions, and after every single mission, we're there to learn, and learning involves confronting the truth of what happened. And so if you can't contribute to the truth, like if you can't, you know, admit like, "Yeah, right over here is where I shot you, Hanley.

Like, this is the point where I take the missile shot that, you know, if it had been for real, would've killed you, Hanley. It was right here at time, uh, uh, 1:56 PM. That's where I, I hit launch." If you can't do that, then we can't learn effectively. You're a danger to this team.

You're off the team. So we've made a culture that way. I think when we're trying to kickstart something like this in an organization, you go back to, you know, you're starting your insurance agency and you're, you're, you're, you're creating the culture intentionally. You have to lead with vulnerability in order to, in order to inspire anybody else to follow your lead, to get over their egos, to get over whatever it is that's preventing them from contributing to group learning. And if you're perfect, like if you never make a mistake, like if, if you're always the one that's pointing the finger elsewhere, it's never gonna take root.

Psychological safety will never happen. The other piece of this is, in addition to you being open to the fact that you might have contributed to the team's loss here, is not losing your mind while you're talking about it. So like, it's one thing to commit to learning ritually after everything that we do. How we come into that is also really important, and learning by way of, you know, yelling and, uh, kinda losing your f- losing your mind is actually not learning. Like, we're creating conditions of fear.

That fear is a natural thing that causes us to self-censor and shut up, retract into our shells, and it, it, it doesn't help us. So like, emotional intelligence, gotta be high. Gotta work on maintaining consistently high ability to self-regulate in order to maintain the good of the team, and that's hard to do, especially when this is your baby, Hanley. Like you've created the company. You invested the money.

This is your treasure that you're putting into this thing. You want it to work. When somebody else on the team screws it up, it's hard. Yeah. It's actually very hard to be able to be like, "All right, guys, let's learn together."

But that's, that's actually a huge, a huge piece of what it takes. And so finding a way to center in, enter into this conversation with childlike curiosity, not make any assumptions, not rush to judgment, maintain a positive disposition, neutral to positive tone, presence, body po- all this stuff goes into it. Uh, that's where it gets a little bit complex. It requires us to be very intentional about, about leading effectively. Is there a time, though, when you can just get up in someone's ass, though?

Like I, I just like... You know what I mean? Like I- Oh, yeah ... so- I found like I- Oh, yeah. So I, I- I'll, I'll give you an example. Yeah, please, please do.

Yeah. I'll give you an exa- 'cause this is, this is what you're seeking right now 'cause there are times. Okay. So, um, back when I was the squadron weapons officer. So this patch indicates that I graduated from the US Air Force Weapons Instructor course at Nellis Air Force Base, the original fighter weapons school.

Um, and, uh, when I came back as the chief instructor pilot of, of my fighter squadron, I had a mission one day where I violated a major, uh, rule of engagement. So think original "Top Gun" movie. You know, I was, I was only the hard deck for a couple of seconds. Yeah. You know, there was no danger, so I took the shot.

I did one of those kinds of things, only probably more aggravated than that example, and I'm supposed to be giving the example of what right looks like always, 24 hours a day. So that was not good. And I was getting ready to come back in and debrief this sucker, and the word had already gotten to the squadron commander, who is one of my favorite people on the planet, by the way. And so he comes in, and he, he comes into the debrief room, and he's like, "Cujo, come here." And he takes me out of the room that I'm in.

I actually had to stifle a s- a grin 'cause I knew it was coming and it was perfect. He takes me into an empty debrief room, slams the door so the entire squadron can hear, and screams at me, "Don't you ever effing do that again." And that was it. That's all he said, and then he slammed the door behind him, leaving me in the, you know, almost empty debrief room right now. Again, entire building shakes.

Everybody hears this exchange. He's gone. And, uh, I thought that was classic. In fact, it was, it's like an example of perfect from my vantage point. He wasn't screaming at me for my sake.

He knew I already knew how bad the screw-up was. What he needed everybody else in the squadron to know is that I was held to the same standard as everybody else, that I wasn't gonna get a pass, that whatever special status I had did not apply to... Like, I'm just like anybody else here. The rules apply to me just like to anybody else here. If I violate them, I'm gonna get my butt reamed for it, and who knows what else is gonna come from this.

And the message was received. Everybody was in like mode after that. And I'm like, that was, that was perfect. So yes, there are times when we do have to lay the smack down, and a good leader understands where it is that that's not gonna not only not break psychological safety or the team's effectiveness, but is actually the exact right thing for the team then. It just can't be that way every time.Yeah.

What I hear you saying is it has to be a tool in your tool belt used- Mm-hmm ... appropriately like any tool, not your cultural norm. That's right. Yep. Yeah. And I mean, just like anything, like if every day were Christmas and we just look at it from the purely, you know, secular lens of like people are getting gifts here, and it's all like fun and happy, it would actually diminish the, uh, the joy of, oh, it's Christmas again, you know?

I, I wish, I wish one of these days we wouldn't get all these presents. Like it's, it just, it's not the same thing, and if that's your deal where you're always coming down hard on everybody, like, "Oh, there he is. There's the boss again losing his mind over another," you know, whatever, you know? And you gotta ask at what point do people totally tune out. I've, I've actually had people tell me, as a consequence of always being criticized for everything that they do, they've actually not only stopped caring, but they've been actively seeking another place of employment, 'cause they- Yeah ... they just tune out.

Yeah. Uh, this is funny, but, um, so I coach, my kids play sports. I coach them. And, uh, the kids are, the kids are funny. Some of these kids I've been with for a while.

So one of the kids, great kid, parents are good people, but the dad's a bit of a yeller, and he's not a coach, so he's constantly yelling from the stands. And I, uh, coach, uh, third base, uh, for baseball, and he gets to third, and he'd kinda made a bonehead play, and he was safe at third, but it was very ugly how he got there. Let's just put it that way. And the dad's ... And, uh, I just kinda leaned over, and I'm like, "How do you deal with that?"

You know? And the 10-year-old looks at me and goes, "Oh, I don't even hear him anymore." That's like, that's beautiful. He thinks he's laying the smackdown on his kid. He didn't even realize he was yelling at him.

Oh, my goodness. You know, but that's the- But that's, isn't that so true? Yeah. Yeah. Just tune it out.

He's like, "I don't even hear him." Yeah, exactly. It's just noise. At some point it becomes noise, and it's not, it's not effective. By the way, because you brought it up, kids, youth sports and, and the, and the role that that plays, and kinda going back to this concept of we learn more through failure than anything else, where we learn that is really important.

It has to start as kids. Uh, if we don't learn the importance of navigating failure early, when it hits us later in life, we're, we're really thrown for a loop, and that's a hard thing to have to overcome. So, uh, my, my, uh, oldest, who also started off playing baseball, and, um, second oldest, uh, the coach was gonna move into a, into a higher bracket, you know, m- m- more aggressive league, uh, wasn't gonna take the entire team with, and so was making the rounds of calling the parents to say, "Your kid didn't make it. Our kid did." And, uh, he's like, "Hey, listen, if you wanna continue with us, you know, just want you to know, uh, uh, your son's so talented.

We'd love to have him." I'm like, "Okay, this is great. I'm fired up. He's gonna be happy to know that. Uh, but here's what I need you to know, now that we're playing at a higher level.

The moment that he doesn't pass muster, bench him. The moment that he has an attitude that suggests that it's getting to his head, bench him then. And by the way, if you wanna kick him off the team at any point, you're cleared and hot." And, uh, he said, "You know, I gotta say, Mr. Teschner, in all of my years of coaching, I've never had a parent who's talking along those lines.

Usually it's the parent that upset that their kid isn't playing more, that they did get benched, or that didn't make it to the thing. So can I just ask, like, why are you going this route?" I'm like, "Yeah, it's simple. This is the time to learn. Learn how to navigate y- y- you know, you didn't make, you didn't make it."

I need my son to learn that now, not 20 years from now when he gets cut from the company and is like, "What? I've only ever won all my life." I need him to learn this now. We need to learn this while he's still under, you know, my guidance so that I can coach him up through that thing, and we can harness that to have a better day tomorrow. That's so important, and it begins with where you are right now.

Yeah. Y- so I was a, a high school and college basketball referee for 12 years. Um, I loved it. Uh, unfortunately, once, once, um, uh, kids came along, uh, driving three hours to make 150 bucks just wasn't, the math didn't work out as well. Uh- ... the, give basketball referees all the crap you want.

Understand they are underpaid for what they do. Just, so everyone listening, yell at 'em. If you purchase a ticket, do what you gotta do. But just understand they ain't making a lot of money, these guys. They're doing it 'cause they love it.

That being said, in that 12-year period from, I started in 2002, uh, and went to 2014, um, I watched and was part of, uh, uh, you know, kinda firsthand a major shift in how parents interacted with their children on the sport, the sp- you know, when I started, was kinda, you know, I finished my college baseball career, uh, I guess it was a little later. I finished my college baseball career in 2003, so that's when I started. Um, so, uh, from that point, you know, when I first got in, it was very much the way that I was brought up. I mean, I got coaches smoking cigars on third base, you know, yelling at you if you strike out, you know, "Hanley this," you know? I mean, I've had coaches throw me into fences and, you know, what's funny is, and, and actually we talked about this in the last show with the, with the, uh, Steve D'Agostino, but it was like, I had these moments that today I'd have coaches in jail for.

You know, they'd be in jail. But they, those moments would happen, and I'd be like, "You know what? I kinda deserve that," you know what I mean? I was talking back or, you know, like I pimped a home run one time. Shouldn't have done it.

Shouldn't have d- I'm not, this is not, I'm not advocating for this activity, but it was our rival, and a lot of stuff was going on in the game, and I just absolutely jacked this home run off their closer. And, um, and I acted like an asshole. I pimped the home run. So I come around. The moment my foot hits home base, my coach has both his hands, I don't even know where he came from.

He was like a ninja. He had both his hands on my jersey. He literally drags me, like on a cartoon, like my feet were dragging. He's dragging me off the, throws me into the dugout, right? ... turns around and he goes, he, he just looks at me. He's got a, he got a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

"You will never fucking do that again." End of story, right? Today he's in jail. Me, I'm like, "You know what I'm not gonna do again?" That.

I'm not gonna pimp another home run. Yeah. Not gonna do that. Yep. Like, message received, right?

Got it. Mm-hmm. You know, don't ever have to say... Message received. I gotcha, Coach.

You know? And lesson learned, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But in this time period, to get back to my point here, um, in that time period, that 12-year time period, when I first started it was very much the same. And, and, uh, again, for those listening, I'm not advocating for physical violence against kids.

Please, please take this for what it is. It was a different time period. But very much that, like, you're held accountable to your actions, and by the time I retired 12 years later, it was the polar opposite. W- what, what do you think has happened culturally? 'Cause it... And it's still...

I will say it's getting slightly better, but it is still very prevalent in sports today. I've found just in coaching it, it's a little better. There's a l- seems to be a little more rationale, but, uh, or reasonableness, but it's still, still very prevalent. Um, w- what has happened culturally from your viewpoint that, that we're dealing with this now? 'Cause a lot of the... These kids that were in youth sports back in 2003, they're in the market now.

They're, we're, leaders are hiring them for jobs, asking them to do things. They underperform, they get in trouble, and, and now I read some stat the other day that something like 30% of all job interviews, people are bringing their parents on now. Like, their parents. They're bringing their parents on job interview phone calls. Oh my goodness.

It's crazy. I heard it on the All In podcast. I gotta find the stat. Oof. Yeah, look, what a, what a great question and what a big problem, and I think it, it ties and, and I'm not gonna have any statistics for you on this, it's just my observations.

Um, I think we're living in, increasingly in a world of, you know, what's in it for me? How do I, how do I meet my own personal thing? I, I im- immediate gratification and satisfaction in all ways. Like, if the Amazon thing doesn't get delivered within the next 30 minutes, I'm gonna be really angry, you know? Um, and tied to that, uh, what are the expectations?

I mean, you look at a, in the sports world, you look at like a, like a Patrick Mahomes, okay? Um, playing a game, very violent game, very fast-paced game at its level, but at the end of a g- day it's a game. He's making $500 million over a decade to play said game. Uh, you know, what is the ambition? I wanna be like that.

I wanna be like that. And so y- y- you, I mean, I think parents might be kind of trying to position their kids to be like that in, in that thing. They're hyper protective all around to make sure that the kid is, is doing whatever is best for the kid and not for the team. And the lesson and the, the, and the ambition here is different. I think it used to be like we're supposed to be learning how to be a team and what it takes to be a person of character on a team, and to support the team's good and not to do it for ourselves.

Like, "Hey, Coach says I need to lay down a bunt. That's not actually what I wanna do right now. I'd, I'd like to jack the home run." You know? "So what am I gonna do?

Today I might just go my own way and, and try to crank the home run." Uh, back then, like if you didn't follow the coach's instruction for the good of the team you'd be punished for it, and I think the ambition behind what we're doing may be shifting because of what's at stake. I mean, back, back when we were kids, folks weren't signing those kind of contracts. And, and though the ambition to be like a, whatever the, whatever the hero was of the day was, was still there, um, didn't have as big of an impact, I don't think, as it does these days. We, we model, um, or we follow the behavioral patterns of those who we, who we hold in high esteem, and so if they're doing things it must be okay for us.

And you talk about, you know, getting fired up about your home run. I mean, name for me an athlete who's not doing that on the big stage right now. I think back to the World Series and some of the things, and the bat flips and whatnot. I mean, like, okay, you know? And I, I see it in my kids.

They emulate the folks that they're watching on TV. Um, and so I think it's in... I think it's up to us as parents to help kind of co-design with our kiddos what it is that we're trying to get out of this, and my ambition in telling the coach, "Bench him," was that I'm not trying to limit my son's ability to do what it is that he's capable of. I just want him to be a man of character while he goes about and does that. And, and he needs to learn to fail now, and it's through those, through navigating that that he'll become his very best.

But his best is also gonna be, um, you know, having the self-confidence to know that he's been through tough situations and, and he's gonna be okay on the back end. Yeah. That's important. Remember when the David Winfield shuffle was considered, like, risque? Mm-hmm.

The fact that he would just slide to the, slide to the right twice. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It's crazy. I, so I have a theory that I wanna hit you on with this and, and you- Yeah ... let me know if you think there's any validity to it. So I've thought about this topic a lot because I think leadership is incredibly important at all ages, uh, in every aspect of our life.

Leadership of our family, community organizations, our church if that's what we do, sports teams, community groups, our companies, whatever. Um, and to me, you know, in the research I've done and, and just the... I've come up with kind of this idea that I think a lot of this started to happen when we no longer could trust, when we no longer felt the loyalty from the companies that we worked for that we felt for them, right? When my dad was, when my dad was coming up through the railroad, my dad's, uh, uh, worked for the railroad for 30 years, right? You put in your time.

You put in your time, you pay your union dues, and at the end of the day, the railroad takes care of you. You're good, right? They rally behind you. You got health insurance, you got a retirement, it's all good. And then somewhere in between 20- 2000, 2010 The railroad changed its rules, and then all of a sudden it became a tiered retirement structure, and then it became, well, if you didn't put in this many years, you didn't get anything.

And then it became, well, now we're not offering health insurance anymore. And then it became, you know, uh, you know, DEI kind of got involved, and guys, you know, that got things squirrely. And, you know, and it, it's like all of a sudden this thing that for so long, you know, say, say from the '50s to the maybe late '90s, you know, you pick a company and you commit to them, they commit to you, and you're gonna be okay on the back end. All of a sudden that doesn't, that doesn't exist today, right? And to me, I, I, my, my theory on this, and I haven't done any PhD work on it, so I don't have, uh, any hard facts, but is that when that break started to happen, it infiltrated all these other aspects of our life, and we no longer felt that we could trust if we, if we gave our loyalty to the larger organization, that we could trust the larger organization to be loyal to us.

And when that started to break down, then in all aspects of our lives, we started, um, we started thinking, "Well, geez, if the company doesn't have my best interest in mind, well then I gotta look out for me. I'll jump seven companies in seven years if I can make an extra $20,000 and have a better job title and a little more health insurance," right? And I don't know, I struggle to think that people are wrong in that, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I struggle to think that the individual who can't trust the parent company... I, I don't see it as a bad thing that they look out for themselves because they d- I don't know that they can trust a lot of these large organizations. I don't know. Where, where do you stand on all that? Well, yeah, well, well, for sure.

I mean, you know, part of the leadership deal is, uh, is, is being trustworthy and fulfilling your obligations and honoring your commitments. All of that, I mean, that's, that's, that's leadership 101. Um, and I mean, nobody's gonna look out for you better than yourself. I mean, I say this as a post-colorectal cancer kind of a guy. Like, I've talked to a lot of doctors.

Um, for many of them, I'm just another number, you know? Like, like almost dehumanized, you know, I'm patient number 406, come in, get my thing, and you know, whatever. Uh, and I realize that I know a lot more about my condition than many of the people that examine me and do whatever, because they may have had like a one-hour class on this particular thing, but I'm living it every single day, and I guarantee you I'm very, very in tune with what it is that I'm ex- I'm experiencing. So I have to be, I have to be about me more so than anybody else in order to advocate properly for myself. That said, what is the ambition of a team?

I mean, is the ambition of a team for the team to serve its individual members? Is the ambition of the team to help the individual teammates to achieve their own individual unique aspirations? I mean, the teams that I've been on, it's certainly not been the case. In fact, it's been the opposite. Like, everybody subordinates self-interest to the good of the team, and if one of us fails, all of us do, and it's a totally different dynamic.

And so I think if, if leaders have broken trust by not fulfilling obligations and they've caused folks to then kind of be in the defensive crouch of, "I m- I must protect me," then we're doing it totally wrong. Because what's the point of a team? What's the good of a team if we're really not one, but in name only? Like, everybody's just contributing their piece to g- you know, to keep the boss off the back just so they can figure out where they're gonna jump next. Like, that's not a f- fulfilling place to be.

And though it may be where people are, and maybe it's okay for them to be there because of the broken trust and, and the experience that you're describing there with your father, I mean, that's sad. It truly is sad. We had this... I actually had the same experience. When I joined the Air Force, when I was at the Air Force Academy as a freshman, uh, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force came and said, "Listen, I know I told everybody," or, you know, the, the rule was when you, when you signed up here that if you made it to graduation and you were pilot qualified, you were going to, uh, fly, uh, airplanes for the Air Force.

"But, uh, I just want you to know that as a re- as a, as a result of shifting strategy, not the case anymore. Only like a quarter of you are gonna get a chance to fly. Good luck." We're like, "What?" And actually, somebody even called out the Chief of Staff on this, like, "Hey, we have an honor code here.

We're supposed to like not, you know, ever lie. Can you reconcile what you've just done with our honor code?" I mean, you know, I mean, tensions were high and, and, and, and that does not endear us to the leadership. But fundamentally, there's no point in teaming if it's all about me. Like, if, if you and I are a team, but it- I'm only going to do the parts that benefit me, let's just, let's just call this what it is.

It's the everybody in it for themselves show and, you know, and good luck. May the, may the best one of us win. And, um, and I, I do think that, that it comes back down to we need leaders who honor their obligations, who speak their word and are truthful always, who can then create an environment where it is about the good of the team and about the team achieving mission success together. Meaning that if I sense that you're having a, a problem over here, Hanley, I'm gonna commit myself to helping you out, giving you whatever, you know, gift of time and talent that I've got that can help you to help advance our collective mission, because that's what teammates do, and those are the kinds of organizations that we wanna be on. And if we're not finding that fulfillment here, we're gonna go our own way, create our own companies, and hopefully create that dynamic there.

And, and I suppose of, of all the ills that we describe, if, if we can then, inspired by not replicating what it is that your father's experienced, create a kind of environment that brings the best out of our teammates, then that's a win. And we always do our best when we're surrounded by people that are pointing in the same direction with us. Yes. Yes, and, and triple yes. Oh, yeah.

And it's... I mean, it makes it fun. Like, these days, like one of the squadrons that I used to be a part of Um, we love hanging out with each other. We're all done. Like, none of us is, I don't think...

Well, maybe there's a few of us that are still in the Air Force, but most of us are washed up, old, retired guys now, and gals. And, uh, we can't wait till the next reunion. And we, I mean, our first reunion was just conducted at a very inopportune time. Like, the schedule was not really convenient for anybody. Uh, and we all showed up.

Some people were only there for a few hours, but they, they showed up. They flew all the way to Las Vegas to show up, to be there for this thing, because we miss being around one another. Because there's something special about work, even in high pressure, you know, dangerous situation. Working with a bunch of people that actually care about one another and care about achieving success together, that's a really big deal, especially now. And those, it's funny, you know, I have people from previous companies, careers that you stay connected to, and when you look at the people who you do stay connected to, it's, you know, uh, I hate to use a military analogy in a situation that doesn't make sense, but that were in the foxhole with you, right?

That like, y- you know, maybe that you're part of a company that's 1,000 people, but your little business unit of five, you took on this challenge or this client and you got it done, and it was late nights and tough conversations. And, and then, you know, you, everyone, you know, project gets done. You go your separate ways. But you can come back together on that moment, and there's like a bond there that you can't break. But you've also, you know, you've a- all of us, I'm sure most of us listening, have been in situations where you're given that same task, except everyone's got their own agenda.

There's no connection, no bond. Oftentimes the outcome is less than you want it to be, and you can't wait to get away from those people. And, and skill level, while I think can add to the value, is meaningless to the connection and ultimately to your ability to execute the outcome. That's right. I mean, yeah, you know, you look at teams that, that have only ever won together.

I would argue they're not a team. Uh, what really allows us to know that we are one is when we can navigate the challenges together well. Like when the pressure is high, the stakes are super high, everything's riding on this, and we can come through that aware of all of this. It's not that we had our, our heads buried in the sand and we're blissfully unaware. We're aware of all of this and still manage to get it done correctly.

That's a very, very special thing, and those are the things that, um, that build bonds that are so special and unique that you'll never forget that, and you'll actually look about, look back on those hard days as the best of times. That's, that's what's cool. And that foxhole mentality is a, that's a valid thought that applies literally everywhere. So it goes back to how we started our conversation today, and that is we learn the most from, from our failures. How we fail really matters.

The best teams fail exceptionally well together. Maybe a question for your listeners is, at every level, wherever it might be that we team, whether it's at home, whether it's at church, whether it's on the softball team, whether it's, whether it's at work, how well do we fail together? And maybe that's a good benchmark against which to measure where we're, whether we're that kinda team that we wanna be. And I'd say the best teams fail exceptionally well together. They, they do so in a way that builds the bonds of trust, and everybody comes out of that failure analysis super amped up about wanting to go out there and prove that we've learned from this how to never fail this way again, and may that be our aspiration.

Just think about it. I mean, in a relationship, somebody that you love, you know, you get through that honeymoon phase where everything's perfect and everybody's always, like, super awesome, and you, and you're faced with the stark reality that maybe we are all human beings here and, uh, there are challenges. How well we navigate that is gonna determine what the rest of the life is gonna, is gonna be like. And if we can't fail well, we're gonna, we're gonna break up. Like, this thing is gonna end at some point.

Uh, my wife and I, we try to fail well together, and that's a really, really important, strong ambition for us. We're coming up on 20 years here in January. Um, hopefully, hopefully we'll continue to fail well together, uh, because that's, I, I think how we're measuring how well we're doing as a couple, and I think it applies everywhere. Cujo, I think that's a perfect place to put a pin in our conversation. I appreciate you.

I appreciate your time. This has been phenomenal. Um, better than Paradiso even told me it would be. And, uh, no, I thank you so much. Where can people, besides, I'll have links to the book in the show notes.

I'll have links to anything else that you mention. Where can people get deeper into your world? Yeah. I'd say, uh, come join us at topgunteamwork.com and, uh, and learn how to apply the principles that we use in high-performance teams to your significant benefit. That's a great starting point.

And, uh, and I'd add to it, thanks for what you're doing in the world, Hanley. Thank you for putting this show together. It's a lot of work. All the background that goes into preparing all of the things that you know coming into this, uh, navigating everything, putting it all together, like, that's a big deal on top of everything else that you've got going on. So you're doing an exceptional job from my vantage point.

Keep up the outstanding work. Thank you for the opportunity and privilege of being part of yours, and know that, uh, I appreciate Paradiso for introducing us to one another. What a, what a great day it's been. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow.

Thank you for listening. Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow.

From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday.