Podcast appearances and mentions of james mattis

Robert "Bob" Harward is a retired United States Navy SEAL and a former Deputy Commander of the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) under General James Mattis. He served for 34 years in the U.S. Navy, retiring in November 2013 as a Vice Admiral. As a Navy SEAL, he had extensive combat experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and Bosnia, where he led the U.S. Special Operations invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 and oversaw the Navy SEALs role in Iraq in 2003. He also served as Deputy Commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, and even served as a SEAL Leader back when Mike first enlisted at SEAL Teams at only 19 years old. Since then, Bob has served on the National Security Council during the Bush administration as well as having commissioned the National Counter Terrorism Center. He also was the Chief Executive for Lockheed Martin Middle East for eight years, and was recognized by Forbes as one of the top 50 most influential CEO's in the Middle East. In 2017, he was offered the position of National Security Advisor by President Donald Trump, but declined. Recently he authored a book titled "The Gouge!: How To Be Smarter Than the Situation You Are In," which shares his leadership philosophy based on his military and corporate experiences. Subscribe to the Mike Drop Patreon Page to see Ad-Free Episodes Early + Bonus Content at https://www.patreon.com/mikedrop ---------- Support Bob Harward - Get Your Copy of Bob's book, 'The Gouge!: How to Be Smarter Than the Situation You Are In' at https://www.amazon.com/Gouge-How-Smarter-Than-Situation/dp/B0CSBSCDCR Shield AI - https://www.shield.ai/company-executives/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-harward-7a760575/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thegougebybob/ ---------- Sponsors: C. Crane When the internet goes dark, radio still works! Order Your C. Crane CC Radio 3 today when you call C. Crane's U.S. based Customer Service at 800-522-8863 or visit https://ccrane.com/drop and use code DROP at checkout for 10% off orders over $75! ---------- BUBS Naturals The BUBS namesake derives from Glen ‘BUB' Doherty, who was heroically killed in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. In addition to remembering Glen for the patriot he is, the BUBS ethos centers around the passionate and adventure seeking life that Glen lived. BUBS Naturals products are rooted in sustainably sourced ingredients and controlled consistency to provide our customers with the highest quality Collagen Protein & MCT Oil Powder that help you feel amazing and live a fuller life. Our mission is simple. FEEL GREAT. DO GOOD. 10% always goes back to charity, helping military men and women transition back into civilian life. Go to https://www.bubsnaturals.com/mike and use code MIKE for 20% off your order. ---------- TEAM DOG FOOD, TREATS & SUPPLEMENTS Be Your Dog's Hero: Veteran-owned by a former Navy SEAL and Special Operations K9 Trainer, Team Dog provides a complete diet of science-backed premium dog food, treats, and supplements to optimize your dog's health, forged from rigorous standards and real-world expertise. https://www.teamdog.shop TEAM DOG ONLINE TRAINING Mike Ritland – a former Navy SEAL & Special Operations K9 trainer – shares his simple and effective dog training program to build trust and control with your dog. Based on Mike's bestselling book “Team Dog, Train the Navy SEAL Way”, join tens of thousands of families that successfully trained their way to a better dog. https://www.teamdog.pet SHOP ALL THE MIKE RITLAND BRANDS Get all your Mike Ritland branded gear - Mike Drop | Trikos | Team Dog https://shop.mikeritland.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's wisdom comes from Call Sign Chaos by Jim Mattis and Bing West.   If you're loving Heroic Wisdom Daily, be sure to subscribe to the emails at heroic.us/wisdom-daily.   And… Imagine unlocking access to the distilled wisdom form 700+ of the greatest books ever written.   That's what Heroic Premium offers: Unlimited access to every Philosopher's Note. Daily inspiration and actionable tools to optimize your energy, work, and love. Personalized coaching features to help you stay consistent and focused   Upgrade to Heroic Premium →   Know someone who'd love this? Share Heroic Wisdom Daily with them, and let's grow together in 2025!   Share Heroic Wisdom Daily →

Ken Fisher joins host Ron Aaron and co-host Carol Zernial to talk about The 100th Fisher House on this edition of Caregiver SOS. About Ken Ken is the chairman and CEO of Fisher House Foundation, a leading nonprofit serving service members, veterans, and their families through a network of nearly 100 comfort homes where families of ill and injured veterans and military members can stay at no cost while receiving treatment far from home. Under his leadership, the program has grown exponentially, advancing accessibility within the houses and expanding to support healing through adaptive sports. In addition to these roles, Ken currently serves as co-chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum and served as the chairman of the 2016 Invictus Games in Orlando, Florida. In 2007, Ken was appointed by the Bush Administration to the President’s Commission on Care of America’s Returning Wounded Warriors and has served on several policy boards and round tables, in support of former U.S. Secretaries of Defense Ashton Carter, Chuck Hagel, and Jim Mattis. Ken attended Ithaca College and received an honorary Doctorate of Commercial Science from the University in May 2016, among other recognitions including being named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report. Most recently, he received the West Point Association of Graduates’ Sylvanus Thayer Award for 2022. Additional distinctions form a long list of honors from organizations, including the United States Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veteran Affairs, HillVets, the Friends of the Vietnam Memorial, and many others. He lives in New York with his wife, Tammy. Ken is a proud father of three children and two grandchildren. Hosts Ron Aaron and Carol Zernial, and their guests talk about Caregiving and how to best cope with the stresses associated with it. Learn about "Caregiver SOS" and the "Teleconnection Hotline" programs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Hodgin is a former Navy SEAL turned entrepreneur who is revolutionizing the world of medical cannabis research. George is the founder and CEO of BRC - Biopharmaceutical Research Company, one of the only federally legal cannabis research organizations in the United States. His company is leading the charge in developing safe, regulated, and scientifically-backed cannabis-based therapeutics—offering alternatives to opioids and other pharmaceutical treatments. This is George's second time on the podcast—our first conversation was almost exactly five years ago, back when his company was in its early stages, the pandemic was just beginning, and he was navigating the uncharted waters of federal cannabis regulations. Since we last spoke, BRC has made huge strides—partnering with leading medical institutions, earning FDA orphan drug designation, and paving the way for legal, cannabis-based medications. If you haven't already, I highly recommend going back and listening to that first episode, where George shares the full story of his fascinating career trajectory—his time as a Navy SEAL, his MBA at Stanford, and his undergraduate experience as a Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of North Carolina. That conversation is a great companion to this one and provides even more insight into his unique journey. In this episode, George and I dive into the evolution of BRC, the shifting cultural and political landscape around cannabis, and what it's like balancing an entrepreneurial mindset with the slow, methodical world of federal drug approval. We also talk leadership, risk assessment in business and combat, humility vs arrogance, and what it's been like to watch his wife, bestselling author and culinary powerhouse Caroline Chambers, build an incredible career of her own. Be sure to check out the episode notes for a full list of everything we discussed, plus links to resources, books, and more. George is one of the most insightful, driven, and humble people I know, and I always learn a ton from our conversations. Whether you're interested in business, science, leadership, or just a great story of perseverance and innovation, this episode has something for you. Hope you enjoy! --- George Hodgin Biopharmaceutical Research Company George's first M&P episode Caroline Chambers Full episode notes and links: https://mountainandprairie.com/george-hodgin-2/ --- TOPICS DISCUSSED: 2:36 – Reconnecting with George 3:51 – George's BRC elevator pitch 6:51 – City of Hope collaboration 10:36 – Choosing partnerships and plans 13:36 – What makes a successful idea 16:06 – Company mechanics 18:21 – Energy balance 22:06 – Cannabis in the name 23:51 – Cannabis sentiments culturally shifting 26:36 – But not legally 28:06 – Regulations and competition 32:21 – Different schedules of drugs 36:36 – Betting on the idea versus the team 41:21 – Risk framework 46:51 – When do you stop planning? 51:06 – Favorite failure 55:36 – Not seeing the forest for the trees 59:06 – Does cockiness play a role? 1:02:06 – George's wife's cooking journey 1:07:06 – General Mattis' influence 1:08:51 – Book recs 1:11:06 – Parting words, asking Ed a question --- ABOUT MOUNTAIN & PRAIRIE: Mountain & Prairie - All Episodes Mountain & Prairie Shop Mountain & Prairie on Instagram Upcoming Events About Ed Roberson Support Mountain & Prairie Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts

Dr. Heather Wilson, a 1982 Air Force Academy graduate, formerly the 24th Secretary of the Air Force, and first USAFA graduate to hold the position, discusses her unexpected journey to the role, emphasizing the importance of integrity, service, and leadership. ----more---- SUMMARY Dr. Wilson shares her unexpected journey into leadership, the importance of integrity, and the lessons learned from both successes and failures. She reflects on her family legacy, the influence of mentors, and how her military background shaped her leadership style. Dr. Wilson emphasizes the value of collecting tools for leadership and adapting to different environments while maintaining core values. In this conversation, she discusses the importance of finding purpose in one's mission and the value of relationships, particularly family support. She reflects on her journey as a woman in leadership, the significance of legacy in public service, and her unexpected path to serving in Congress. Dr. Wilson emphasizes the lessons learned in collaboration and the importance of humor in leadership, ultimately encouraging future leaders to uphold high standards and not to shame their families.   SHARE THIS EPISODE LINKEDIN | FACEBOOK   TAKEAWAYS Dr. Wilson's journey to becoming Secretary of the Air Force was unexpected and transformative. Leadership often requires owning failures and focusing on solutions. Integrity is foundational to effective leadership and builds trust. Adapting leadership styles to different cultures is essential for success. Mentorship and influences from family play a significant role in shaping leaders. Collecting tools and knowledge is crucial for effective leadership. Quality management principles can be applied to various fields, including education and social services. Leadership is not linear; it involves navigating different paths and chapters. Building strong teams and hiring the right people is vital for organizational success. Direct communication and honesty are key components of effective leadership. Doing things that matter with people you like is essential. The most important decision in life can be personal, like choosing a partner. Family support enriches life and provides joy. Women in leadership often face unique challenges but can pave the way for others. Legacy is about making lasting changes in systems and strategies. Unexpected opportunities can lead to significant career changes. Collaboration and giving credit to others is key in leadership roles. Humor can help create a relaxed atmosphere in serious environments. Education is crucial for transforming lives and communities. Leadership is not always a straight path; adaptability is important.   EPISODE CHAPTERS 00:00  Introduction to Long Blue Leadership 01:25  Unexpected Call to Leadership 03:16  Lessons from Leadership Challenges 08:28  The Importance of Integrity 10:07  Adapting Leadership Styles 12:23  Influences and Mentorship 15:25  Family Legacy and Influence 17:41  Learning from Team Members 21:29  Applying Quality Management Principles 24:07  Navigating Non-Linear Leadership Paths 24:20  Finding Purpose in Mission and Relationships 28:06  The Importance of Family Support 30:08  Navigating Leadership as a Woman 34:30  Legacy and Impact in Public Service 36:29  Unexpected Paths: Serving in Congress 41:03  Lessons in Collaboration and Leadership   ABOUT DR. WILSON - IMAGES AND BIO COURTESY OF UTEP BIO Dr. Heather Wilson became the 11th President of The University of Texas at El Paso in 2019 after serving as Secretary of the United States Air Force. She is the former president of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, and she represented New Mexico in the United States Congress for 10 years.  Active in community and national affairs, she is a member of the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation, and serves as a board member of the Texas Space Commission. She was the inaugural Chair of the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities, and is a member of the board of directors of Lockheed Martin Corporation. Dr. Wilson is the granddaughter of immigrants and was the first person in her family to go to college. She graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in the third class to admit women and earned her master's and doctoral degrees from Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar. UTEP is located on the U.S.-Mexico border – in the fifth largest manufacturing region in North America – and serves over 24,000 students with 170 bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs in nine colleges and schools. In the top 5% of public universities in the United States for research and designated a community-engaged university by the Carnegie Foundation, UTEP is America's leading Hispanic-serving university. It is the fourth largest research university in Texas and serves a student body that is 84% Hispanic. President Wilson is an instrument rated private pilot. She and her husband, Jay Hone, have two adult children and two granddaughters. Dr. Heather Wilson served as the 24th Secretary of the Air Force and was responsible for the affairs of the Department of the Air Force, including the organizing, training and equipping and providing for the welfare of 660,000 Active-Duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian forces their families. She provided oversight of the Air Force's annual budget of more than $132 billion and directs strategy and policy development, risk management, weapons acquisition, technology investments and human resource management across a global enterprise. Dr. Wilson has more than 35 years of professional experience in a range of leadership and management roles in the military, higher education, government and private industry. Before assuming her current position, Dr. Wilson was president of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, an engineering and science research university. From 1998 to 2009, Dr. Wilson was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served on the House Armed Services Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Before being elected to Congress, Dr. Wilson was a cabinet secretary in New Mexico's state government responsible for foster care, adoption, juvenile delinquency, children's mental health and early childhood education. From 1989 to 1991 Wilson served on the National Security Council staff as director for defense policy and arms control for President George H.W. Bush during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. From 1991 to1995 and again from 2009 to 2013 Wilson was in the private sector. In 1991, she founded Keystone International, Inc., a company that did business development and program planning work for defense and scientific industry. She served as a senior advisor to several national laboratories on matters related to nuclear weapons, non-proliferation, arms control verification, intelligence and the defense industrial base. Wilson also served on the boards of two publicly traded corporations as well as numerous advisory and non-profit boards.   CONNECT WITH DR. WILSON LINKEDIN  |  UTEP     ALL PAST LBL EPISODES  |  ALL LBLPN PRODUCTIONS AVAILABLE ON ALL MAJOR PODCAST PLATFORMS     FULL TRANSCRIPT SPEAKERS Guest:  Dr. Heather Wilson '82  |  Hosts:  Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz '99   Naviere Walkewicz  00:00 Welcome to Long Blue Leadership, the podcast where we share insights on leadership through the lives and experiences of Air Force Academy graduates. I'm Naviere Walkowicz, Class of '99. Our story is about a leader who reached heights fellow Air Force Academy graduates had not reached before her, and this was at a time when opportunities to do so were still new. My guest is Dr. Heather Wilson, Class of '82. As you heard, she served as the 24th secretary of the Air Force, but there is a unique distinction attached to that. Dr Wilson, welcome to Long Blue Leadership; we have much to discuss. Let's start with you becoming the secretary of the Air Force, our 24th.   Dr. Heather Wilson  00:37 Yeah, that wasn't part of my life's plan. Secretary Designate Mattis did call me. I was in South Dakota as the president of the South Dakota School of Mines and my cell phone rang and he said, “This is Jim Mattis, and I want to talk to you about becoming secretary of the Air Force.” And honest to goodness, my initial answer was, “Sir, you do know that being a college president is like the best job in America, right?” And he said, “Yeah, I know. I just came from Stanford.” And I said, “I didn't apply for any job. I mean, I like it out... I'm a gal of the West. I like the mountains. I like hiking and biking and fly fishing.” And he said, “Yeah, I know. I grew up on the Columbia River in Washington.” And I thought, “This isn't working,” but we talked several more times, and it was pretty clear that I was being called to serve in a way that I didn't anticipate, but that was what I was supposed to do.   Naviere Walkewicz  01:35 What a transformative moment in your life, I'm sure.   Dr. Heather Wilson  01:38 Well, it was. Again, my entire life, I think, is a diversion from its planned course. But I turned out — I didn't anticipate that, and it meant — my husband doesn't really much like big East Coast cities that rain a lot and have a lot of traffic, and so from a family point of view, it wasn't what we personally wanted to do, but you're called to serve. And we've been called to serve in different ways in our lives and sometimes, even if it feels inconvenient, you're still called to serve. It turned out to be wonderful and I really enjoyed the experience, both of working with Sec. Mattis, but also getting back to spending time with airmen. And so it turned out to be wonderful, but it wasn't what I expected.   Naviere Walkewicz  02:25 Well, you said it, ma'am. As we know, service and leadership aren't linear, and so we're really excited to dive into some of those experiences today. Maybe share, as secretary of the Air Force, some of those moments in leadership that stuck with you. Let's just kind of start there.   Dr. Heather Wilson  02:42 Certainly. There were good days and not so good days. I think one of the things that I really benefited from was that I had a partner in the chief of staff, Dave Goldfein, who was absolutely fantastic. And we've remained very close friends. We started at the Academy the same day and he would joke and tell people that we didn't graduate on the same day because he went stop-out for a year. But we didn't know each other well as cadets, but we were formed by some of the same experiences and I think that helped tremendously. I didn't really understand that in our system of government, the civilian secretary has almost all the authority, but the chief of staff has almost all of the influence. And if you can figure out how to work together, you can get a heck of a lot done. And Dave and I both had that same approach, and it turned out to be a great partnership.   Naviere Walkewicz  03:42 That's pretty incredible. In fact, the time of your service in that role, I was actually working under your umbrella at U.S. STRATCOM. I was at Strategic Command there as a government civilian and as a reservist. And so, I can certainly speak to, I think, some of the amazing things that you did. Can you share a little — you talked about some ups and downs. What was maybe one of the failures as secretary of the Air Force that you learned from that helped you throughout your life?   Dr. Heather Wilson  04:11 Well, I know the day. I think it was Nov. 5, 2017, and it was a Sunday, late morning or early afternoon, and my phone rang. I was upstairs in the study in my row house in Virginia and it was the inspector general, Gen. Syed. And that morning, a young man had walked into a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and opened fire and killed a lot of people, and it turned out he had been an airman, and the general said, “You know, we're not sure yet, but he may have been convicted of a crime that would have required us to tell the FBI and the national criminal records check system that he had committed a crime that would not allow him to purchase a weapon, but we may have failed to notify.” We didn't know, we wouldn't know that afternoon but I talked to the chief and we all got together on Monday morning at 9 a.m. and Gen. Syed confirmed that he was an airman, he had been convicted of a domestic violence-related crime, and we had not properly notified the FBI, and as a result, he had been able to buy a weapon. Um, that was not a good day. And we talked about what we should do next, and our general counsel wasn't there — he was traveling that morning, but a more junior lawyer was there, who suggested kind of — and, you know, other people said, well — it actually got worse because there was an IG investigation, an internal audit from several years before, that showed that all of the services were not properly reporting to the national criminal records system. So we hadn't fixed the problem. We knew; we had been informed there was a problem and hadn't fixed it. And some people said, “Well, you weren't here at the time.” That doesn't matter. You wear the uniform, or you wear the cloak of office, and you have to take responsibility for the institution. And of course, the lawyers would say, “Well, you know, maybe you want to fuzz this and not take — you know, there's investigation going on,” or something. But we knew enough of the facts that morning, Monday morning, and Dave Goldfein and I decided to own it, to own the failure and focus on fixing the problem. And we did. And in the short term that was very uncomfortable. We sat in front of the Pentagon press corps and took their questions, and we went to Capitol Hill and informed the members of Congress on what had been done and not been done and why. But in the long term, by owning failure, we were able to focus on fixing the problem rather than just trying to manage responsibility and accountability, and it turned out to be a much better approach. So, sometimes the most important lesson is to own failure.   Naviere Walkewicz 07:09 I'm so glad you shared that, ma'am, because I think some people have a fear of failure, but there are many times when failure is inevitable, and to your point, owning it is the right approach. Something you said when you're sharing that, it made me think about us as cadets and our core values: integrity first. And that really resonated with how your approach was. Would you say that was born for you at the Academy and kind of through your career that's where it stayed, or has that always been part of your fabric?   Dr. Heather Wilson  07:36 I think the Academy was absolutely formative in that way, in the Honor Code. And, you know, integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do, now replaces what was there when I was a cadet, over the archway there. But I think that's woven into the fabric for airmen, and it's part of our culture, and it drives you. And I think — you know now we look at, how do we evaluate officers? It's the same way I now evaluate leaders — any leaders that work with me — and it's the way I evaluate myself: accomplish the mission, lead people, manage resources and make your unit better, all on a foundation of values. But it's that last part of it: all on a foundation of values. If you don't have that, the rest of it almost doesn't matter. You can try to make your unit better, but if you're lying about it, nobody's going to trust you. If you're leading people and managing resources, but you don't have integrity, it doesn't matter. So, integrity first, and that commitment to trying to be honest and direct with people builds those relationships of trust, which lasts for decades throughout a career.   Naviere Walkewicz  08:53 Absolutely. And the key word, I think, that foundation you talked about — how has that foundation served you in leadership as you've explored other areas outside of the military, amazing roles leading UTEP, also at the South Dakota School of Mines, in higher education? I'm sure that there's a translation of what that looks like. Can you share maybe an example of how that came into play?   Dr. Heather Wilson  09:15 Sure, it happens all the time. I think in any leadership position, whether you're in corporate life, in community life and a nonprofit, or in higher education, leading with a foundation of values, being honest, complying with the law, following the rules or changing the rules. It doesn't mean — that's one of the things that I think is probably important for leaders. You get to a point as a leader where your job is not just to follow the rules, but to look at the systems and identify the rules that need to be changed, but to be direct and honest about that too. Where it's not “Well, I think this rule doesn't make any sense, so I'm going to skirt it,” or “I'm not going to tell people that I've complied with something and I haven't.” In fact, you know that happened to me this morning. I got a disclosure that I was supposed to sign for a report that was published yesterday to the director of National Intelligence on a committee that I serve on, and they sent this kind of notification on what you can talk about publicly, and all of those things, and I hadn't given up my right to speak publicly about unclassified matters, and I responded, “I understand what you've said. I want to let you know that this is how I interpret this, and this is the way I'm going to act.” I was very direct about it. “I didn't give up my First Amendment rights as a citizen because I worked on your task force.” So, very direct. And I think that directness is something that — not all cultures are that way, including higher education culture. I have to be a little bit careful about that sometimes — the airman's tendency to have a frank debrief isn't always the way other cultures and work cultures are. They're just not always like that, so, I have to be a little bit careful sometimes that I don't crush people's will to live or something.   Naviere Walkewicz  11:13 I was actually thinking about that as you were speaking how, if you have the foundation, especially from the military, we kind of understand that directive approach and certainly those core values that we know of. And I'm curious, how do you adapt as a leader to those who maybe don't have that foundation? How do you bring them up to speed and kind of help them establish that?   Dr. Heather Wilson  11:32 Well, it's a two-way street. It means that I have to understand the culture that I'm in and the way in which I talk with senior faculty may be slightly different than the way I might talk to somebody who just got off a flight line and was too low and slow on final or something, you know? But at the same time with both a sense of humor and a little bit of grace… It was really funny when I was at South Dakota Mines, my provost was a long-time academic. And of course, I had served in Congress for 10 years as well. And he once said something to me that just made me crack up. He said, “You know, you are the least political president I've ever worked with. And the funny thing is, you're the only one that was really a politician.” And he said, “You remind me more of a military officer.” And I thought, “Yeah, that's probably true.” But I was fairly direct as a member of Congress as well. And so, I've just found that that works better for me in life, I guess.   Naviere Walkewicz  12:37 You were sharing how, you know, I think it was the provost that said that you really didn't remind him as someone that was very political, even though you're the only politician he's known. And so what was your time like serving in Congress? I mean, that's 10 years you did, I think, correct?   Dr. Heather Wilson  12:52 I did. And again, I didn't expect to serve in Congress. My predecessor became very seriously ill shortly before the filing deadline for the election that happened in 1998, and my phone rang. It was a Thursday night. This happens to me. I don't know why, but it was a Thursday night, and my phone rang. I was working in Santa Fe, cabinet secretary for Child Welfare, and it was Sen. Pete Domenici, the senior senator for the state of New Mexico. And he said, “You don't know anything about this, but I'm coming to New Mexico this weekend, and I want to talk to you about running for Congress.” Well, that's a quiz; that's not a question. Because a quiz has a right answer, which is, “Sir, I'd be happy to talk to you about whatever you want to talk about.” He's a United States senator. So, we talked about all kinds of things, and he called me from the airport when he was heading back to Washington that Sunday night, and he said, “Look, if you will run, I will help you.” And I decided to run. It was eight days before the filing deadline. I talked to my predecessor — he was fighting skin cancer — and said, “Look, why don't you just focus on fighting cancer? Two years from now, if you want to run again, you can have this seat back. I'll try to do my best for the next two years.” And then 30 days later, he died. I mean, you're not supposed to die of skin cancer. And so, I ended up serving for 10 years in the Congress in a very difficult swing district that I probably shouldn't have won in the first place. But I enjoyed the service part of it. I enjoyed the policy work part of it — intellectually challenging. Some of the partisan silliness I didn't like very much. And then when I left the Congress, ran on successfully for the Senate and became a university president. One of the great things — I tell people now that I was released from Congress early for good behavior. But it was nice to be in a town where people were waving at me with all five fingers. I mean, it was wonderful. So, I enjoyed the service, and I enjoyed a lot helping people — doing casework and things. But it was also a little bit less of a partisan time where you could try to listen and learn and serve well and try to serve your constituents without just being under attack mercilessly and in social media, or something. It was maybe perhaps a different age.   Naviere Walkewicz  15:25 Well, I chuckled when you said waving with all five fingers. That got a good one out of me. I thought about when you're in that, because that wasn't something you were looking to do, and this seems to be a bit of a theme in your leadership trajectory as well. You've kind of been tapped on the shoulder, and you know, for the ones that you didn't apply for or run for, plan for, have been such transformative positions in your life.   Dr. Heather Wilson  15:50 Yeah, and I think maybe that happens to people more than we might acknowledge, because when we're planning our lives, we think we know what's going to happen, but in reality, we adapt to situations that develop and opportunities open that you didn't know were there or someone asked you to take on a special project and that leads you in a direction that you didn't anticipate. So while mine seem particularly unusual in these very different chapters of my life, I don't think it's all that unusual. We just look forward and project in straight lines, and when we look backward, we tell a story in a narrative and it's not always a straight line. But I've been blessed to be asked to do some things. And perhaps in our relationship, my husband and I, he doesn't like change. I love it, and so in our relationship, he's kind of the keel and I'm kind of the sail, and together, we go places.   Naviere Walkewicz  16:56 That's awesome. And I think that particular time and journey in your career serving in Congress was probably one that you established new tools in your leadership toolbox. Were there any that particularly stood out — moments, either when you were having to, you know, forge new policy or achieve things that you hadn't prior? Because Congress is a kind of different machine.   Dr. Heather Wilson  17:21 Yeah, it's a very big committee, and it's not executive leadership. And so I'm probably more predisposed to executive leadership than just being on committees. It takes a very long time to get anything done in Congress, and our government is intentionally designed that way to protect us from tyranny. So you have to take that philosophical approach to it, even if you're frustrated day to day. I did learn how to get things done by giving other people credit. And there were several times — the changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is probably one example — where I had sponsored legislation in the House. It had taken quite a bit of time — changing Congress. There were continued problems, and I went to others and tried to put them in positions of leadership and support them. And ultimately, it was a Senate bill that passed, but which had been shaped in the background by multiple people, including me, and I was OK with that. And the same thing happened on pieces of legislation about public lands in New Mexico. I remember I came out in favor of doing something in northern New Mexico with respect to some public lands, and I got out ahead of Pete Domenici and he was not happy about that. He was very clear about not being happy about getting a little bit ahead of him on it. But in the end, the piece of legislation there that was signed, and another one on Zia Pueblo were Senate bills. They weren't House bills. But I had moved things forward on the House side, and it didn't matter to me that that it said “S” rather than “H” in front of the name of the bill. So as long as you don't really care about who gets the credit, you can get a lot done in the Congress.   Naviere Walkewicz  19:11 That is a powerful lesson. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I think there's a Contrails quote, and I can't remember all of it, but I remember the end of it is, “…if you don't care who gets the credit.”   Dr. Heather Wilson  19:11 Yeah, that was probably one of the short ones. Schofield's quote was — we all did pushups for those.   Naviere Walkewicz  19:30 Yes, I had a starting moment. I was about to get down…   Dr. Heather Wilson  19:35 … and start to sweat…   Naviere Walkewicz  19:37 … and take my punishment. That was wonderful, ma'am. I'm glad we actually went back and did that journey.   Dr. Heather Wilson  19:42 When I think about my service in the Congress, where I made the most difference, it was in committee work, and particularly on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where I served for a significant amount of time, including post-9/11. And I think that work, because the Intelligence Committee, most of it is in private, it's dealing with really hard, really important issues, and you don't bring your staff there. You have to do the work. And I think probably that's where I did some of my most important work as a member of Congress, was in Intelligence.   Naviere Walkewicz  20:18 Thank you for sharing that. Who are some other influencers, some key influencers in your life, that have maybe walked alongside you or helped you in these different roles that you've carried in your amazing career.   Dr. Heather Wilson  20:31 Oh, they're different people at different times, but certainly as a young person, my grandfather was very important to me. My grandfather had been one of the first flyers in the RAF in World War I, and then came to America in 1922 and flew in the Second World War for what became the Civil Air Patrol. So he did sub search off the Atlantic coast, and varied parts, around to bases, in New England. So, he was important to me as a child. My dad died when I was young. My dad also had been enlisted in the Air Force. He was a crew chief and also a pilot, commercial pilot, after he got out of the service. So I grew up around airplanes and my grandfather was very important to me, and there were other people along the way. When I was a cadet, there was a group commander, Lieutenant Colonel — it's funny, you still remember… anyone who remembers my middle initial, I know it's like, “Oh, this may not be good,” but Robert L. Rame, Lt. Col. Robert L. Rame was the 4th Group commander and my first Air Officer Commanding. General — sorry, Maj. William S. Reeder. He was an Army officer and had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Really, I was terrified of disappointing him. It's funny, I just got a Christmas card from him. Life's long, right?   Naviere Walkewicz  21:53 Wow. What connections. I'd like to kind of go back a little bit to your grandfather. You said he was really important to you in your life. Can you share maybe some of the ways he influenced you? Obviously, you're third-generation aviator in your family. Is that how you knew you're going to go into service?   Dr. Heather Wilson  22:08 Well, the Academy wasn't an option until I was a junior in high school, and so I knew I was going to college, but I didn't really think about where. And then they opened the Air Force Academy to women when I was a junior in high school. So, my grandfather had two sons, and he had five grandsons, and me. But he was pretty — I would say — the way he might say it is he was pretty sweet on me; he and I were very close. We used to play chess after school when I was in high school, and I remember once we just finished playing chess, and I was a senior in high school — so, my grandfather was an aviator; he was also a mechanic. He could use any tool, I mean, he was just amazing with his hands. And I had learned a new tool in school, and I took out a piece of graph paper and I drew a drew a curve, and I said, “Grandpa, do you think you could find the area under this curve?” And he said, “Well, I'd probably count up the squares and estimate from there on the graph paper.” And I then I showed him something new and it was called calculus, and it was the first time in my life that I realized I had a tool that my grandfather didn't have. He had a high school education and had gone into the RAF during the First World War, and he was a great mechanic and a really good man, but I realized that there were opportunities for me that maybe my grandfather never had.   Naviere Walkewicz  23:56 I actually got chill bumps when you shared that. Pretty powerful. Thank you so much. Can you talk about, throughout your career — you said if people remember your middle initial, and I'm sure that many on the military side would, because you're amazing… Have you learned from anyone maybe that is not a mentor of you, but someone that has kind of come under your wing? Can you share some leadership lessons that you've learned from those serving alongside and under you?   Dr. Heather Wilson  24:24 Oh my gosh, I learn stuff every day from the people whom I'm privileged to work with. And one of the things that I learned over time was, and as you get more senior, the most important thing you do as a senior leader is hire good people who know things that you don't know, because it's not possible to know everything you need to know to lead a large organization. So, you have to organize yourself well and then get great people and let them do their job. So, I learn things every day. I was interviewing somebody yesterday that we're trying to attract to come to the university who is on the communication side of things — marketing and communication and branding. And you know that creative, visual side of my brain, if you did a brain scan, it would be like a dark hole. That's not a strength of mine. And so those kinds of things are — you have to realize what your strengths are, and then to fill in the team and put together a team, which together can accomplish the mission.   Naviere Walkewicz  25:34 I'd say your grandfather is still kind of, you know, influencing that. It's almost like you're filling your toolbox with all those areas.   Dr. Heather Wilson  25:43 That's funny you use that word. I've told this story before, but my father was both a pilot and a mechanic, and he built an experimental aircraft in our house, and we lived on this, kind of the last house that they would plow to on the end of the road in the winter, right? So, in a very small town, and at that time, there were still traveling salesmen, and the Snap-on tools guy would come probably every six weeks or so, and he had this, like red truck with an accordion thing on the back that looked just like the toolbox in the corner of the garage, right? And we knew that when the Snap-on tools guy came, do not go out. I mean, it was like Christmas for my dad. Do not interfere when the Snap-on tools guy is there. And so he'd go out and lean against the truck, and we could see him laughing and stuff. And eventually my dad would reach in his pocket and pull out his billfold and give the guy a bill, and he'd go back, and he'd lift up the back of the accordion thing and reach in there and give my dad a tool. And my dad would — then the truck would back out, and go on to his next stop. But my dad would take that tool and we'd scramble into the garage to see what he got and stuff. And my dad would usually put that tool in the box in the corner and then go back to what he was doing that day, working on his car or whatever he was doing. And it occurred to me that my dad didn't need that tool that day, but he collected tools, and someday he'd need that tool. And I think great leaders collect tools even when they don't need them today, because they're going to be times when you bring everybody to — you know, there's that great scene in Apollo 13, but it happens around the staff and Cabinet table, and it'll happen in your planning room as a pilot where you've got a new problem, and everybody brings in their tools and says, “OK, how can we make a carbon monoxide filter, or carbon dioxide filter, out of what we've got here on the table?” So, collect tools. And I think that's one of the things I learned from my dad.     Naviere Walkewicz  28:00 Oh, that is an amazing story. Can you share maybe a tool that you've had in your toolbox, that you learned way back when, maybe at the Academy, or as a young girl, that you've recently pulled out and used?   Dr. Heather Wilson 28:12 Well, one of them — I'm not so sure it's recent, but when I was a small business owner, there was a group in New Mexico called Quality New Mexico, and they taught small business owners the Baldrige Principles for quality management. And then I ended up being the Cabinet secretary for child welfare in New Mexico. So, I took over a foster care system, which was under a federal consent decree for not getting kids forever homes and an overly crowded juvenile justice system. I mean, every intractable social problem was — I realized after a while why I became Cabinet secretary for child welfare, because nobody else wanted that job. I mean it was a really difficult job, but I had these tools on quality management. I thought, “I think we can apply these same principles to improving foster care, to improving the juvenile justice system.” And so we did, and there's some things I was proud of there, but one of my last acts as Cabinet secretary before I ended up leaving and running for Congress was to sign the end of the federal consent decree that had been in place for 18 years that said that the state was not getting foster kids forever homes. We changed the system, but we did it using those quality management principles, which I had learned as a small business owner almost as a lark. So, there's one example. But, you know, we just went through a global pandemic. It was very much a pickup game. Nobody had ever been through that. So, we all got together and figured out how we could use the tools we had, including the research capability on my campus to be able to sequence DNA so that we could do testing on campus and get the results, ultimately, within six hours and then feed that back so we could detect disease before someone was symptomatic, so you could suppress disease on campus for those who had to be on campus. There's some things you can't do remotely. And so, we had our own testing system on campus, which was remarkable. Well, why'd we have that? Because we had some tools in the box.   Naviere Walkewicz  30:37 Well, you've used those tools amazingly as you've navigated your career. How would you say that — because yours is… we talked about not being linear. It's kind of been multiple paths and…   Dr. Heather Wilson 30:50 Different chapters.   Naviere Walkewicz 30:51 Yes, I love that. Different chapters. How would you say that you've navigated leadership through that? And has there been a thread that's been common through all those different chapters that you've…   Dr. Heather Wilson  31:04 Yeah, we talked a little about integrity, and that certainly is there. But I when, when people say things like, you know, “Why are you at UTEP?” Or, “Why did you shift to higher ed?” Or, “Why did…” The mission matters so developing people matters. Defending the country matters. So, a mission that matters with people I like. And I realized that when you get down to it, you should do things that matter with people you like and if that's your filter, as long as you can put food on the table, there's a lot of different things you can do, but it should be something that matters with people you like. Otherwise, that time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. can seem forever unless you're doing something you like.   Naviere Walkewicz  31:49 That is a powerful thread. Mission matters with people you like. How has your family supported you through this?   Dr. Heather Wilson  31:56 I live a blessed life. I tell this to students, and probably, as a younger woman, I wouldn't have said these things because I was so focused on being taken seriously, I suppose. But, I lightened up after time and realized, OK, I'm probably too serious. But the most important decision I've made in my life is not to go to the Academy or to run for Congress or to become a college president — none of those things are the most important decision I've made in my life. The most important decision I made in my life was to marry the guy I married. I married a guy who's actually retired Air Force now, but he was a lawyer. Despite that, he's a nice guy and sometimes, I think, particularly for women, there's always that fear that you're going to sit down when you're in a getting into a serious relationship, and it's going to be one of those conversations that says, “OK, we're thinking about making this permanent. Who's going to give up her career?” And it's not really a conversation, or at least maybe it wasn't in my era, but Jay never had that conversation with me. It was always we could do more together than either of us could do alone, and he has been so supportive of me. And, yeah, vice versa. But I had to go back east for something last week, and I knew that even in this big reception that I was in with all these people, that he wasn't going to be there, and if he was, he'd still be the most interesting guy in the room. So, I married well, and my family always — we're a very close family. And I think while my obligations to my family didn't end at the front porch, my family gave richness and dimension to my life that I never really anticipated as a young woman, and it's given me joy. Success seemed possible to achieve; joy always seemed like a gift from God, and I have had joy because of my family.   Naviere Walkewicz  34:18 Thank you for sharing that. You talk about when you're hiring, you choose people that kind of fill gaps, but it sounds like, also on your personal team, you want to make sure that you're choosing it, you know...   Dr. Heather Wilson  34:30 Yeah, you're going to be roommates for a long time. That matters. And there's the things that you just kind of have to get over. You know, I'm not going to clean around his sink, and he's not going to be bothered about the fact that my closet's color coordinated. I mean, we just live with that, right?   Naviere Walkewicz  34:49 I appreciate that about you so much. You talked a minute ago about some things you learned about yourself as a leader. You know, “Not take myself too seriously.” Can you share a little bit more about that journey on your own, like that personal leadership journey that you've made?   Dr. Heather Wilson  35:07 Yeah, and I think it's easier as you go on. And honestly, very early on, I was very often the only woman in the room, and so I wanted to be taken seriously. I was also very often the youngest person in the room. And so those two things made me want to be taken seriously. As I went on and got more responsibility, I realized that the truth is I am a very serious and successful woman. My husband would say that I was raised in the home for the humor impaired, and that I've been in therapy with him for over 30 years. So, I gradually learned to see the humor in life. I still am not one that stands up and tells jokes or something, but I see the humor in life and I don't take myself too seriously. The person that I watched who used self-deprecating humor better than any leader I've ever seen was actually Dave Goldfein. Everyone knew when he walked into a room, or if he stood up on a stage at a town hall meeting with a bunch of airmen or something — everybody knew that they were gonna laugh. At some point in that meeting we're gonna laugh, and not at someone else's expense, but at his. And it made people relax around him. He was very, very good at it. But I also knew that his self-deprecating humor was really a cover for exceptional competence, and I never underestimated that, but it made people relax and brought a little bit of joy to whatever intractable problem we were looking at.   Naviere Walkewicz  36:51 Well, you shared about sometimes when you're coming up through your leadership, you were often the only woman in the room and sometimes the youngest in the room. What would you like to share on your thoughts of what has that impact been, and what do you see as your legacy?   Dr. Heather Wilson  37:07 Well, there were some times, particularly early on, when women flying or women in positions of command was new, where you just had to do the job and realize that you were probably changing attitudes as you went and that it would be easier for those who came after you, and that's OK. I don't see that as much anymore. Although, when I was elected to Congress, I think probably 10% to 15% of the House was women. Now it's more than that, and once it gets to be more than 30% in any room, it doesn't sound — it's almost like you walk into a restaurant where it's all guys or all women, and you notice the difference in the room, the tones of the voices and things. Once you get to about a third, it feels like it's comfortable, but early on, I always was very conscious of it and conscious of the obligation to do well, because I was being judged not only for myself, but for an entire group of people. And so, I was sensitive to that, and wanted to make sure that I didn't, like — “Don't shame the family,” right? So make sure that you keep the doors open. As far as legacy is concerned, and I think back in my time as Air Force secretary, I would say there's two things that I hope linger, and they have so far. One is a change to the promotion system to make sure that we have the right kind of talent to choose from at all levels in the organization, and so that, I think, has continued to persist. And the other one that will be changed over time and has to be changed over time, had to do with the science and technology strategy of the Air Force and the need to stay ahead of adversaries. I think this is a completely separate conversation, but I actually think that that we are at greater risk of scientific and technical surprise today than at any time since the end of the Second World War. And if you go back and read books about engineers of victory, or there's a whole lot of books about how science and technology was brought to bear in prevailing in the Second World War. I think we're at risk now in a way that we've kind of become complacent about. So, science and technology strategy is something that I hope is a legacy.   Naviere Walkewicz  39:36 That's amazing, ma'am. And I think not only for our military, but you're able to influence that in the spaces that you are now.   Dr. Heather Wilson  39:43 Yeah, engaging the next generation, which is a heck of a lot of fun. You know, the University of Texas at El Paso is a wonderful institution — 25,000 students, half of them are the first in their families to go to college. About 70% or so come from families making less than about $45,000 a year. So, this is a university that transforms lives, and it's a university that — of my 25,000 students, over 5,000 are studying engineering. Another couple thousand are studying science, College of Nursing, College of Education. This has a tremendous impact on the region and on the lives of those who choose to educate themselves. And so it's a wonderful mission to be part of, and I think it's important for the nation. I think regions of the world who choose to educate their people in the 21st century will thrive, and those that don't are going to be left behind, and that's why I do what I do.   Naviere Walkewicz  40:44 Well, it clearly aligns with your foundation and your mission, ma'am, and I think that's outstanding. We're going to ask for Dr. Wilson's final thoughts next, but before we do, I'd like to take a moment and thank you for listening to Long Blue Leadership. The podcast publishes Tuesdays in both video and audio and is available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Be sure to watch, listen and subscribe to all episodes of Long Blue Leadership at longblueleadership.org. So, Dr. Wilson, I would love to take a moment to gather some of your final thoughts, what you'd like to share today.   Dr. Heather Wilson  41:21 Well, assuming that most of the folks who listen to this are either cadets or young officers or grads, I leave them with one thought, and that is, don't shame the family. Don't shame the family. People will look up to you because you are an Air Force Academy graduate, or you are an Air Force cadet. The standard is higher, so live up to the standard.   Naviere Walkewicz  41:50 Ma'am, we started with you being direct. You ended direct. I think that is amazing. Thank you very much. Thanks for being on Long Blue Leadership.   Dr. Heather Wilson  41:58 My pleasure.     KEYWORDS leadership, Air Force Academy, integrity, mentorship, quality management, Dr. Heather Wilson, military service, personal growth, career journey, unexpected opportunities, leadership, integrity, family support, women in leadership, public service, legacy, mission-driven, personal growth, collaboration, Congress     The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association and Foundation    

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare teammates Tyler McBrien and Nastya Lapatina and Lawfare friend Joel Braunold, Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, to talk over the week's big national security news stories, including:“Mi Gaza Es Su Gaza.” President Donald Trump shocked the world last week when, in a joint press briefing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he announced plans for the United States to “own” Gaza, take responsibility for reconstructing it, and ultimately renovate it into a “Riviera” on the Eastern Mediterranean—one, he later made clear, that Palestinians would no longer be allowed to live in. What of this plan is serious and what is bluster? And what impact will it have on the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the delicate ceasefire that Trump's emissary worked so hard to secure just weeks ago in Gaza?“Bullets for Bauxite.” President Trump recently reiterated his desire for a quick end to the conflict in Ukraine, a topic on which senior Trump administration and Ukrainian officials will be talking soon. But peace will come at a price—in this case, a deal guaranteeing U.S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals, among other concessions. Is Trump's timeline realistic? And how is his administration's “America First” tack likely to impact the trajectory of the conflict?“Quid Pro Whoa.” Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove took the exceptional step this week of directing the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York to dismiss corruption charges—arising from alleged improper contributions and relationships with foreign government officials, including from Turkey—against New York Mayor Eric Adams so that Adams could focus his energy combating high crime and unlawful immigration. What should we make of such a clear quid pro quo? And what might it mean for the Justice Department moving forward?For object lessons, Tyler and Nastya plugged Lawfare's next big long-form audio documentary series, which they co-host and is set to debut later this month: Escalation, a podcast about the war in Ukraine. Scott recommended an incredibly touching piece in the New York Times about faith, parenthood, and reconciling the two, entitled "How My Dad Reconciled His God with His Gay Son," by Timothy White. And in honor of the man's Super Bowl victory, Joel shared one of his favorite quotes from Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, which has particular resonance with the peacebuilding community he works in: "I had a purpose before anybody had an opinion."We value your feedback! Help us improve by sharing your thoughts at lawfaremedia.org/survey. Your input ensures that we deliver what matters most to you. Thank you for your support—and, as always, for listening!Use promo code RATIONALSECURITY at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan:https://incogni.com/rationalsecuritySupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare teammates Tyler McBrien and Nastya Lapatina and Lawfare friend Joel Braunold, Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, to talk over the week's big national security news stories, including:“Mi Gaza Es Su Gaza.” President Donald Trump shocked the world last week when, in a joint press briefing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he announced plans for the United States to “own” Gaza, take responsibility for reconstructing it, and ultimately renovate it into a “Riviera” on the Eastern Mediterranean—one, he later made clear, that Palestinians would no longer be allowed to live in. What of this plan is serious and what is bluster? And what impact will it have on the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the delicate ceasefire that Trump's emissary worked so hard to secure just weeks ago in Gaza?“Bullets for Bauxite.” President Trump recently reiterated his desire for a quick end to the conflict in Ukraine, a topic on which senior Trump administration and Ukrainian officials will be talking soon. But peace will come at a price—in this case, a deal guaranteeing U.S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals, among other concessions. Is Trump's timeline realistic? And how is his administration's “America First” tack likely to impact the trajectory of the conflict?“Quid Pro Whoa.” Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove took the exceptional step this week of directing the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York to dismiss corruption charges—arising from alleged improper contributions and relationships with foreign government officials, including from Turkey—against New York Mayor Eric Adams so that Adams could focus his energy combating high crime and unlawful immigration. What should we make of such a clear quid pro quo? And what might it mean for the Justice Department moving forward?For object lessons, Tyler and Nastya plugged Lawfare's next big long-form audio documentary series, which they co-host and is set to debut later this month: Escalation, a podcast about the war in Ukraine. Scott recommended an incredibly touching piece in the New York Times about faith, parenthood, and reconciling the two, entitled "How My Dad Reconciled His God with His Gay Son," by Timothy White. And in honor of the man's Super Bowl victory, Joel shared one of his favorite quotes from Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, which has particular resonance with the peacebuilding community he works in: "I had a purpose before anybody had an opinion."We value your feedback! Help us improve by sharing your thoughts at lawfaremedia.org/survey. Your input ensures that we deliver what matters most to you. Thank you for your support—and, as always, for listening!Use promo code RATIONALSECURITY at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan:https://incogni.com/rationalsecurity Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textIn today's episode, I am chatting with Dr. Josh McConkey. Dr. (Colonel) Josh McConkey is an award-winning/best-selling author and esteemed Emergency Physician with over two decades of clinical experience. He served as a professor at Duke University and maintains Board Certification in Emergency Medicine. With 22 years of military service, Dr. McConkey now commands the 459th Aeromedical Staging Squadron in the US Air Force Reserves, demonstrating exceptional leadership and dedication. He is a devoted father of three and his greatest passion lies in shaping future American leaders alongside his wife, Elsa. Key Highlights:Josh's Career: Serving as an air transport/CCAT doctor in the Air Force Reserves, where he provides critical care during medical evacuations. Insights into his work as a flight surgeon and how his perspective on adrenaline and risk-taking has evolved since becoming a father.The Weight Behind the Spear: Discussion on his book, which encapsulates his leadership ethos and was inspired by the increasing mental health challenges he has witnessed as an emergency room physician. Despite the divide in our country, his books talks about empowering and equipping the next generation. Taking Action on Mental Health: The importance of community engagement, personal empowerment, and leveraging individual strengths to make a meaningful impact.Personal Development & Leadership: A deep dive into his book flight, featuring titles that have shaped his leadership philosophy and personal growth.This conversation is packed with wisdom, experience, and actionable insights—don't miss it!Connect with Dr. Josh McConkey:WebsiteInstagramTwitter/XLinkedInPurchase The Weight Behind the SpearBooks and authors mentioned in the episode:Harry Potter series by J.K. RowlingThe Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)Mornings on Horseback by David McCulloughBook FlightCall Sign Chaos by Jim Mattis and Bing WestAn Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris HadfieldEverything is F*cked by Mark MansonReady for a monthly literary adventure? We now have the BFF Book Club. Join us each month to explore a new book. After reading, connect with fellow book lovers and meet the author in a live interview! Can't make it live? Don't worry—we'll send you the recording. You can find all our upcoming book club selections HERE. Support the showBe sure to join the Bookish Flights community on social media. Happy listening! Instagram Facebook Website

In the latest issue of SAPIR, Dana W. White observes that historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), once places that honored and taught the historical alliance between black and Jewish Americans, have now become spaces where antisemitism and anti-Zionism are actively encouraged. How can our communities reinvigorate the long-neglected black and Jewish alliance, address misunderstandings, and rebuild trust? How do we celebrate our past accomplishments and pursue future objectives together? On Monday, January 27 former assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs under Secretary James Mattis, Dana W. White, joined SAPIR editor-in-chief Bret Stephens for a conversation on her recent SAPIR essay.

(AURN News) — President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement this week on his social media platform Truth Social warning against recommending certain political figures and critics for positions in his incoming administration. “The incoming Trump Administration has hired over 1,000 people for The United States Government. They are outstanding in every way, and you will see the fruits of their labor over the coming years. We will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and it will happen very quickly!” he posted. “In order to save time, money, and effort, it would be helpful if you would not send, or recommend to us, people who worked with, or are endorsed by, Americans for No Prosperity (headed by Charles Koch), “Dumb as a Rock” John Bolton, “Birdbrain” Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, disloyal Warmongers Dick Cheney, and his Psycho daughter, Liz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, General(?) Mark Milley, James Mattis, Mark Yesper, or any of the other people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” he said. Trump is set to be inaugurated as president on Monday, which is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A global tour d'horizon with the former Marine Corps commander and Secretary of Defense General Jim Mattis.

Donald Trump is using the McDonald's stunt and the 60 Minute attacks to make sure the news media isn't focused on his enemy within threat and his refusal to show up on 60 Minutes. MAGA is so proud of the McDonald's photo op. Former Trump official Dan Coats says Putin is blackmailing Donald. Jim Mattis agrees with Mark Milley. Where are Donald's medical records? The Arnold Palmer story is silly season politics. Democrats are looking strong in the early vote and Kamala leads in most polls. The fuckery of the red wave pollsters. Donald losing support among white women and non-college whites. The Russian disinformation attack continues. Politico continues to normalize the fascist. With Buzz Burbank, music by Basically Nancy, Natalie and the Monarchy, and more!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Rising Tide Ocean podcast, hosts David Helvarg and Vicki Nichols Goldstein speak with Sherry Goodman, former Pentagon Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security, about her new book 'Threat Multiplier Climate Military Leadership in the Fight for Global Security.' Goodman elaborates on the intersection of climate change and national security, emphasizing the concept of climate as a 'threat multiplier' that exacerbates global instability. The conversation covers the evolution of military strategies to incorporate environmental stewardship, the impacts of climate change on military operations, and the importance of resilience and preparedness. Goodman also discusses the geopolitical tensions in the Arctic, the role of the U.S. Coast Guard, and the need for a climate-informed defense strategy. With an upcoming election, the discussion underscores the significance of leadership in addressing climate threats. ** Links & Resources ** Learn how to navigating ocean policies with Mark Spalding: https://bluefront.org/podcast/navigating-ocean-policies-with-mark-spalding-diving-into-the-impact-of-elections-on-our-waters/ Dive into the impact of elections on our waters. Jim Hanson is Chief Editor for the Middle East Forum: https://www.meforum.org/jim-hanson He previously served in U.S. Army Special Forces and conducted counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense operations in more than two dozen countries. He is the author of several books including “Winning the Second Civil War - Without Firing a Shot” and “Cut Down the Black Flag - A Plan to Defeat ISIS”. Rescue warriors: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312628147/rescuewarriors Since its inception more than 200 years ago, the United States Coast Guard has rescued over 1.1 million people. Yet, despite having more than fifty thousand active and reserve members, most of us know very little about this often neglected but crucial branch of the U.S. military. Rear Admiral, Ann C. Phillips, US Navy (Ret.): https://www.maritime.dot.gov/office-administrator/key-personnel/rear-admiral-ann-c-phillips-us-navy-ret Rear Admiral Ann C. Phillips, US Navy (Ret.) was sworn in as the 20th Administrator for the Department of Transportation Maritime Administration on May 16, 2022. As head of the Maritime Administration, Phillips advises and assists the Secretary of Transportation on commercial maritime matters, to include the movement of goods, supply chain, as well as the U.S. maritime industry, environment and compliance, ports and waterways infrastructure, and strategic sealift. She engages public and private stakeholders in the maritime industry and oversees the U.S Merchant Marine Academy. Leon E. Panetta- Former Secretary of Defense: https://www.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/article/602799/ Leon Edward Panetta served as the 23rd Secretary of Defense from July 2011 to February 2013.Before joining the Department of Defense, Mr. Panetta served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from February 2009 to June 2011. Mr. Panetta led the agency and managed human intelligence and open source collection programs on behalf of the intelligence community. The Center for Climate & Security: https://climateandsecurity.org/ The greater the impact of climate change, the greater our awareness of the security challenges it's leaving in its wake. In recent years, there has been a relative deluge of research in this space. Tyndall Air Force Base: https://www.tyndall.af.mil/ Admiral James Foggo III: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Foggo_III A retired United States Navy admiral who last served as commander of United States Naval Forces Europe-Africa and commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples. Former Secretary of Defense Mattis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Mattis An American military veteran who served as the 26th United States secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019. Michael Sfraga: https://www.state.gov/biographies/michael-sfraga/ AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR ARCTIC AFFAIRS OFFICE OF THE AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR ARCTIC AFFAIRS Secretary Lloyd Austin: tyndall.af.mil/About/Civil-Service-Employment/ Lloyd James Austin III (born August 8, 1953) is a retired United States Army four-star general who has served as the 28th and current United States Secretary of Defense since January 22, 2021. Deputy Secretary of Defense - Kathleen H. Hicks: https://www.defense.gov/About/Deputy-Secretary-of-Defense/ Kathleen H. Hicks is the 35th deputy secretary of defense, sworn in on Feb. 9, 2021. Most recently, she served as senior vice president and director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Previously, she served in varying leadership roles within DOD, including principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, leading the development of the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance. Threat Multiplier - Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security: https://islandpress.org/books/threat-multiplier Blue Frontier: www.bluefront.org Building the solution-based citizen movement needed to protect our ocean, coasts and communities, both human and wild. Inland Ocean Coalition: www.inlandoceancoalition.org Building land-to-sea stewardship - the inland voice for ocean protection Fluid Studios: www.fluidstudios.org Thinking radically different about the collective good, our planet, & the future.

Since the release of Woodward's "War," Gen. James Mattis has reached out to the journalist to endorse the book's warnings about Trump, and to urge that they not be downplayed. Plus, Kamala's counseling of Zelensky before the invasion of Ukraine, and how Russia really was on the nuclear brink and the Biden team pulled out all the stops to get them to step back. Bob Woodward joins Tim Miller. show notes Bob Woodward's book, "War" 

  “What do I know? Who needs to know? Have I told them?” — Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos NOTE: James Norman Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is an American veteran and former government official who served as the 26th United States Secretary of Defense from January 2017 through December 2018. A retired United States Marine […] The post 3 Important Questions For Improved Team Communications appeared first on GROW GREAT.

Carey spoke with Mick Mulroy, a Marine Corps veteran as well as a retired Paramilitary Operations Officer at the CIA and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East where he served under General Mattis.⁣ Mick sits on the board of advisors for the Plato's Academy Centre where he works to bring philosophy — specifically Stoicism — to the forefront for modern thinkers and doers. This episode is sponsored by Go Pills. Use "VM15" at checkout for 15% off your order. Intro Song composed and produced by Cleod9. SOCIALS: https://www.instagram.com/veteranmade.ck/ https://www.instagram.com/platosacademycentre/ https://x.com/veteranmade_ck https://x.com/MickMulroy

In this episode of 92NY Talks, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, discusses his new collection of essays, On Heroism: McCain, Milley, Mattis, and the Cowardice of Donald Trump, with MSNBC's Alex Wagner. Expanding on his explosive reporting about Donald Trump's trenchant disdain for military personnel, Goldberg draws upon decades of his own reporting, including key interviews with top officials such as the late Senator John McCain, former Defense Secretary James Mattis, and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, all of whom came to oppose Trump.   The conversation was recorded on September 8, 2024 in front of a live audience at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Guy Snodgrass recently served as director of communications and chief speechwriter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis. A former naval aviator, he served as commanding officer of a fighter squadron based in Japan, A TOPGUN instructor, and a combat pilot over the skies of Iraq.  Today he is the founder and CEO of Defense Analytics, a strategic consulting and advisory firm. He is the author of Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis and his latest book is titled: TOPGUN's Top 10: Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit.    Some interesting insights from this episode: ·         To succeed a TOPGUN, you have to possess three traits: talent, passion, and personality. ·         Competence is when you have an excellent capability but you operate below that level. Arrogance is when your competence is lower than you anticipate but you act like you're better. ·         You can achieve anything you put your mind to so long as you're willing to break down the problem and put the resources against it to solve it. ·         After every simulated dogfight there would be a debrief comparing your recollection of the events with the actual video footage.  This created a continual feedback loop to accelerate learning. ·         President Eisenhower once said: “Plans are worthless but planning is indispensable.” ·         TOPGUN has a flat organizational structure whereby junior officers are calling a lot of the shots.  Decisions are made based on capability and knowledge base, not based on rank. This allows them to get to the best tactical end result.    Show Notes: TOPGUN'S TOP 10: Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis  

Carey spoke with Worth Parker, a retired Marine, and Mick Mulroy, a Marine Corps veteran as well as a retired Paramilitary Operations Officer at the CIA and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East where he served under General Mattis. Mick co-founded the Lobo Institute and Fogbow where he and Worth both work to combine the efforts of military veterans with humanitarians in austere areas of conflict and environmental disasters to help those who need it most. This episode is sponsored by Go Pills. Use "VM15" at checkout for 15% off your order. Intro Song composed and produced by Cleod9. SOCIALS: https://www.instagram.com/veteranmade.ck/ https://www.instagram.com/b00kwar/

The Senate recently received testimony from the bipartisan co-chairs of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, who were tasked with creating a report to Congress with recommendations needed to adapt our National Defense Strategy to current threats. In this episode, hear the testimony about that completed report during which they discuss preparations for a possible world war and the need for more American kids to fight and die in it. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes The Report Jane Harman et al. July 2024. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Jane Harman: Warmonger Open Secrets. October 10, 2002. Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. September 14, 2001. GovTrack. Iridium Communications April 2, 2024. wallmine. GuruFocus Research. March 8, 2024. Yahoo Finance. December 29, 2023. Market Screener. Bing. Iridium. Iridium. Iridium. Retrieved from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine version archived November 11, 2022. Axis of Aggression or Axis of Resistance? Angela Skujins. June 8, 2024. euronews. Nikita Smagin. June 15, 2023. Carnegie Politika. Defense Innovation Unit Defense Innovation Unit. Military Service Kristy N. Kamarck. December 13, 2016. Congressional Research Service. Christopher Hitchens. October 3, 2007. Vanity Fair. Mark Daily. Feb. 14, 2007. Los Angeles Times. Israel-Palestine Shay Fogelman. August 16, 2024. Haaretz. Steven Scheer and Ali Sawafta. August 14, 2024. Reuters. July 2, 2024. Al Mayadeen English. Steve Crawshaw. January 26, 2024. The Guardian. Patreon August 12, 2024. Patreon. C-SPAN Fundraiser C-SPAN. Bills: NDAA 2025 Audio Sources July 30, 2024 Senate Committee on Armed Services Witnesses: Jane M. Harman, Chair, Commission on the National Defense Strategy Eric S. Edelman, Vice Chair, Commission on the National Defense Strategy Clips 26:20 Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS): The document details the way in which the 2022 National Defense Strategy and Assessment, completed just two years ago, did not adequately account for the threat of simultaneous and increasingly coordinated military action by our four primary adversaries. A group which I have come to call the Axis of Aggressors. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS): I appreciate the Commission's recommendation that national security spending must return to late Cold War levels — a goal which matches my plan to spend 5%, eventually, of GDP on defense. That level of investment would be temporary. It would be a down-payment on the rebuilding of our national defense tools for a generation. Tools that have sharpened can reduce the risk that our adversaries will use military force against US interests. 33:10 Jane Harman: The threats to US national security and our interests are greater than any time since World War II, and more complex than any threats during the Cold War. 34:00 Jane Harman: Sadly, we think, and I'm sure you agree, that the public has no idea how great the threats are and is not mobilized to meet them. Public support is critical to implement the changes we need to make. Leaders on both sides of the aisle and across government need to make the case to the public and get their support. Eric Edelman: There is potential for near-term war and a potential that we might lose such a conflict. The partnership that's emerged among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is a major strategic shift that we have not completely accounted for in our defense planning. It makes each of those countries potentially stronger militarily, economically, and diplomatically, and potentially can weaken the tools we have at our disposal to deal with them. And it makes it more likely that a future conflict, for instance, in the Indo-Pacific, would expand across other theaters and that we would find ourselves in a global war that is on the scale of the Second World War. Eric Edelman: The 2022 NDS identified China as the pacing challenge. We found that China is, in many ways, outpacing the US. While we still have the strongest military in the world with the farthest global reach, when we get to a thousand miles of China's shore, we start to lose our military dominance and could find ourselves on the losing end of a conflict. China's cyber capabilities, space assets, growing strategic forces, and fully modernized conventional forces are designed to keep us from engaging in the Taiwan Strait or the South or East China seas. China, as has been testified to before Congress, has infiltrated our critical infrastructure networks to prevent or deter US action by contesting our logistics, disrupting American power and water, and otherwise removing the sanctuary of the homeland that we have long enjoyed. 38:00 Eric Edelman: For its part, Russia has reconstituted its own defense industrial base after its invasion of Ukraine much more rapidly than people anticipated. Vladimir Putin seeks to reassert Russia as a great power and is happy to destabilize the world in order to do so. 38:15 Eric Edelman: Our report describes the threats posed by Iran, North Korea, and terrorism as well. Clearly, Iran and North Korea both feel emboldened by the current environment, and terrorism remains a potent threat fueled by the proliferation of technology. As the DNI has said, the current war in the Middle East is likely to have a generational impact on terrorism. 39:20 Jane Harman: First finding: DoD cannot and should not provide for the national defense by itself. The NDS calls for an integrated deterrence that is not reflected in practice today. A truly all elements of national power approach is required to coordinate and leverage resources across DoD, the rest of the Executive branch, the private sector, civil society, and US allies and partners. We agree with the NDS on the importance of allies, and we commend the administration for expanding and strengthening NATO and building up relationships and capabilities across Asia. We also point out ways for the United States to be better partners ourselves, including by maintaining a more stable presence globally and in key organizations like NATO. We call for reducing barriers to intelligence sharing, joint production, and military exports so we can better support and prepare to fight with our closest allies. 40:25 Jane Harman: Second recommendation is fundamental shifts in threats and technology require fundamental change in how DoD functions. This is particularly true of how DoD works with the tech sector, where most of our innovation happens. We say that DoD is operating at the speed of bureaucracy when the threat is approaching wartime urgency. DoD structure is optimized for research and development for exquisite, irreplaceable platforms when the future is autonomy, AI and large numbers of cheaper and attritable systems. I know this because I represented the Aerospace Center of Los Angeles in Congress for so many years, where exquisite, irreplaceable satellite platforms were built. And now we know that there is a plethora of commercial platforms that can do many of the same things and offer redundancy. DoD programs like Replicator and the Defense Innovation Unit and the Office of Strategic Capital are great, but they're essentially efforts to work around the larger Pentagon system. 42:00 Eric Edelman: Mr. Wicker, you raised the issue of the foresizing construct in your opening statement, and we, as you noted, found that it is inadequate. I mean, it was written actually before the invasion of Ukraine and before the emergence of this tightening alliance between Russia and China. And we propose that the force needs to be sized, the joint force, in conjunction with US allies and partners, to defend the homeland, but simultaneously be able to deal with threats in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. These are not all the same fights, so different elements of the force would be required in different parts of the globe, but US global responsibilities require a global military response as well as a diplomatic and economic one. 43:20 Eric Edelman: The DoD workforce and the all-volunteer force provide us with a kind of unmatched advantage, but recruiting failures have shrunk the force and have raised serious questions about the sustainability of the all-volunteer force in peacetime, let alone if we had to mobilize for a major conflict or a protracted conflict. 44:30 Jane Harman: Additionally, we think that Congress should revoke the 2023 spending caps and provide real growth — I know Senator Wicker loves this one — for fiscal year 2025 defense and non-defense national security spending that, at a bare minimum, falls within the range recommended by the 2018 NDS Commission. That range was never achieved. Subsequent budgets will require spending that puts defense and other components of national security, other components jointly across government and the tech sector and partners and allies, on a glide path to support efforts commensurate with the US national efforts seen during the Cold War. Jane Harman: We agree on a unanimous basis that the national debt is its own national security challenge. If we want to approach Cold War levels of spending, we need to increase resources and reform entitlement spending. 45:40 Jane Harman: During the Cold War, top marginal income tax rates were above 70% and corporate tax rates averaged 50%. We don't call for those numbers, but we are calling for an increase in resources and point out that interest on the debt is higher than our total top line of defense spending. 49:55 Jane Harman: The notion of public service isn't new as you know, Mr. Chairman, it's been around for years. It was around when I served in Congress, and Congress did not act on any of the proposals that I saw. It is still a way to get all of the public, at the proper age, engaged in understanding the requirements of citizenship. A lot of our young people have no earthly idea, sadly, because they have no civic education, what our government really is and what are the ways to serve. And surely one of the most honorable ways to serve is as a member of the military, you did it, and other members of this committee have done this. And I think that is the way to revive a kind of sense of coherence and patriotism that we are lacking right now. Eric Edelman: We have not really, as a society, talked about the need for national mobilization, but if the worst were to happen and some of the worst scenarios we discuss in our report were to come to pass and were we to face a global conflict, it would require mobilization on the scale of what we did as a nation during World War II. And we haven't done that in a long time. We haven't thought about that in a long time. There are a lot of elements to it, including stockpiling strategic materials, but being able to rapidly bring people into the military, et cetera, I just don't think we are prepared to do it. I think we have to have a national discussion about this, and I think it goes hand in hand with the earlier discussion you had with my colleague about public service and serving the nation. 52:05 Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI): We had in World War II, two years, essentially from September 1st, 1939 to December 7th, 1941, to prepare. And I doubt we'll have two years to prepare in this environment. Eric Edelman: President Putin, in some ways, has done us a bit of a favor by having invaded Ukraine and exposed, as a result, some of the limitations of US defense industrial production, and shown that it's grossly inadequate to provide the equipment, technology, and munitions that the US military and our allies and partners need today, let alone given the demands of a potential future conflict, which might be even more taxing. Jane Harman: I remember being a member of the Defense Policy Board when Jim Mattis was Secretary of Defense, and his piece of advice to us was, let's do everything we can to keep Russia and China apart. Well, oops, that has not happened. And there is this close friendship and collaboration between them. You asked how is it manifested? Well, we see it most at the moment in Ukraine, where Russia was the aggressor violating international law and invading Ukraine, and China is a huge help to Russia in evading our sanctions by buying Russian gas and by its efforts to ship into China material for the war. And then you add in, as you mentioned, Iran and North Korea, which are suppliers of drones and other lethal material to Russia. And this unholy alliance, or I think you call it Alliance of Aggression, is extremely dangerous. Let's remember that both North Korea has nuclear weapons, Iran is at breakout for nuclear weapons, and the other two countries are nuclear countries. And where this goes is, it seems to me, terrifying. And that is, again, why we need to leverage all elements of national power to make sure we deter these countries from acting against us. Eric Edelman: Ukraine offered to give up, and I was involved in some of the diplomacy of this back in the nineties, the nuclear weapons that were left on its territory after the end of the Soviet Union. As a result of that, Ukraine gave them up, but in exchange for assurances from the United States, Russia, Great Britain and France, that its territorial integrity would be recognized along the borderlines that existed before the 2014 seizure of Crimea by Putin, which was a violation of those undertakings. If our assurances in the non-proliferation realm in this instance are shown to be hollow, it will raise questions in the minds of all of our allies about the assurances we've given them, our extended deterrent assurances, whether it's for our allies in Europe, part of our multilateral NATO alliance, or our bilateral allies in East Asia, or our partners, parts of special relationships we've developed in Middle East with Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt and others. So the whole fabric, frankly, of the international order is at risk here, depending on the outcome in Ukraine. And to your point, if Putin is successful in Ukraine, the lesson that Xi Jinping is likely to draw is that he too can be successful in Taiwan or in the East China Sea or the South China Sea. Eric Edelman: Nuclear deterrence, Senator Fisher, is the fundamental on which everything else is built in terms of our national security. It's operating every day. It's not visible to American citizens, but the fact of our nuclear deterrent force, all three legs of the triad being available is the most powerful deterrent that we have to conflict. It's not sufficient, but it is the absolute basis, and we really, I think, agreed with the conclusion our colleagues on the Strategic Posture Commission reached, which is that we have to move forward with alacrity on all the elements of modernization of the nuclear triad. That's the GBSD Sentinel Program, that is the B-21, that is the Ohio replacement class. All of those things have to be accomplished and there are problems. One of the reasons we highlighted education is that some of the problems that GBSD are running into have to do with lack of skilled workers to be able to pour the kind of special reinforced concrete that you need for the new silos for missiles, the new control systems for missiles. We lack welders in the submarine industrial base, as Senator Wicker knows well. So there's a lot that has to be done across the board in order to move forward with nuclear modernization, but it is absolutely fundamental to our ability to deter aggression against our allies and of course against the homeland. Eric Edelman: The force right now is too small, and so we have to grow the force, and that's in the face of the recruiting challenges that we've highlighted in the report that the Army in particular, but also the Navy and the Air Force have faced. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE): And I'm going to interrupt you. Please. Why is it too small? Can you explain in this setting the threats that we are facing when we look at the adversaries that we face and how that has changed over the last decade? Eric Edelman: It's too small, in part because the Department was sizing itself for one conflict. But if you have to be present in three theaters, as we are now, we've got conflicts in two theaters now, if we have a third conflict in the third theater, it's going to require a lot more forces. People talk, for instance, about the Indo-Pacific being largely a Navy and Air Force fight. That's correct, but the logistics that support the Navy and the Air Force will largely be manned by the Army. And so we have to have an Army that is sufficiently large that it can operate in all of these places, potentially simultaneously, because honestly, it is very hard to imagine today a conflict in the Indo-Pacific that doesn't become a global conflict very quickly. Someone asked earlier in the hearing about cooperation between Russia and China. The last time I testified before this committee was two years ago about the so-called "Three Body Problem," Russia and China being both nuclear peers of the United States. And one of the criticisms that was leveled at my colleague, Frank Miller and me, was that, well, there's no evidence that Russia and China are collaborating in the nuclear area. Well, we just saw them flying strategic bombers together up near Alaska, so I don't know what more evidence you want that they're beginning to collaborate in that strategic area. Eric Edelman: If we got into some kind of conflict in the Indo-Pacific, whether it be over Taiwan or the South China Sea or East China Sea, what might Russia do? One thing that comes to mind is take advantage of the separatist movement in Moldova to move on Moldova, a country that's trying to move closer to the European Union and to the West, which would then precipitate additional conflict in Europe, or take advantage of the ethnic Russian speaking minorities in the Baltic states, say Latvia, to initiate a conflict there. How would we manage that? When you raise that question with Department [of Defense] leaders, they basically say, well, that — to go back to the chairman's point earlier — well that would be sort of like World War II or would require national mobilization, and that's correct, but we haven't really taken the next steps to really focus on what that and what a protracted conflict would actually look like. We're optimized to fight very short wars. 1:21:00 Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD): There are five different domains in which our country will be attacked in the future. Air, land, and sea, most people would understand, but space and cyberspace are the new domains, which will precede any attack on the first three. Jane Harman: On cyber, it's a huge threat and I don't think we minimize it in any way. One of the things we might anticipate, for example, is if China decides to annex Taiwan, or whatever euphemism they might use, they might engage in a major cyber attack here first, for which we are under-prepared, a cyber attack of our infrastructure. When I was in Congress, I represented the Port of Los Angeles, which with the Port of Long Beach is the largest container port complex in the country. 50% of our container traffic enters and exits through those ports. There are cranes on the port to move the cargo, and those cranes have Chinese technology. So guess what? Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD): All of which are subject to the possibilities of cyber attack. Jane Harman: Absolutely. We should anticipate that our ports could go down. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD): Throughout our entire society, we find that to be the case though. Jane Harman: I'm agreeing with you and this is devastating. Does the American public understand this? No. Jane Harman: You also mentioned space. Again, something I know something about, since I used to call my district the aerospace center of the universe, where most of our intelligence satellites were made. We are more dependent on space as a country and more vulnerable in space because of that dependency than any other country. Shoring up space, which is one of the threats we address, is absolutely crucial. And it's not just military space, but commercial space. You talked about communication. A lot of how we communicate is through commercial space and think how inconvenienced the public would be if all of a sudden their little devices, which we're all dependent on, didn't work. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL): What's hurting us too is a lot of our government schools, I call 'em government schools because I went in thousands of them while I was coaching, recruiting, and the problem we have is hate that's being taught in a lot of our government schools, towards our country. Why would any young man or woman want to fight for a country that they don't believe in, that they're being taught to hate? It's absolutely amazing to me the direction this country is going. So is there any agreement there, Representative Harman? Jane Harman: There is agreement there. I think hate on both sides is totally destructive. I think the absence of civics education and the absence of institutions that help people understand what patriotism means. We had a conversation about national service, which might be a way to get all of our youth back together. I mean, this country sadly, is in a point where many people say our biggest enemy is us fighting each other. 1:33:35 Jane Harman: One of the problems is the kind of deployments the military does every two years. Moving somewhere where in many cases the spouse works and having to change his or her job every two years is very burdensome. It's also hard on kids, and so that could change. 1:36:20 Eric Edelman: The BRICS was actually kind of an invention of Goldman Sachs. It's not really a serious military organization. Jane Harman: But I think that Congress is somewhat complicit in the way the budget process doesn't work, and this insistence on requirements and oversight rather than on what is the problem set we are solving for, which is how the tech sector thinks. I've been making a comment about DIU, the Defense Innovation Unit, that was set up by the late Secretary Ash Carter, that maybe we should outsource the Pentagon to DIU, which is ably headed by someone named Doug Beck, who had 11 years experience in the private sector, because they know how to think about this. I couldn't agree with you more. The budget of DIU is $1 billion out of $850 billion. Doug Beck says he can leverage that. Sen. Angus King (I-ME): It's technologies that win wars, new technology, right? Jane Harman: I'm in violent agreement with you. He says he can leverage that into $50 billion of commercial investment, but that's still a pittance compared to the kind of change we need to undergo. Not just at the Pentagon, but at the Pentagon lashed up with other government agencies, with the tech sector, and with partners and allies. That is our point about all elements of national power, which will win the next war. 1:42:55 Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): Ambassador Edelman, you spoke with Senator Fischer about the multiple theater force construct. Basically the kind of threats we're planning for, and there's a time when this nation planned to fight two major wars at a time, and I think now we're down to a force that can fight one conflict and protect our homeland, and hopefully scare bad guys everywhere else around the world and not starting war. Is that right? Eric Edelman: That is correct. That's what the 2022 NDS describes. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): So that's what our national Defense Strategy says. Is the current force even capable of doing that, in your opinion? Putting aside what it should be capable of doing, which I'll come to momentarily. Can it even do that? Eric Edelman: I think there are very serious questions about whether the force in being could actually execute the strategy. Jane Harman: The word pivot probably should be retired. I don't think we can leave anywhere. I think we have to have an understanding of the threats against us, not just against regions, everywhere. The whole idea of this multiple force construct is flexibility and having an adequate deterrence so we don't engage in more wars. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV): In your report you talked about the current force structure that we have, and I think you had identified that the Marines are only ones meeting that. We agree with that. What you failed to do is basically identify why we have not, or why you all did not, take up women being in selective service or joining selective service, because women make up 74% of the healthcare and education industry, 52% of financial activities. They're a tremendously strong force. And there's a lot of women I don't want to go up against. I can tell you that in so many ways. I guess my question is simple. Does the commission support women registering for selective service? Jane Harman: Well, I'll speak for myself. I do. I think that women are, a majority of our population, a majority of the talent pool, many of the most talented women serve on this committee. So yes, they should be. We should be. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV): I'll make it clear that what we talked about does not require women to participate in military draft. Jane Harman: I understand. It's registering. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV): Yeah, registering, that's all. Jane Harman: And my answer to that is yes. Eric Edelman: Our view was that you have to be able to deter and potentially defeat adversaries in all three of the main theaters that we have been engaged in since the end of the Second World War, and which we repeatedly engaged in. I mean, there's been no shortage of efforts to try and extricate the United States from the Middle East. The last NDS in 2018 said we should be willing to run risk in the Middle East. I think on October 7th we got a sense, and then again on April 13th, of what running additional risk means in the Middle East. So it's our view that we have to be able to manage to do all of those things. Eric Edelman: The homeland, if there's a conflict, is not going to be a sanctuary anymore. And the first attacks will likely be in the cyber domain, and they will be incredibly disabling for our society, but also for the department. But getting all of the agencies of government that would have a role in all this, because it goes beyond just DoD, it goes beyond just DHS, I mean, it goes to the Department of Transportation, it goes to Commerce. I mean, it's an unbelievably complex issue. And we're only now wrapping our minds around it and it needs a lot more work and attention from the department. Jane Harman: The public is essentially clueless about the massive cyber attacks that could be launched any day by our adversaries, not just nation states, but rogue actors as well. Music by Editing Production Assistance

General CQ Brown, Jr.: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General CQ Brown, Jr. is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's highest-ranking military officer. As Chairman, he is the principal military advisor to the President of the United States, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council. Prior to this role, he was the first Black officer in American history to head one of our military branches as Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. Time Magazine has named him one of the top 100 most influential people in the world. Effective leaders discover how to best use their strengths, and of course, champion the strengths of others. In this conversation, General Brown and I discuss ow he uses his strengths and how he brings those strengths into people development, high-level meetings, and problem-solving. Key Points If you are well below average at something, don't spend time and effort trying to improve. Instead, partner with others who have it as a superpower. Give people work that is aligned with their strengths. Fight for feedback, especially in a top job. Find people who will give it to you straight. Listen well so they keep offering it. Leverage your strengths in communication. For General Brown, using his engineering training to solve problems and using metaphors and analogies to create clarity. Have the meeting after the meeting in the meeting. Tell people where your strengths might get in the way. For General Brown, highlighting that silence that could appear intimidating is often him just listening and thinking. Related Episodes Leadership in the Midst of Chaos, with Jim Mattis (episode 440) Your Leadership Motive, with Patrick Lencioni (episode 505) Engaging People Through Change, with Cassandra Worthy (episode 571) How to Connect with People Better, with Charles Duhigg (episode 670) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Karl “Gus” Gustavson served in the US military as a Navy SEAL and as a member of the elite SEAL Team Six. Back in 2001, Gus was attending college when planes crashed into the World Trade Center. Gus dropped out of college, joined the military, and then served our country for 22 years, completing multiple tours of duty in the Middle East. And now a quick word about SEAL Team Six. Most information concerning SEAL Team Six is classified. Their activities generally aren't commented on by the Department of Defense or the White House. But they are the U.S. Military's primary Tier 1 special mission unit, and are responsible for carrying out the most complex, classified, and dangerous missions, as directed by the President of the United States or the Secretary of Defense. In this episode we discuss the following: Over and over again, Gus saw that his leaders were willing to do everything that they asked their men to do. Secretary Mattis taught the SEALs to ask three questions when making a decision: Does this decision make us more efficient? Does it make us more effective? And does it make us a more lethal fighting machine? Gus noticed that the best leaders delivered information clearly, concisely, and in a timely manner. “Here's the info you need to know. Here's what you're going to do with it. Now go execute.” I was impressed by how Gus controlled his thoughts, whether in combat, on a dive, or even during BUDs. He focused only on the things he could control, in manageable chunks. Sometimes that meant that all he was thinking about was how he could make it through the next hour, or just make it to chow. As a member of SEAL Team Six, Gus is the most elite of the elite. And yet the lessons he shared are lessons that we can all apply. Lessons on leadership, decision making, communication, and mental toughness. All simple, yet profound, practical ideas.    Connect on Social Media: X: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

Monday morning, in advance of the NATO Summit in Washington DC, Russian missiles ferociously tore through a children's cancer hospital in Kyiv-sending a brutal reminder to the world. Russia is not sparing anyone. Putin is proceeding to murder innocent children while the world watches. This is why veterans recently started American Veterans for Ukraine and it's why so many other people have felt the call to serve. And it's why we're not going to look away on this show. We're not going to stop covering this terrible conflict, until Ukraine achieves victory. Tim Mak (@timkmak) is a leader dedicated to that victory. Tim is founder and editor of The Counteroffensive. Follow them now. He's an independent, investigative journalist with a background in politics, national security, and emergency medicine. He was there in Kyiv as the attacks unfolded. He rushed to the hospital to report on the carnage. And he joins us between power outages from Ukraine now. After this week's deadly attack, he's the perfect independent voice to hear from. And our host Paul Rieckhoff tears into the collapse of support for Joe Biden, why the most recent politicians to abandon Biden are so important, the squishiness from the White House on Ukraine, why Jim Mattis is back in the news, why American Generals have so often been President, JFK Jr's latest conspiracy theory pushing (and snake catching!), why LeBron is what American politics should be, and why the Olympics are so important to America (and Americans) right now.  Every episode of Independent Americans is independent light to contrast the heat of other politics and news shows. It's content for the 51% of Americans that now call themselves independent. Always with a unique focus on national security, foreign affairs and military and vets issues. This is another pod to help you stay vigilant. Because vigilance is the price of democracy. In these trying times especially, Independent Americans is your trusted place for independent news, politics and inspiration.  Previous Appearances: Episode 270 - March 7, 2024 Episode 223 - May 18, 2023 -Get extra content, connect with guests, events, merch discounts and support this show that speaks truth to power by joining us on Patreon.  -Watch video of Paul and Tim's full conversation. -Check #LookForTheHelpers on Twitter. And share yours.  -Join the fight at American Veterans for Ukraine.  -If you're an Independent VETERAN especially, check out Independent Veterans of America.  -Check out the VA website piece about all the American presidents who've been veterans that Paul talked about.  -Find us on social media or www.IndependentAmericans.us. -Hear other Righteous pods like The Firefighters Podcast with Rob Serra, Uncle Montel - The OG of Weed and B Dorm.  Independent Americans is powered by Righteous Media. America's next great independent media company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's special bonus episode, we sit down with Alleigh Marré, Founder and Executive Director of American Parents Coalition. Before we jump into what her organization does, we get a little background on her political career and involvement in areas of public policy. Alleigh Marré was a special assistant and Chief of Staff to the 24th Secretary of the Air Force. Prior, Marré served as the National Spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services. She also served as a communications advisor with the Presidential Transition team managing the public relations effort for the successful Senate confirmation of Secretary Wilson and also Defense Secretary James Mattis. As a self-described mother of three with one on the way, she found herself to be in the middle of this cultural war where elements of radical Leftist thinking have decided they are going to go after our children. From social media, to school indoctrination to reading lists suggested by Scholastic or the school library, the Left are going after children as early as 5 years old. When she started American Parents Coalition, Alleigh was determined to reclaim parental authority because she recognized nothing should stand between a parent and their child — not the government, not schools, not the medical establishment. Her organization wants to empower parents to determine how to raise their children and provide practical resources for doing so. As we wind down, the one thing made clear is parents need to be actively involved in every step of their children's lives. They need to engage in real-life conversations and need to be ever vigilant for the forces looking to deny them their parental rights. Take a moment to rate and review the show and then share the episode on social media. You can find me on Facebook, X, Instagram, GETTR and TRUTH Social by searching for The Alan Sanders Show. You can also support the show by visiting my Patreon page!

Listen to Zooming In at The UnPopulist in your favorite podcast app: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | RSS | YouTubeLandry Ayres: Welcome to Zooming In at The UnPopulist. I'm Landry Ayres.As the 2024 election draws nearer and Donald Trump's second-term plans come into greater focus, critics of his, across the ideological spectrum, are torn as to whether Trump's movement is continuous with historical fascism. Does the dreaded “f”-word apply to him? Or is it an unhelpful exaggeration?On today's episode, The UnPopulist senior editor Berny Belvedere reconnects with his former Arc Digital colleague and international relations professor at the University of Illinois, Nicholas Grossman. The two discuss the propriety of using historically-weighty labels in our public discourse today, where to situate Trump within the not-so-grand tradition of authoritarianism, and break down how the Heritage Foundation-powered Project 2025 would fuel further democratic backsliding. We hope you enjoy.A transcript of today's podcast appears below. It has been edited for flow and clarity.Berny Belvedere: Nick, do you believe terms like “fascism,” “Nazism,” “communism” are overused today? If so, why do you think they are?Nicholas Grossman: So, in a way they're overused and also not. “Nazi” came to be a word that just meant bad, the thing that we all agree on is bad, and can be used in very serious contexts and comedic contexts—like the Soup Nazi in Seinfeld, and all the running jokes and memes of Godwin's law and “everything I don't like on the internet is Hitler” and anything else along those lines. So people do overuse it. But also, with “Nazi” in particular, it can reach a level where people then think that any lesson from Nazi Germany or any lesson from the 20th century more broadly is ipso facto wrong, that there's something inherently wrong about comparing the right-wing nationalist-populist movement that won an election and then lost power and then attempted a putsch and then reconsolidated and ran for power again, to America's right-wing nationalist-populist movement that won an election and then lost power by election and then attempted a putsch and then sought power again. That seems pretty ridiculous that you couldn't connect any of those.As for “fascism,” with thinking of it as this thing nearly everybody agrees was wrong that happened in the 20th century, when people try to apply it more loosely to things that are, say, authoritarian but not necessarily fascist … that could reduce the power of the word. But I think at this point, people using the word like Joe Biden used “semi-fascism,” to describe Trump's authoritarian project … I don't think is unreasonable.Berny: So when Biden used “semi-fascism,” how is it that that qualifier, “semi,” managed to successfully avoid the trap of requiring a perfect historical parallel while at the same time bringing in a term that has enough connotative heft to meet the gravity of Trump and MAGA's offenses? How is it that a word as simple as “semi” is able to successfully get us out of this jam?Nicholas: You know, that's a really good point. I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but it does look like the “semi” modifier has threaded that needle where it's a way of indicating, “Okay, I'm not saying this is literally Hitler and that we are headed for World War III and another Holocaust.” I mean, to pick a kind of obvious example: When Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, there is explicit calls for genocide. In Trump's largely ghostwritten books, you don't see anything like the final solution for the Jews. That runs into the problem of, “No, you're being hyperbolic.” So “semi” makes it where, “I'm not saying it's exactly that. I'm saying it bears enough resemblance to that that we should think of it as serious and bad.” And given that I and many others do think of it as serious and bad, and in particular as anti-democratic and authoritarian, the “semi” adds a way to use a word that connects with a lot of people without running into those, “So you're saying this is literally Hitler” counterarguments.Berny: As an international relations professor who has taught classes on terrorism, you've argued convincingly that misapplications of that word, “terrorism,” can have real consequences and that therefore applying the word well, in a more narrowly defined way, is really important. Is the issue with misapplications of the word “Nazi” or “fascism” on that same level, or not really?Nicholas: You're right that I'm a stickler on the word “terrorism,” that it's something that I teach and have taught for a while, and I take issue with a common usage of it to be basically a synonym of “bad,” a synonym of “thing I don't like.” If you Google “Republican terrorists” or “Democratic terrorists,” you get millions of hits. I think it is important for us to be able to really understand that “terrorism” refers specifically to violent political actions targeted against non-combatants by non-state actors. It's important for conceptual clarity, but in particular for developing counter-strategies and executing them well.I tend not to use “fascism” as well. I stick more to something like “authoritarianism” because the usefulness about it is: Trump's project is clearly authoritarian and there's no ambiguity about it. He's calling for the termination of the Constitution, saying, “I'll be a dictator”—he's quite open about it. You could have judged it from actions, but also now from statements. Whereas with something like the word “fascism,” that leads to debates that are potentially distracting. So I think it's a mistake to really fixate on the word, to be very insistent upon it.My concern with the word “terrorism” is not throwing it around so often and so loosely that it loses its power. And I feel that way about “fascism” as well—as a word that we shouldn't throw around loosely. I'll give you a recent example of this. When some people were reacting to police shutting down various campus protests, some cases seemed, to me and to many others, like an excessive use of force, just the sheer number of manpower and police presence that was being used. I saw comments along the lines of, “Why would you be concerned about fascism? Fascism is clearly already here.” And, no, that's really not it. So, the police arrested a bunch of people and, if any of them are charged with a crime, they'll have a chance to defend themselves in court. And that maybe is bad—certainly somebody can criticize it—but it's also not fascism. There's a danger of a “boy who cried wolf” effect where, if you're constantly calling anything you don't like this maximal bad word, then when something that is actually like that thing comes around, people are less inclined to believe you.Then again, the lesson of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is not that wolves aren't real and you don't need to worry about them.Berny: We're going to focus on more than just the term “fascism” here in this discussion, but I want to stay on the term for just a sec because it is a prominent issue in our discourse that keeps popping up.So, we humans tend to be incorrigibly committed to clarifying our world by describing it, by capturing it linguistically. But there's an inherent limitation to doing that that seems to always rear its head. Calling something a “Nazi” or “neo-Nazi” initiative helps to situate it within a particular historical movement. But the downside to that is historical episodes, by their very nature, are in the minds of many people tethered to particular circumstances, the ones that they temporally existed in. So history gives us these movements that have a fixed shape. And that can somewhat frustrate new applications of those labels.The part that a lot of people are underestimating is just how incredibly powerful institutional authority is. This idea of, it's norms all the way down … the idea that powerful people should follow the law is a norm. It is only a law to the extent that the people in power enforce it. And if the people in power, just enough of the people in power, don't enforce it, then it might as well not be a law. — Nicholas GrossmanSo to continue with the Nazi example, when some form of discourse today, whether it's a meme or a trope, or some rhetoric that a politician uses, gets characterized as “Nazi” or “neo-Nazi,” skeptics who don't detect a full-blown, genocidal antisemitism in that discourse will suggest that the “Nazi” label is overblown or being unfairly applied. I think the same thing happens, though at a lower scale, with “fascism.”My own take is that proponents and skeptics alike of these terms have in mind different aspects of those movements when they apply the labels or when they hear the labels applied. So when Trump gets called a “fascist” or a “neo-fascist,” the idea isn't necessarily that he's literally continuing Mussolini's project or that he's done the same exact things Franco did in Spain or whatever. Sometimes it means that. But sometimes I suspect the term is applied because a commentator or analyst just wants to note that Trump has similar impulses or inclinations or beliefs. The idea isn't that there's a perfect or near perfect match between the concrete actions Trump has taken and the ones past fascists have taken—because those will always be indexed to a particular time horizon. I think the idea, instead, is that Trump's posture toward democracy, toward the nation, the individual's role within the nation, and so on, is meaningfully similar to past fascist leaders and how they viewed things.If institutions exist today that reliably frustrate Trump's ability to carry out a more full-bodied fascistic reign, more so than they ever did for someone like Mussolini, that doesn't suggest, and it shouldn't suggest, that Trump lacks fascistic tendencies. Because, of course, that's just something external. Trump has routinely praised Putin and Kim and the way the societies they rule over are organized around their whims and wishes. The fact that he can't achieve that level of compulsory, fawning admiration here doesn't mean that he doesn't hold those yearnings.Does the fact that at any given time some discourse participants may have in mind tendencies and beliefs, whereas others have in mind concrete actions and historical parallels, and that therefore there's always going to be a talking past each other dynamic, does that suggest that historical terms like “fascism” are more unhelpful than helpful and should be retired?Nicholas: It can. I think that makes a lot of sense. This is also the purpose of those qualifiers like “semi.” One that's especially popular when you talk about things like political ideologies is “neo”—like a new version that's kind of like the one in the past. That tends to be how people thread the needle.But I do think that you're right in the tied-to-historical-circumstances aspect of it. And that also makes it where it is not necessarily the best or clearest form of communication or of persuasion because it can send some people down a rabbit hole of, “Let's compare that circumstance in history to this today,” whereas somebody who is using it might want to say, “These are similar”—or, often in some cases, it's a way of almost saying, “I think this is really bad.” So maybe a word like “authoritarian” doesn't have a real kick; “fascist,” “Nazi,” you know, has more of a kick and maybe is more likely to get people to pay attention—but it also, as you say, can make it more likely for people to shut off or to resist it. That's why I tend to say “anti-democracy” or “authoritarian,” or a more political science term, “democratic backsliding,” because that is unambiguously what is happening and it doesn't carry that same “historical circumstance” baggage.Berny: So, what is fascism, historically?Nicholas: So there's some debate about that, which again is one of the reasons why maybe it is not the most politically useful, or I guess discourse-useful, word. Historically, people place the origins in Italy, with Mussolini as the first real practitioner. When I was studying this, the person that I read the most was an Italian named Alfredo Rocco. He said that there were a couple of central principles: there's a hyper-nationalism, and an ethnic nationalism. Organicism, which is the sense that cell is to body as individual is to state … in other words, you give over everything to the state, as if you don't personally matter. Belief in superiority, then also militarism and foreign aggression. There are a number of other points that people like Umberto Eco have listed.There is a kind of later argument, and one that I find pretty persuasive, that fascism is almost a kind of anti-politics in that it is fixated on the past, often a fictional past, one in which there's not only nostalgia but trying to reclaim past glory and is a rejection in a way of the very idea of politics in the sense of we debate and argue about various pieces of evidence and facts and then come up with things like what might be the best solution or what do we agree would be a better solution rather than a worse solution. Whereas fascism often is much more an appeal to feelings and a fundamental rejection of the value of truth itself.Berny: I want to shift to a description of actions that can be categorized as fascistic, although if you just use a pure description of them, as you were suggesting earlier, you could also analyze them purely on their own merits. You were talking about how you prefer the word “authoritarianism” and “assaults on democracy.” In your latest for Arc Digital, you write that “American institutions are hanging by a thread.” And you argue that a model of instantaneous authoritarianism or revolutionary illiberalism, or as you put it, “a dramatic seizure of power,” is kind of the wrong model to expect America to fall prey to. Instead, you argue that if authoritarianism arrives in the U.S., it will do so via a more incremental process of democratic backsliding. Can you expound on what that is?Nicholas: Sure. That's a term that I think is very valuable in describing what's happening. So a lot of people, when they picture authoritarianism, they think of—and probably a lot of 20th-century takeovers were a big part of this—something like a big dramatic scene, something out of a movie. Think Mussolini or Hitler, the Iranian Revolution in 1979, or the Russian revolution, communist revolution—any of these big dramatic moments in which somebody seizes power and then holds onto it and then executes their authoritarianism and asserts their power throughout the country. What is more likely to happen in the United States, what in fact has been happening decently more to some democracies in the 21st century, is this idea of democratic backsliding, which is the process by which a leader gains power legally, legitimately via election, and then proceeds to abuse power while in office, to erode rule of law, erode checks and balances, try to put themselves above the law, and give themselves unfair advantages in elections.An egregious example of this, one that was backsliding from an already low baseline, is Putin's Russia. That Putin just got reelected—I don't know if you can hear my air quotes through the mic—in what was very clearly not an actual election, and yet they went through the motions and he claimed a popular mandate from it. Earlier, when Russia's laws had required him to step down, he just reworked the offices of president and prime minister, gave himself the prime minister job, gave his flunky, Dmitry Medvedev, the president job and continued running the country until that term was up and then just became president again.In the 21st century, we've seen versions of the sort of democratic backsliding that the U.S. should be afraid of in Turkey, India, Israel, Hungary, Poland, Peru, and a few others. Hungary, in particular, is the model for Trump in that the leader there, Viktor Orbán, won via election and then proceeded to do things like force just about all independent media outlets to go into this new kind of umbrella corporation which he had a flunky run and then change their commentary from sometimes critical of the government to basically government propaganda. An example of what happened in Poland was, they didn't like some of the judicial rulings, so they made a law that said that the maximum age for a Supreme Court justice or their equivalent is set at just right below the people that they wanted to get rid of. Then they got rid of those. And then they said, “Actually, the age can be different,” and then appointed their own people.We can also see that that sort of democratic backsliding has happened in part of the United States: with the failure of reconstruction after the Civil War and the imposition of Jim Crow—that people in those southern states did get power via elections and then you abuse that power to reduce the ability to vote and generally repress black people. So they still had elections, but they weren't free and fair, especially not in the way that the post-Civil War amendments tried to create and which the U.S. didn't really have until the Civil Rights acts.If he manages to get power again, there is zero reason to believe that he wouldn't try to do the thing that he literally did last time that he and his team have been spending over three years planning for, to try to fix the problems of that so they could do it again more successfully. I think there's a lot of naïveté about how somebody would stop it. Well, who? Congress? Why? — Nicholas GrossmanWhere we are hanging by a thread is: Trump has managed to already break through a lot of those institutional barriers that separate democracy from authoritarianism. And one of the things that a lot of people tend to misunderstand about this, and this also goes back to the glorious takeover vision of authoritarianism, is that authoritarians don't actually need to be strategic and good at this for it to work. This was a point that Hannah Arendt made in The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951 that really resonates today, which is that incompetence can be an asset to wannabe authoritarians because it ends up getting competent people to quit and then opens up more spots for loyalists and makes it that they don't have this fundamental hesitancy when it comes to, “But, I'm violating a norm or I'm violating a law.”That can create a lot of the democratic backsliding. The United States saw that with Trump beating both impeachments. Why would he be concerned about Congress? And if he does manage to get reelected after being charged with a number of very serious crimes, including crimes associated with a coup attempt to overthrow the Constitution, if he then gets national power anyway, after all of that, there is no reason to expect that he will be bound or restricted by the law at all because he clearly does not respect it himself. At that point, there will be nobody left to potentially enforce it against him.Berny: In that same Arc piece, you made a list of the battles Trump has waged against our democratic institutions, and you put the number at nine. One of the battles that he's waged includes that he's violated internal rules of the executive branch. Can you give me an example?Nicholas: That was one of the easiest for him to violate because it was within the executive branch and the president is the elected head of the executive branch, so legal authority in the executive branch flows from the president. Just about everything you think of as government, besides the courts and Congress, is executive branch. So there's this immense power. And yet: America has a president, not a king. Presidents are subject to rule of law. As Teddy Roosevelt famously put it: “No man is above the law.”In response to Watergate, there were a number of reforms to try to create some internal restrictions on the power of the presidency—an example of this was to create the position of Inspector General and put it in a variety of executive branch departments. The press tends to refer to these people as the internal watchdog of whatever, and Trump, because he was doing things that was tripping these wires and getting these internal watchdogs to publicize the violations that he was doing, he then removed the inspectors general from Health and Human Services and the Defense Department and the intelligence community, among some others. And the only purpose of those positions is to monitor the executive branch, make sure that everybody's following the law, and if they're not following the law, report it, especially to Congress. So by removing them and either not replacing them or putting some loyalist hack in their place, that meant greater ability to get away with more.The Mueller investigation was another example of this in what finally ended it, at least the potential threat it posed to Trump, was he got a new attorney general, William Barr, and Barr proceeded to mislead the public about what the Mueller report had actually said. And he set a lot of the narratives and then he shut down further investigation of the president. That was an example where the executive branch was investigating itself for some malfeasance by its own leaders, and yet he was able to shut that down in part because it is entirely within the executive branch. So those were the first barriers that he got through. And the third, the one that ended up then bringing in congressional oversight, was when Trump tried to extort Ukraine by secretly withholding military aid and saying to the Ukrainian president Zelenskyy that he would release the aid if Zelenskyy did him a favor by lying and manufacturing an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, which Trump would then use as a basis for lies for his reelection campaign. That got caught by a whistleblower, someone on the National Security Council, who went through the proper procedures that got that information to Congress. That's what led to the first impeachment.So it was Trump's repeated efforts to break through various internal executive branch controls that eventually got the attention of Congress, which is a bigger barrier, but he burst through that too.Berny: Another battle he waged was against the transfer of power itself—a key presidential tradition within American history. He met that process, that idea, with violence rather than with peaceful acceptance. Do you consider that one to be the most dangerous, or is there one that's worse than that?Nicholas: I don't know if I can pick out an individual worst one because it's cumulative. My first instinct was to say, “No, the worst one is the current one against the legal system.” But a lot of what the legal system is trying to hold them accountable for was the coup attempt, which grew out of a violation of bunch of norms. So if I had to pick one, I'd still say the January 6 coup attempt, where introducing that level of political violence into American politics, making it the first in all of modern U.S. history to not have a peaceful transfer of power—it was literally not peaceful.The one about post-election norms … I think it's easy to underrate that one. Norms, because they're not codified, they're not laws, they're not written down, sometimes it doesn't feel like violating something important, but those are the ways that we do things. And if somebody then does it egregiously differently, violates those norms and gets away with it, or manages to even succeed with it, then what they've done is create a new normal, new expectations.With every previous losing presidential candidate, as soon as the election was called, shortly after they gave a concession speech. Hillary Clinton did it the morning after networks called the election for Trump in 2016. Probably the biggest example of this was Al Gore, who pursued legal means. I'm not criticizing Trump here for doing things like filing lawsuits to try to question some aspects of the election. Some of those were in bad faith, probably all of those were in bad faith, but still it is a legal measure. Others have done it too. But what Gore did was, after the Supreme Court made a ruling about the Florida recounts that resulted in George W. Bush becoming president, Gore publicly accepted the results of the election. And then, because he was vice president, he was in the Mike Pence role of being the presiding officer at the Senate that was officially acknowledging the Electoral College votes. And he gaveled in his own loss. So that was the norm.The other part of that was an outgoing president brings the new president-elect to the White House to peacefully transfer power, to begin the transfer. Obama did that with Trump—invited him to the White House, hosted him as the president-elect shortly after Hillary conceded. Every previous president did this. George H.W. Bush famously lost reelection and wrote a—what is now publicized, what was then private—letter of encouragement to Bill Clinton that basically amounted to, “I didn't want you to be president, but now that you are, I really wish you the best. You're the leader of our country and I love our country and I want you to do really well. Here are some suggestions.”That was just the way we always did things. By Trump incessantly lying about the election and conspiring to overthrow it, and after exhausting legitimate means, turning to illegitimate and illegal ones, and then, of course, after all of this, just hammering the Big Lie, the “up is down” lie, about the election results over and over and over again, and turning it into this kind of loyalty litmus test for Republicans that want to seek office or just want to speak in public about this stuff, has made it now where most Republicans just expect that challenging an election result and insisting that if you lost you actually won is just something you do now and that that is normal. Then a lot of the mainstream press treats it as, “Well, that's just another political strategy” and talks about it in these kind of horse-race sports language type of terms as opposed to, “This was a egregious violation of the most core principle of constitutional democracy and not something that we should treat lightly at all.”Granted, a lot of people didn't. Liz Cheney is a good example of somebody who did not treat it lightly. Nevertheless, it has become more normalized and it's reached a point where just about everybody expects that, if Trump loses the 2024 election, there will be similar claims that it's illegitimate, that it doesn't count, that it should be overthrown, or any other version of that. And that alone is something that is bad for the country, bad for democracy, and I don't really know how we fix.Berny: What is Project 2025?Nicholas: Project 2025 comes out of the Heritage Foundation think tank, and it is essentially a blueprint for democratic backsliding, for an internal authoritarian takeover after winning election. The biggest provision along those lines that is in it is a plan to purge the federal government of people who were hired because of their qualifications, not because of their political loyalty—people who are fundamentally loyal to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump personally. People have to swear to honor the Constitution. You don't swear to the president. The oath is to the Constitution—to protect and defend the Constitution. The plan is to get all those people out of the federal government. We're talking literally thousands of federal employees. That amounts to removing the barriers that thwarted Trump's last coup attempt.Where he ultimately failed was not enough people went along with the lies—Mike Pence being the most prominent one. So, Project 2025 is best understood as a plan to get anybody who followed the Constitution out and replace them with people who think that Donald Trump being in power is the end all, be all and are perfectly fine with breaking the law about that.That goes back to the Hannah Arendt line about you don't really need to be competent to do this. If anything, having competent people, smart people, there makes them less likely to be blind loyalists. So, they don't even need to necessarily be good at it. The first coup attempt failed, because it was haphazard, something that Trump and Co. came up with on the fly. Their plan was to win the election, and if not, lose it by one state, probably Pennsylvania, and then try to throw the count in Pennsylvania into chaos. But they weren't able to do that because Biden won most of the swing states, with Arizona and Georgia being two, plus Michigan and Wisconsin.There's a danger of a “boy who cried wolf” effect where, if you're constantly calling anything you don't like this maximal bad word, then when something that is actually like that thing comes around, people are less inclined to believe you. Then again, the lesson of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is not that wolves aren't real and you don't need to worry about them. — Nicholas GrossmanNow, they've spent the last three-and-a-half years stewing about that failure and trying to figure out ways to make it work next time. Project 2025 is already on the way. So whereas Trump came into office last time—and this is pretty typical of wannabe authoritarians in their first term—and didn't really know what he was doing, didn't really know how the system works, took some time to learn it as is fairly typical of populist leaders, he hired a number of establishment figures that the press called “the adults in the room.”—think, for example, Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Those were ones who were not willing to put Trump above the Constitution. Gradually, over the course of his term, accelerating in his last year after he beat the first impeachment, they started removing a number of these people and replacing them with loyalists. So now you've got people at the Heritage Foundation who have been working on vetting people to make sure that they are loyal to Trump and his authoritarian project rather than to the Constitution and American democracy. They are ready to hit the ground running with a lot of these democratic backsliding plans.Also connected to this are policy ideas like abortion bans and rounding up all the illegal immigrants and deporting them, which is a good one to describe how this would actually go because it's not that they would necessarily succeed at finding 11 million people and removing them from the country. It's that such a project is so massive and, because they are not the most competent people when it comes to policy execution, even trying would be chaotic and would lead to a lot of federal officers, probably state officers, and vigilantes going after people that they think look illegal, meaning just basically Latino, rather than, say, carefully checking everybody's papers and making this more of a rule of law effort. But that project couldn't happen without having enough of the people in place that would carry it out, people who react to it with, “Yes, sir, absolutely,” or in a bloodthirsty nature of being excited to do it.Berny: I want to bring the word “fascist” back in here for a sec. The threat of political violence can sometimes be just as effective as political violence itself. Figures associated with Project 2025 have called on Trump, if he gets reelected, to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one. Can this sort of preemptive reliance on police or military force in order to quell popular demonstrations of dissent be characterized as fascistic or semi-fascistic, in your view? Nicholas: I think so. That's one where I would use the label of authoritarian, because you don't necessarily have those ethno-nationalist aspects to it, though I do think the rounding up of a whole bunch of brown people and putting them in camps, yeah, you can safely call that fascist.Berny: You've written that if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election and becomes president again, American democracy is done. Why are you so definitive about America's prospects if Trump wins again?Nicholas: Because the record of national leaders who attempt a coup, fail, and then get power again is really bad for democracy. And because I think that people are—not everybody, of course, but quite a few Americans—stuck in a “it can't happen here” complacency, or just a natural tendency to think that the future will look like the past, that there isn't going to be any sort of drastic change. Also, they did see him in office and see that America did not turn into a dictatorship—so, you know, why necessarily would that happen in a second term?That gets it backwards in that it's the second term when democratic backsliding tends to go really bad. Turkey and India are both good examples of this, because then you had a leader who is not uncertain at all, who has shown their true colors. And we have in Trump's case very serious, just egregious, violations of the law.To put this in perspective: the trial in New York for fraud, to cover up hush money payments that he paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, is the sort of thing that's being treated as trivial. If it were at any other person at any other time in the past, it would be one of the biggest scandals in all of presidential history. It's the sort of thing that you'd have to say is at least on par with something like Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, and yet it pales in comparison to the charges that he's facing for things like stealing, retaining, and exposing very high-level national-security secrets, and of attempting to overthrow the government, conspiring to defraud the United States out of its presidential election, conspiring to defraud Georgia out of its presidential vote.If he manages to get power again, there is zero reason to believe that he wouldn't try to do the thing that he literally did last time that he and his team have been spending over three years planning for, to try to fix the problems of that so they could do it again more successfully. I think there's a lot of naïveté about how somebody would stop it. Well, who? Congress? Why? He got impeached but didn't get kicked out of office because Republicans protected him even when he caused a violent attack on their own building. So, in that case, Congress is toothless. He'll be protected legally from anything. And if he manages to beat the criminal justice system, then anytime somebody says, “That's a violation of the law,” you can just say, “I don't care. What are they going to do about it?”The part that a lot of people are underestimating is just how incredibly powerful institutional authority is. This idea of, it's norms all the way down … the idea that powerful people should follow the law is a norm. It is only a law to the extent that the people in power enforce it. And if the people in power, just enough of the people in power, don't enforce it, then it might as well not be a law. So the inflection point is the 2024 election. If they get power, they are not going to willingly give it up and they're not going to be checked while using it because they have already burst through those barriers, all those checks and balances. They've already beaten them—or, at least, if he gets reelected, would have already beaten them.Some people get into a bit of a fantasy: “Well, it'll be like the past in that we'll work hard in the midterms and then Congress will check him.” But why? Or, some that I've seen, especially from more radical people on the left, that there'll be all these great protests. You mentioned the Insurrection Act—I don't think Americans have really absorbed what it looks like when the government sends the military to fire on protesters. We already saw Trump do a bit of this in his first term in the infamous photo-op at Lafayette Square in DC in which had security services violently clear an area so that Trump could go through to this church and take a photo. Incidentally, he took it with the Bible upside down, but you know, still.There were also these weird paramilitary forces that showed up in Portland, Oregon that were throwing people into vans that were federal officers, but unmarked and turned out to be this force cobbled together from border patrol and others. That was basically a separate, semi-legal force. So having seen this already, and then having that validation of reelection despite fighting the law, despite not following the law and violating the law, there is a decent chance that would do it.This doesn't mean that every single member of the U.S. military is going to go, “Yes, sir. I'm going to violate my oath and shoot people.” But some probably will. Certainly some will out of a sense of, “Look, this is the commander in chief. That's what he's saying.” Some will because they like it and because they agree with him. The two possibilities, then, are either the security forces and the military honor the order and then they violently put down these protests in a way that modern America at least has never seen or that causes some sort of split in the military, which is also devastating and would break the country.This was a point that Hannah Arendt made in The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951 that really resonates today, which is that incompetence can be an asset to wannabe authoritarians because it ends up getting competent people to quit and then opens up more spots for loyalists and makes it that they don't have this fundamental hesitancy when it comes to, ‘But, I'm violating a norm or I'm violating a law.' — Nicholas GrossmanBerny: Imagine that we stripped our vocabulary of labels and just used descriptors. Imagine that historians all formed a pact to no longer use labels and just lay out what each historical movement and figures have done. And so we get to a point where, with historical distance, we read descriptions of what Mussolini and other fascist movements in the 20th century believed and carried out, and we get descriptions of what Trump in the 21st century believed and carried out. What do you think would be the biggest difference in those descriptions? And then what would be the element with the most overlap between them?Nicholas: The most overlap is democratic backsliding: an elected leader abusing power to gain unchecked authority and then use that to violate our various core tenets of democracy up to and including individual rights and future elections.For the least parallel, maybe actually not as sound as it used to be, but the part where it's most different is in the aggressive military force abroad, the desire for conquest. You have a number of these historical cases where the new leader goes to conquer some foreign people, usually some people that they consider lesser, racially or in some other way, where they consider themselves the rightful masters. We talked about the Europeans a lot, but you can see this with Imperial Japan in the 20th century.With Trump and the MAGA movement, something that has caught my attention is increasing discussions of invading Mexico, of using military force against Mexico, usually tied up not in a desire for conquest and domination per se … it's usually more to stop illegal immigration, or to stop drug dealers. But if they had actually thought any of it through, it amounts to a U.S. war with Mexico. The Mexican government already works with the United States in a coordinated fashion on things like dealing with drug traffickers—maybe not as much or as well as some would like, but nevertheless there is a decent amount of coordination. So, if they actually tried to go through with this, Mexico would resist it and that could create really serious problems spiraling from there. But I'd say the main focus of the MAGA movement is a lot more domestic and really want to dominate and repress groups of Americans that they don't like, rather than to be violently dominant and repressive of bordering countries as well. So I would not expect that the U.S. is going to gear up for a military invasion of Canada. That would be lower on my list of worries, whereas something like an authoritarian power within the United States that focus on domestic enemies is decently more likely.Berny: Nick, thank you so much.Nicholas: Thanks, Berny.Landry: Thank you for listening to Zooming In, a project of The UnPopulist. For more like this, make sure to subscribe for free at theunpopulist.net. Until next time.The UnPopulist invites interesting thinkers from across the political spectrum to foster a wide-ranging and thoughtful conversation to advance liberal values, including thinkers it may—or may not—agree with.© The UnPopulist 2024Follow The UnPopulist on: X, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

Gen. Jim Mattis, the former secretary of defense during the start of the Trump administration, made a special appearance Wednesday at DefenseTalks. And while he touched on a number of things, from leadership to politics and the military's adoption of emerging technology, he made some pretty critical comments about the state of the nation amid the upcoming election and its vulnerability to influence operations from key adversaries like Russia and China. Mattis said that while election systems and voting infrastructure are perhaps the most secure they've ever been against cyberattacks, the bigger problem is influence operations, calling the U.S. the most vulnerable he's ever seen it in his lifetime to foreign influence and a lucrative target. During the on-stage interview, Mattis also touched on the nation's cyber defenses, throwing water on the idea from some to form an independent U.S. military cyber service for foreign operations. However, he did call for a new model to protect the homeland's critical infrastructure from cyber attacks, namely by sharing some of the resources housed within the U.S. military and NSA with DHS in emergency scenarios. But, Mattis said because the military doesn't have authority to issue orders over matters happening within the U.S. and its infrastructure, there would need to be a civilian law enforcement leader — he proposed the FBI — who would step in to lead response to a major cyberattack on the homeland.

Michael Bungay Stanier: The Coaching Habit Michael Bungay Stanier is the author of eight books, including The Coaching Habit*, which has sold more than a million copies and is the best-selling book on coaching this century. He is the founder Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that's trained thousands of people around the world to be more coach-like. His TEDx Talk on Taming Your Advice Monster has been viewed more than a million times. One of the most common desires leaders espouse is wanting to get better at helping others grow. One great way to do that is to become more coach-like. In this conversation, Michael and I explore how we can do better at building this skill. Key Points Care deeply for others while also being disconnected from their outcomes. Give people responsibility for their own freedom. Consider asking, “How much risk are you willing to take?” Allow the other party to define the boundaries. Bring a difficult observation as a third point. Separate the message from the person and let them decide what's true. Avoid asking “why” questions of others to avoid putting people on the defensive and trying to solve their problems. A helpful checkpoint: is this question something that's helping me or helping the other party? Silence is a measure of success. When you ask as question that lands, people need time to answer. Your body leads your brain. Notice your physical presence and how it manifests when you're listening well. Resources Mentioned The Coaching Habit* by Michael Bungay Stanier Register your book receipt for bonus items from Michael Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes These Coaching Questions Get Results, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 237) Leadership in the Midst of Chaos, with Jim Mattis (episode 440) How to Lead Better Through Complexity, with Jennifer Garvey Berger (episode 613) How to Help Others Be Seen and Heard, with Scott Shigeoka (episode 654) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Join us on the latest episode, hosted by Jared S. Taylor! Our Guest: Donovan Campbell, CEO at MedBridge.What you'll get out of this episode:From Military to MedBridge: Donovan Campbell's journey from the Marine Corps to leading MedBridge, focusing on impactful missions.Servant Leadership in Healthcare: How Campbell's servant leadership style, inspired by General Mattis, shapes his approach at MedBridge.Empowering Clinicians: MedBridge's innovative solutions empower clinicians to provide personalized, convenient care for musculoskeletal conditions.Collaborating with Healthcare Systems: MedBridge's unique approach of integrating with hospital systems, enhancing patient engagement.Preventive Care Philosophy: MedBridge's focus on combining education and care, aiming for holistic and robust healthcare solutions.To learn more about MedBridge:Website https://www.medbridge.com/LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/medbridge/ Guest's Socials:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/donovan-campbell-9551a84/ Our sponsors for this episode are:Sage Growth Partners https://www.sage-growth.com/Quantum Health https://www.quantum-health.com/Show and Host's Socials:Slice of HealthcareLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sliceofhealthcare/Jared S TaylorLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredstaylor/WHAT IS SLICE OF HEALTHCARE?The go-to site for digital health executive/provider interviews, technology updates, and industry news. Listed to in 65+ countries.

Welcome back to the Main Thing Podcast! I'm your host Skip Lineberg. Today you will hear from our special guest, a retired TOPGUN Pilot and TOPGUN instructor. What wisdom will we learn from this top performing, gentleman, so adept at strategy, execution and communication? Someone who knows not just how to handle high pressure situation, but to excel. Navigating Life with a Fighter Pilot's Precision and Focus Join us as we dive into the world of strategy, discipline and the art of mastering life's greater lessons with retired TOPGUN pilot and instructor Guy Snodgrass. Listen in as we navigate Guy's journey from an Eagle Scout with lofty dreams to his days at the US Naval Academy, into the cockpit of an F-A-18 fighter jet, and his role as a Top Gun instructor. We'll unpack the realities of military aviation, contrasting Hollywood's depiction with the true rigors and dedication of the job, while extracting the disciplined approach and strategic thinking that propelled Guy to the pinnacle of his career. More About Our Wise Guest - Guy Snodgrass Guy Snodgrass is the owner of Defense Analytics, a consulting company focused on international policy, business strategy, and technology policy. A retired U.S. Navy Commander, Guy served as a F/A-18  fighter pilot and TOPGUN Instructor. He also served as the Pentagon's Director of Communications and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis' Chief Speechwriter. He's the author of two published books, including “TOPGUN's Top 10: Leadership Lessons From the Cockpit." Guy joins today from Dallas, TX. Strap into your cockpit and get ready! In this fast-paced 19 minute conversation, you will discover why Guy Snodgrass is one of the wisest people I know. Resources Learn more about Guy via his website Connect with Guy Snodgrass on LinkedIn Pick up a copy of Guy's book “Top Gun's Top Ten” from our Bookshop   Credits Editor + Technical Advisor Bob Hotchkiss Brand + Strategy Advisor Andy Malinoski PR + Partnerships Advisor Rachel Bell Marketing, Social Media and Graphic Design Chloe Lineberg   Stay Connected with Us on Social YouTube @themainthingpod Twitter @themainthingpod Instagram @themainthingpod Facebook  @TheMainThingPod LinkedIn   Help Support and Sustain This Podcast Become a subscriber. Share the podcast with one or two friends. Follow us on social media @TheMainThingPod Buy some Main Thing Merch from our Merchandise Store. Buy a book from our curated wisdom collection on bookshop.org. Become a patron and support us on Patreon with funding.   Episode Chapters [0:03:02] - Becoming a navy fighter pilot - from dream to reality [0:04:50] - TOPGUN Hollywood's version contrasted with the real thing [0:07:30] - Guy's transition from military and public service to private sector [0:09:30] - How Skip and Guy are connected [0:11:32] - Guy reveals his Main Thing wisdom [0:15:39] - Advice for those who feel frazzled [0:18:26] - The importance of continuous learning    

 In this episode, we discuss:   *Mr. Smith joining 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, in Vietnam and assuming command of his platoon    *His staff NCOs, especially SSgt Richard Jackson and Gunnery Sergeant Alan Sora, and other Marines and Sailors who deeply influenced him   *Coping with the loss of subordinate leaders and advice on dealing with such losses   *Combat decision-making   *The challenges of returning home from war and transitioning to the civilian sector   *The Ken Burns' documentary series The Vietnam War   *The US strategy in Vietnam    *The role veterans played in building and expanding FedEx   *The cutting-edge technologies FedEx has used, emerging technologies, and the future of warfare   *The central role of logistics in war   *Leading FedEx through the Arab Oil Embargo Crisis of 1973 and advice for leaders dealing with crises   *How Mr. Smith's approach to leadership has evolved   *The value of reading for leaders   Links The Grunt Padre: Father Vincent Robert Capodanno, Vietnam, 1966-1967 by Father Daniel L. Mode https://a.co/d/aCfeUeQ   The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0753XH4H2/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r   For Country and Corps: The Life of General Oliver P. Smith by Gail B. Shisler https://a.co/d/7IWlQ8l   Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam by H.R. McMaster https://a.co/d/1xKTIl1   Call Sign: Chaos by James Mattis and Bing West https://a.co/d/08lP0kg Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari   https://a.co/d/7rsFs5g --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/damien-oconnell/support

“What the leader has to really communicate their intent. What are we trying to get accomplished? This is so much more important than a detailed action plan.”In this episode, we are joined by Tony Ferraro, Senior Executive Coach and Director of Training Services at Floyd Consulting, to unpack the transformative power of coaching and the profound impact it has on organizational culture.Join us as Tony dives into the lessons from retired General James Mattis's book "Call Sign Chaos" and explore the essence of mission-focused leadership across all areas of a team or company.In this episode, you'll learn:Prioritize coaching over commanding to foster growth and developmentCreate an environment of trust where team members feel safe to provide feedbackEncourage transparency and sharing challenges rather than only positive updatesThings to listen for:[07:41] Decisions require courage and leadership[11:35] Listen to your queasy feelings[14:08] Leaders influence team decision-making[20:47] Simplify your plan and focus on your goal[28:32] Coaching can be tough but necessaryResources:Floyd CoachingThe Culture AssessmentMatthew Kelly's BooksFloyd Coaching's BlogStellar One ConsultingCall Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead by Jim MattisConnect with the Guest:Tony Ferraro's LinkedInConnect with the Host & Floyd Coaching:Kate Volman's LinkedinFloyd Coaching on LinkedinFloyd Consulting on FacebookFloyd Consulting on TwitterFloyd Consulting on YouTubeFloyd Consulting on Instagram

Summary Sandra Gonzalez, a retired Marine officer turned executive coach, shares her journey from the Marine Corps to entrepreneurship and the importance of cultivating sexy confidence as a leader. She discusses the power of live streaming and in-person events for podcasting, as well as the value of building strategic alliances in business. Sandra also highlights the impact of her father and General Mattis on her leadership development. She offers insights into her coaching program and the upcoming empowerment retreats she hosts in Mexico. Sandra encourages leaders to stop playing small and embrace their true potential. In this conversation, Sandra Gonzalez discusses the importance of an outside perspective and the role of a coach in accountability and growth. She shares her vision for the future, including expanding her reach through podcasting and speaking engagements. She emphasizes the importance of building a brand and serving others, and promotes her coaching services and website. Finally, Sandra discusses the power of embracing femininity and authenticity. Show Links Get 1-month of FREE access to the ⁠Vetrepreneur Collective Community⁠ by using discount code: NLT1UQTI https://www.vetrepreneurcollective.com/#community Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter : https://vetrepreneuer-collective.ck.page/posts/mmv-040-the-psychedelic-elephant Download Free Business Launch Guide: ⁠ https://vetrepreneuer-collective.ck.page/97f8135a78 Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HarderNotSmarterPodcast Listen on Apple: ⁠ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/harder-not-smarter-podcast/id1728285592 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4POIDow6wkQFCVbMZrFk1I?si=da6bdf48e66442fe Follow on LinkedIn: ⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/company/harder-not-smarter Sandra's Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachsandragonzalez https://sandragonzalez.com Chapters 00:00 Introduction of Sandra Gonzalez 01:18 Attending PodFest and the Importance of Consistency in Podcasting 03:10 Using In-Person Events and Live Streams for Podcasting 04:31 Incorporating In-Person Podcasting and Equipment 05:56 The Rise of Live Streaming and its Power 07:36 Using StreamYard for Live Streams 08:54 Simplifying Podcasting and Content Creation 10:31 The Experience of Being a Drill Instructor in the Marine Corps 12:01 Leadership Lessons from General Mattis 14:15 Transitioning from the Marine Corps to Executive Coaching 17:11 The Concept of Sexy Confidence and its Importance for Leaders 19:11 The Influence of Sandra's Father in Joining the Military 21:06 Learning Leadership Skills from General Mattis 23:00 Transitioning to Entrepreneurship and Building a Brand 25:35 The Sexy Confidence Coaching Program 30:05 Hosting Empowerment Retreats and Building Strategic Alliances 34:25 Lessons Learned from Hosting Retreats 36:39 The Power of Networking in the Veteran Community 40:33 Hosting Empowerment Retreats in Mexico 43:06 Common Trends and Challenges in Building Sexy Confidence 44:35 The Importance of an Outside Perspective 45:13 The Role of a Coach in Accountability and Growth 46:30 Sandra's Vision for the Future 48:29 Expanding Sandra's Reach Through Podcasting 49:35 Highlighting Sandra's Favorite Guests 50:38 Connecting with Influential Figures 52:02 Building a Brand and Serving Others 53:36 Promoting Sandra's Services and Website 54:18 Embracing Femininity and Authenticity

Robert Wilkie, Former Secretary of Veterans Affairs, joins Liberty & Justice with Matt Whitaker, Season 3, Episode 6.  Presented by American Cornerstone Institute.  Learn more about ACI at https://americancornerstone.org/. Watch every episode of Liberty & Justice on www.whitaker.tv. President Trump nominated the Honorable Robert Wilkie as the tenth Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 23, 2018, and sworn in on July 30, 2018. Mr. Wilkie served as the acting Secretary of VA from March 28 to May 29, 2018.  Before confirmation as VA Secretary, Mr. Wilkie served Secretary James Mattis as his Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness—the principal advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense for Total Force Management as it relates to readiness, National Guard and Reserve component affairs, health affairs, training, and personnel requirements and management, including equal opportunity, morale, welfare, recreation, and the quality of life for military families. The son of an Army artillery commander, Mr. Wilkie spent his youth at Fort Bragg. Today, he is a United States Air Force Reserve colonel assigned to the Office of the Chief of Staff. Before joining the Air Force, he served in the United States Navy Reserve with the Joint Forces Intelligence Command, Naval Special Warfare Group Two, and the Office of Naval Intelligence.Mr. Wilkie has more than 20 years of federal service at the national and international levels. During the George W. Bush Administration, Mr. Wilkie served both Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 2005–2009, and he was the youngest senior leader in the Department. Mr. Wilkie was Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and a National Security Council senior director under Dr. Condoleezza Rice. He also has extensive experience in the United States Congress, including recent service as Senior Advisor to Senator Thom Tillis and service as Counsel and Advisor on International Security Affairs to the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, the Honorable Trent Lott. Mr. Wilkie shepherded the Senate confirmation process for James Mattis, Robert Gates, and Admiral Mike Mullen (CJCS), and he was responsible for the preparation of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker for their multiple appearances before Congress in defense of the Iraqi Surge. Mr. Wilkie was Vice President for Strategic Programs for CH2M HILL, one of the world's largest engineering and program management firms, where for five years he held program management and advisory assignments as diverse as the London 2012 Summer Olympics and the reform and reorganization of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense Supply and Logistics System (DE&S). Mr. Wilkie holds an Honors degree from Wake Forest University, a Juris Doctor from Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans, a Master of Laws in International and Comparative Law from Georgetown University, and a Masters in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College. A graduate of the College of Naval Command and Staff, Air Command and Staff College, the United States Army War College, and the Joint Forces Staff College, Mr. Wilkie has published articles in the Naval War College Review, Parameters, Armed Forces Journal International, Air and Space Power Journal, and Proceedings. He holds personal and unit decorations and the Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest noncareer civilian award of the Department. Matthew G. Whitaker was acting Attorney General of the United States (2018-2019).  Before becoming acting Attorney General, Mr. Whitaker served as Chief of Staff to the Attorney General. He was appointed as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern Dist

When the echoes of military discipline and the hum of corporate boardrooms collide, the result is a leadership symphony that few can conduct. That's precisely what John Warren, Marine turned CEO and author of "Lead Like a Marine," orchestrates in our latest episode. His tale starts on the peaceful avenues of Greenville and marches through the harrowing sands of conflict, all the way to the summit of entrepreneurial success. Discover the tenets of leadership that John insists are crucial, whether you're commanding a platoon or steering a company towards victory.Our conversation traverses the landscape of John's experiences, from the sobering lessons learned in a fatal transaction with a local vendor in combat zones, to the halls of Lima One Capital where those principles take on a new mission. We unravel the layers of leadership that require sacrifice, a vigilant work ethic, and a gaze fixed firmly on the horizon. John recounts the impact of servant leadership with a stirring narrative featuring General Mattis, and we dissect the long game in business, debating the merits of growth versus immediate gratification. Tune in for an episode that delivers not only the blueprint for leading with valor but also the heart behind each command.https://www.jacksonfamilyministry.comhttps://bobslone.com/home/podcast-production/

Retired Maj. Gen. Chris McPadden joins the ARNORTH Team as they discuss planning models, what to do when planning isn't working, entering the "intellectual dojo," defining a calling, working for General Mattis, planning in policy, book recommendations, and much more.

Tuesday briefing: California storm; Nevada primary and caucuses; Toby Keith; King Charles's cancer diagnosis; Jim Mattis; and moreRead today's briefing.To take advantage of new premium audio perks in Apple Podcasts with a Washington Post subscription, click here.

Imagine growing up under the wing of a father who embodied "sexy confidence", then stepping into the disciplined world of the military, and encountering a similar persona in the form of General Mattis. This is the captivating story of our guest, Sandra Gonzalez, a former Marine officer turned executive coach. Sandra shares her inspiring journey, revealing how her unique upbringing and military experiences shaped her passion for cultivating the same sexy confidence in high caliber entrepreneurs and business executives. Her tales of personal struggles, including a difficult divorce and the loss of her father, offer a raw and genuine insight into her transformational journey.As we travel from the military field to the entrepreneurial world, we follow Sandra's transition to establishing her own business in Dubai. You'll be riveted by her tales of resistance, self-doubt, and finally, triumph. Discover how she learned to listen to life's subtle hints, embrace gratitude for every opportunity, and combat the challenges of maintaining international business relationships. Sandra also illuminates the power of trusting in oneself and a higher power for guidance on this incredible journey.In our discussion with Sandra, we delve into the essence of "sexy confidence". We explore her own path to overcoming self-doubt and discovering her untapped inner strength. Sandra's enlightening advice for budding professionals underscores the importance of an insatiable appetite for growth, tuning into gut intuition, and welcoming uncertainty. She leaves us with a powerful Bruce Lee quote that resonates with anyone seeking to develop their own sexy confidence. This episode is a treasure trove of invaluable insights, and the candid conversation between friends adds a dash of joy and positivity. Get ready to be inspired, enlightened, and motivated by Sandra's journey and her empowering approach to cultivating sexy confidence.https://sandragonzalez.com/training/We're happy you're here! Like the pod? Follow us on all socials at @amplifywithanika and @yourbrandamplified Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Visit our website Connect with us at anika@yourbrandamplified.com Join me on PodMatch to start your own journey as a podcast guest!

TRANSCRIPT  http://peternavarro.substack.com The Republican Party must immediately unite around Donald J. Trump as its presidential candidate.  Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel must voluntarily pass the torch of leadership to a new RNC Chair capable of running a competent campaign in 2024.  Absent these two mid-course corrections, the Republican Party will squander a platinum opportunity to take back both the White House and Congress from a Democrat Party destroying everything Main Street America holds dear. Trump has an insurmountable lead in the polls and a rock-solid base no other candidate can shake.  He WILL be the nominee. As we saw last week, there is no one left on the debate stage either capable of being president or likely to be Trump's VP choice.  The Pillsbury Doughboy of Venom Chris Christie has self-immolated as spoiler hit man.  Loudmouth Ramaswamy is, at best, a Deputy Cabinet appointee.  As for Nikki Haley, yond lean and hungry Cassius has bitten the Trump hand that fed her so many times that she will have NO place in a Trump administration (other than perhaps as ambassador to Botswana).  Ron DeSanctimonious blew his VP chance not just when he swung for Trump's head.  Shrinking Ron has little national appeal to justify a place on the Trump ticket. What, then, is the purpose of continuing with a contested primary season that serves only to drain political funds from the General Election?  Why have a debate schedule that allows the Keebler Elf candidates to throw mud at Trump as they make fools of themselves?  In fact, we saw a similar movie and mud fest in 2020 with all of the usual suspects now hanging around the 2024 fringes.  These Never-Trumpers range from the Koch network's dark money and Rupert Murdoch's propagandist Fox to the Romney-McConnell-Ryan-Noonan RINO sappers and nasty PAC men like George Conway and John Bolton.  In 2020, their dark money and negative ads and attacks most certainly shaved points off the final Trump tally in what was a highly contested race.   And let's not forget the 2020 fragging of Trump from the likes of endless warmongers like George W. Bush, Mad Dog Mattis, and the late Colin Powell, and the passive-aggressive shots at Trump by Mitch McConnell in a Senate that has become nothing short of a Uniparty RINO embarrassment.  As splintered as the Democrat Party is supposed to be, their leaders and big donors wouldn't be doing anything like what the Republican Party is doing.  Now, it's either “here we go again” and the Republican Party hands over an eminently winnable election to the Democrat Party of economic mayhem, open borders, and foreign policy chaos.  Alternatively, it can unite around “The Donald” as the only clear path to victory in 2024. Even if Trump quickly becomes the presumptive nominee, there still is the matter of a Republican National Committee.  As last week's election once again demonstrated, the RNC fat cats know far better how to hold plush fundraisers at posh resorts than win down and dirty elections against a brass-knuckled, grassroots Democrat Party willing to lie, cheat, and lawfare its way to victory. Here's several obvious post-election takeaways.  First, the RNC must develop a far better ground game behind them.  It's not just about getting folks to vote early.  It's also about getting more folks to the polls.  Second, if the RNC allows the Democrat Party to turn the 2024 presidential and congressional races into a referendum on social issues, particularly abortion, Republicans will lose in RECORD numbers.  Just how many times do Republican strategists and leadership have to make this same stupid mistake?  Obama did social issued the feckless Mitt Romney in 2008 when Romney was all but a lock to win on economic issues and Communist China raid on our factories.  Obama did it again to the clueless and ever-cranky, now dear departed John McCain in 2012.  And what about that 2022 Republican tsunami that was supposed to result in a record House victory?  It never materialized for all manner of RNC-induced reasons, not the least of which was a failure to properly message on the abortion issue. Dukakis had it right with his Greek proverb that the fish rots from the head down.  The RNC is a rotten political machine sputtering on every single cylinder, and its head, Ronna McDaniel, must hold her own self accountable for last week's carnage.  So, Ronna, end the debates, endorse Trump, and then step aside so we can, in the words of the immortal Al Davis, “win, baby, win.”  I'm Peter Navarro, and thanks for listening.  Be sure and check out my substatck at peternavarro.substack. com  That's peternavarro.substack.com.  And it will help me get the word out if you write up a review of this podcast.  I'd love to know what you think. Peter Navarro, Out.

Kirsten Ferguson: Head & Heart Kirstin Ferguson is a company director, columnist, keynote speaker, and executive coach. Beginning her career as an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, Kirstin has held roles that have included chief executive officer of an international consulting firm, and acting chair and deputy chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She has sat on boards of both publicly-listed and privately-listed companies for more than a decade. Kirstin has a PhD in leadership and in 2021 was named one of Thinkers50's top thinkers to watch. In 2023, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her significant service to business and gender equality. She writes a weekly column on leadership and work in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and is also a contributor to the Australian Financial Review and to Forbes. She is the author of Head & Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership*. It's often apparent when someone else doesn't a read a room, but much harder to see it in ourselves. In this conversation, Kirsten and I discuss how we can do a better job of either literally or figuratively reading the room. Plus, we explore several of the actions leaders can take to do a better job at being more proactive at moving beyond their own perspective. Key Points Memory is different than perception. A study by Adrian de Groot shows that chess grandmasters reply more on the former for reading things quickly. Perception is an ongoing process vs. something any of us arrive at. A study of medical residents shows four ways we tend to approach situations: stalled, fixated, adaptive, or vagabonds. Vagabonds in particular look at a wide range of possibilities, but don't fully explore or rule out paths forward. Zoom out to seek broad input. That's especially important when the stakes are high. Also important is to get perspective outside of your industry. Reading books from different disciplines is one starting point. Leaders needs to also recognize that people in the room are reading you as well. There's an element of partnership that shapes how the room moves forward. Resources Mentioned Head & Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership by Kirsten Ferguson Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes How to Start Seeing Around Corners, with Rita McGrath (episode 430) Leadership in the Midst of Chaos, with Jim Mattis (episode 440) The Way to Get Noticed by Key Stakeholders, with Daphne E. Jones (episode 614) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

In this podcast we go back to September 12, 2019 when former Secretary of Defense James Mattis came to the Reagan Library to discuss his brand-new book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead.

In this podcast we go back to September 12, 2019 when former Secretary of Defense James Mattis came to the Reagan Library to discuss his brand-new book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead.

Jeff is joined by Bill Rivers, author and former speechwriter for James Mattis, for a discussion of Bill's coming of age novel, "Last Summer Boys." Set in the summer of 1968, the story follows the experiences and choices of three boys living through the tumult of the political and cultural issues of the late 1960s. Jeff and Bill discuss the writer's craft, and Bill's work as a speechwriter for James Mattis during his service as Secretary of Defense.Host: Jeff SikkengaExecutive Producer: Greg McBrayerProducer: Jeremy Gypton Subscribe via popular podcast apps: https://linktr.ee/theamericanidea

In this thought-provoking episode of Tactical Living, Coach Ashlie Walton and Detective Walton explore the powerful insights shared by Jim Mattis in his book "Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead." Drawing from a notable quote, " “When you are in command, there is always the next decision waiting to be made. You don't have time to pace back and forth like Hamlet, zigzagging one way and the other. You do your best and live with the consequences. A commander has to compartmentalize his emotions and remain focused on the mission. You must decide, act, and move on.”," they delve into the significance of confidence and decisiveness in leadership.   The hosts highlight the crucial lesson of taking action and making decisions without succumbing to the paralyzing loop of indecision. They discuss how the relentless pursuit of perfection or the fear of making mistakes can hinder progress and impede effective leadership.   To illustrate the importance of confidence and swift decision-making, they share a compelling story that resonates with the audience. This story showcases a leader who faced a critical situation where decisive action was necessary, leading to a positive outcome despite initial doubts.   Join Coach Ashlie and Detective Walton as they delve into the mindset of a confident leader, emphasizing the need to compartmentalize emotions and maintain focus on the mission at hand. They offer practical strategies to help listeners develop the ability to make sound decisions and move forward with conviction.   Don't miss this enlightening episode that draws inspiration from the wisdom of Jim Mattis's "Call Sign Chaos." Tune in to gain valuable insights into fostering confidence, embracing decisiveness, and breaking free from the cycle of indecision to lead effectively in both personal and professional spheres.   ⩥ PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL ⩤ https://bi3xbvVont.ly/   CLICK HERE for our best-selling products: https://amzn.to/3xaG3xw and https://rdbl.co/3DIQVUC   CLICK HERE to join our free Police, Fire, Military and Families Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/38w2e7r   Check out our website and learn more about how you can work with LEO Warriors by going to: https://www.leowarriors.com/   Like what you hear? We are honored. Drop a review and subscribe to our show.    The Tactical Living Podcast is owned by LEO Warriors, LLC. None of the content presented may be copied, repurposed or used without the owner's prior consent.   For PR, speaking requests and other networking opportunities, contact LEO Warriors:   EMAIL: ashliewalton555@gmail.com.   ADDRESS: P.O. Box 400115 Hesperia, Ca. 92340   ASHLIE'S FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/police.fire.lawenforcement   ➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤➤ This episode is NOT sponsored. Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something by clicking on one of our links, we'll receive a small commission.  

Air Date 5/2/2023 Today, we take a look at the intertwining of oil wealth, philanthropy, and culture washing from John Rockefeller to the sheiks of the Middle East. Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Transcript BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Get AD FREE Shows and Bonus Content) Join our Discord community! OUR AFFILIATE LINKS: ExpressVPN.com/BestOfTheLeft GET INTERNET PRIVACY WITH EXPRESS VPN! SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: Who Were the Robber Barons? - Brain Blaze - Air Date 10-29-19 The Robber Barons were some dudes who got rich and were pretty sketchy about it all, but then founded a bunch of universities and stuff like that, so I guess we're cool?  Ch. 2: Jane Mayer / The Koch Brothers and the Weaponizing of Philanthropy - EthicsinSociety - Air Date 4-6-16 Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again?  Ch. 3: “Sportswashing & Greenwashing”: Ex-Soccer Player Jules Boykoff on Qatar Hosting World Cup - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-29-22 We speak with author Jules Boykoff about the climate and political implications of the 2022 World Cup.  Ch. 4: How One Industry Controls Football - Athletic Interest - Air Date 11-5-21 Who controls football? Ch. 5: Why Billionaire Philanthropy Won't Solve Anything - Second Thought - Air Date 2-25-22 You ever notice how oligarchs like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are cast as these uber-wealthy saviors who are singlehandedly raising the world out of poverty? That doesn't happen by accident. Ch. 6: What Is Sportswashing (and Does It Work)? - Freakonomics - Air Date 6-8-22 In ancient Rome, it was bread and circuses. Today, it's a World Cup, an Olympics, and a new Saudi-backed golf league that's challenging the P.G.A. Tour.  Ch. 7: Why Billionaires Won't Save Us - Our Changing Climate - Air Date 5-21-21 I look at how the elite philanthropy of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk function as more of a billionaire preservation of wealth and self than as an act of altruism. Ch. 8: Anand Giridharadas: Why We Should Be Skeptical of Billionaires - Amanpour and Company - Air Date 9-19-18 Anand Giridharadas believes we should be a bit more skeptical about embracing billionaires as the change-makers of our era.  MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S) Ch. 9: The 2022 FIFA World Cup And The Rise Of 'Sportswashing' (In The Loop) - Scripps News - Air Date 11-21-22 Christian Bryant explores why sporting events are and can be held in countries with authoritarian regimes in this segment of "Scoreboard." Ch. 10: Fixing the Economy - Garys Economics - Air Date 11-27-22 After having opened up the publics eyes to the problem of Wealth Inequality, Gary reveals to the Channel his own idea for a possible Wealth Tax. VOICEMAILS Ch. 11: Reaching a conclusion on understanding the J.K Rowling episode - Boris from Belgium Ch. 12: The is/ought malfunction in our pattern recognition - Dave from Olympia, WA FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 13: Final comments on the is/ought problem of politics MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions) SHOW IMAGE Description: A diptych of photos of Mohammad bin Salman and a painting of John. D. Rockefeller. A drop of black oil falls into a splash over the center of the image. Credits: Composite design by A. Hoffman. Photo of “Defense Secretary Jim Mattis stands with Deputy Crown Price of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud” by U.S. Secretary of Defense, Flickr | License: CC by 2.0) | Changes: Cropped / Photo of painting of J.D. Rockefeller by John Singer Sargent, Flickr | License: Public Domain | Changes: Cropped / Oil drop and splash from Pixabay. Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com

Air Date 5/2/2023 Today, we take a look at the intertwining of oil wealth, philanthropy, and culture washing from John Rockefeller to the sheiks of the Middle East. Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Transcript BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Get AD FREE Shows and Bonus Content) Join our Discord community! OUR AFFILIATE LINKS: ExpressVPN.com/BestOfTheLeft GET INTERNET PRIVACY WITH EXPRESS VPN! SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: Who Were the Robber Barons? - Brain Blaze - Air Date 10-29-19 The Robber Barons were some dudes who got rich and were pretty sketchy about it all, but then founded a bunch of universities and stuff like that, so I guess we're cool?  Ch. 2: Jane Mayer / The Koch Brothers and the Weaponizing of Philanthropy - EthicsinSociety - Air Date 4-6-16 Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again?  Ch. 3: “Sportswashing & Greenwashing”: Ex-Soccer Player Jules Boykoff on Qatar Hosting World Cup - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-29-22 We speak with author Jules Boykoff about the climate and political implications of the 2022 World Cup.  Ch. 4: How One Industry Controls Football - Athletic Interest - Air Date 11-5-21 Who controls football? Ch. 5: Why Billionaire Philanthropy Won't Solve Anything - Second Thought - Air Date 2-25-22 You ever notice how oligarchs like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are cast as these uber-wealthy saviors who are singlehandedly raising the world out of poverty? That doesn't happen by accident. Ch. 6: What Is Sportswashing (and Does It Work)? - Freakonomics - Air Date 6-8-22 In ancient Rome, it was bread and circuses. Today, it's a World Cup, an Olympics, and a new Saudi-backed golf league that's challenging the P.G.A. Tour.  Ch. 7: Why Billionaires Won't Save Us - Our Changing Climate - Air Date 5-21-21 I look at how the elite philanthropy of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk function as more of a billionaire preservation of wealth and self than as an act of altruism. Ch. 8: Anand Giridharadas: Why We Should Be Skeptical of Billionaires - Amanpour and Company - Air Date 9-19-18 Anand Giridharadas believes we should be a bit more skeptical about embracing billionaires as the change-makers of our era.  MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S) Ch. 9: The 2022 FIFA World Cup And The Rise Of 'Sportswashing' (In The Loop) - Scripps News - Air Date 11-21-22 Christian Bryant explores why sporting events are and can be held in countries with authoritarian regimes in this segment of "Scoreboard." Ch. 10: Fixing the Economy - Garys Economics - Air Date 11-27-22 After having opened up the publics eyes to the problem of Wealth Inequality, Gary reveals to the Channel his own idea for a possible Wealth Tax. VOICEMAILS Ch. 11: Reaching a conclusion on understanding the J.K Rowling episode - Boris from Belgium Ch. 12: The is/ought malfunction in our pattern recognition - Dave from Olympia, WA FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 13: Final comments on the is/ought problem of politics MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions) SHOW IMAGE Description: A diptych of photos of Mohammad bin Salman and a painting of John. D. Rockefeller. A drop of black oil falls into a splash over the center of the image. Credits: Composite design by A. Hoffman. Photo of “Defense Secretary Jim Mattis stands with Deputy Crown Price of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud” by U.S. Secretary of Defense, Flickr | License: CC by 2.0) | Changes: Cropped / Photo of painting of J.D. Rockefeller by John Singer Sargent, Flickr | License: Public Domain | Changes: Cropped / Oil drop and splash from Pixabay. Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com

One of the criticisms of the Stoics is that they left certain things unaddressed. Nowhere in Seneca's writings, for instance, does he directly address Nero or criticize him by name. Even after he left Nero's service, as the man spiraled out of control, Seneca stuck with the code that General Mattis would stick with centuries later–keeping their opinions about the administration they once served to themselves. Marcus Aurelius, most scholars deduce, was not a fan of Seneca's actions while serving Nero–yet deduction is all we're able to do, because nowhere does Marcus criticize Seneca. All we're left with is a conspicuous absence in Meditations.---And in today's Ask DS, Ryan presents part two of his Q&A sessions with a team of doctors about his morning routine, how the study of history can be both grounding and elevating, his feelings about modern life and technology, and more.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail

We live in modern, cutting edge times. Each day, there are breakthroughs in neuroscience, microcomputing, medicine, and in how we make, save, and spend money. Our ability to beam information around the world, instantaneously, also means that we can get breaking news from all corners of the planet. Big data gives us the power to scrap enormous amounts of inputs and draw new insights from them. All this is wonderful and illuminating. We know things that we never thought we'd be able to know…and the person who doesn't avail themselves of this is needlessly ignorant.And yet…and yet.As the great General Mattis said recently on Medal of Honor recipient Kyle Carpenter's podcast:My best new ideas come from very old books.

The history of the Trump presidency is also a warning of a Trump 2.0 — this time, he would know how to pull the levers of power to get what he wanted, and there would be no John Kelly or Jim Mattis looking out for our democracy. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser join Charlie Sykes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The history of the Trump presidency is also a warning of a Trump 2.0 — this time, he would know how to pull the levers of power to get what he wanted, and there would be no John Kelly or Jim Mattis looking out for our democracy. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser join Charlie Sykes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Major Fred Galvin joins Savage to expose how top generals, including General Mattis, betrayed their own Marines at the behest of the Deep State. His new book A Few Bad Men tells the incredible true story of his elite team of U.S. Marines who were set up to take the fall for Afghanistan war crimes they did not commit—and his fight for the redemption of his men. Galvin served 27 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, beginning as a 17 year old who rose from the enlisted ranks to become an officer. Serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and elsewhere, he led the first special operations company in the Marines and earned 49 military medals and ribbons, including the Bronze Star. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices