The Secret Power of Losing | Dave Berke

24:52And that's just not accurate. It's easy to dismiss, oh, the weather conditions, the wind, the sun got in my eye, things that are out of our control led to your talent not shining through. When actuality, taking responsibility for those areas that you can improve are those opportunities to leapfrog the competition. And that's the core of ownership. If you take ownership of something, it's about you, it's your fault, it's your mistake, then you're gonna work hard to improve that. And if you don't take ownership, what is there to do if it's the sun good in your eyes. Well, there's no correction to be made, which means you don't get better.

25:22And so AJ, you're exactly right. That description is perfect. A lot of our audience members are perfectionists and they have bought into perfection to such a degree that it leads to procrastination and not even trying in areas that they know deep down, they should be putting an effort, but it becomes difficult to even start when you believe that perfection is the only thing that's possible. You keep, you keep bringing up these chapters that talk about these massive mistakes that I made in my career. And my thought as you're talking about that is that what I wrote about the concept of perfection is a lie.

25:58Perfection is something, listen, I want to be clear out of the gate. I love the idea of pursuing and trying to get better and always striving and trying to achieve perfection. But we are human beings. There's nothing you're ever going to do. Nothing we're ever going to do is going to be perfect. And I learned that lesson at the aircraft carrier. because if you look at the carrier and you look at a fighter jet landing on a carrier, what you tell yourself is, the only way for this to work is for me to be perfect. And if you take that attitude, I can assure you that you will fail because there is no such thing as a perfect landing.

26:30But perfection has this thing about it that it's something that we think we can attain. And what I have discovered in my career is if you actually think perfection is your goal, meaning this is going to be perfect, if you make a little tiny mistake, like a very little mistake, what your ego will tell you is like, hey, ignore that. Ah, that's, it's so small. It's almost, it's almost unnoticeable. And oh, by the way, like, Jodden didn't see you make that mistake. There's no reason to bring it up. Nobody even noticed that. And what you'll do is you'll take these little mistakes and you'll overlook them or you'll ignore them or you'll skip them because what you're trying to do is prove to yourself that you can be perfect, except you're not.

27:08And those mistakes will build up and add up over time and they will lead to disaster. So instead of perfect being actually perfect, the way we define perfect in places like the carrier and places like Top Gun is perfection is identifying every mistake that you made. A little bit counterintuitive logic there, but perfection is I will not overlook any deviation. I will admit it, I will accept it, I will share it and I will learn from it and I will do it with every single one. That's the definition of perfection. It's not doing everything perfectly, it's admitting everything you did wrong. You know what drains your energy faster than a bad networking event?

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28:59Namaste. Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-CONTACTS. In a culture like yours, that is easy because everyone's bought into that. But you can feel very naked when you are the only one taking responsibilities for mistakes and everyone else on your team is pretending like the emperor has clothes, like there's no mistakes over here. Oh, sucks for you, AJ. I'm going to get ahead. And for those who are really trying to get ahead, you know, that admission of mistakes feels like a setback, feels like you're digging a hole instead of climbing a mountain. So what do you do in that situation where culturally, It's not a culture that has extreme ownership and is accepting of admitting those mistakes.

29:40You're describing it well. And I think it gets back to John's comment from earlier is that's what your ego does. Your ego tries to tell you exactly what you want to hear. And the first part of that is you have to tell your ego, hey, I don't care if I look dumb. I don't care if I'm a little embarrassed. I don't care if I have to admit to the team that I'm making mistakes. And it's a really good question too, AJ, because it builds on things we talked about earlier is, first of all, you want to actually be really good at your job. That helps. especially when you're making mistakes. And the scenario I attribute it to is if I was in, and by the way, the culture that you're talking about, if you don't have it, you can create it.

30:14And you said it's easy in an organization that everybody's bought in. It's still not because there are still massive egos at play in naval aviation, at Top Gun. Everybody's fighting against the same thing. So we all struggle with creating that culture. One of the things that I learned, and I'll just use John as a hypothetical example. John was my boss or John, someone I worked with, and John is really good at his job. And he comes to me, he goes, hey, Dave, I made a mistake and I want to show you what I did wrong to help you. I'm going to be very interested in what he has to say. And so sometimes the most talented people are the ones you're most willing to listen to when they talk about their mistakes.

30:54So the first part of all this is be good at your job. And if you're good at your job and you go, hey, everybody, I know I have a good reputation. I've done really well, but I've made a couple errors here. I want to share them with you so you can get better. That's a compelling way to build a strong relationship and build a strong reputation. The second thing it does is it tells the two of you, hey, it's okay to do this. It's okay to admit that you did something wrong. It's okay to take ownership. It's okay to fall short. It's okay to own your mistakes and correct them. And that is the seeds, AJ, of building that culture.

31:25And so if you see that you're the only one, what you should tell yourself is, oh, I'm the one that has to change this culture. And the way I change that culture is doing a good job, but admitting the mistakes, sharing them, helping other people see that that's okay, and letting them start to lead down that path of that process. Well, then all of a sudden, it's not just Dave, it's Dave, AJ, and John. And then it's three of us, and then it becomes five of us, and becomes 10 of us. And over time, you have created that culture. The worst thing you can do in an organization of a culture where nobody wants to take ownership of mistakes is not take ownership of mistakes because that perpetuates that culture.

32:01You've got to break that mold. Be good at your job, admit your mistakes, help other people learn from them. That will start to build that culture. This goes back to the team building as well. If you're not making those mistakes, how can you go to the younger guys or the new guys and show them, here's why I was making the same mistake that you are making now. And here's how I got over it. Otherwise, as you mentioned, they're not going to listen. They're like, this guy hasn't been in my shoes. He doesn't understand me. He doesn't know where I'm coming from. He can't show me anything. You're just getting the human nature 101.

32:36I mean, if you think anybody's impressed by you being perfect, if you put yourself out there as someone who doesn't do anything wrong, especially if you're a more senior experienced person, you got young people on your team and you sort of advertise your excellence and your perfection, what they're actually waiting for you to do is they are waiting for you to slip up. They can't wait. They're like, all right, sooner or later, AJ's going to screw up. And when he does, we revel in his failure. Instead of learning from it, instead of it being a teachable moment, we're glad that he made a mistake.

33:08So don't advertise or somehow put yourself out there as like, you're perfect and they're not. That's just going to alienate yourself even more. All of us make mistakes. And I think, John, to that point, And admitting that, revealing that, showing that is by far better than somehow elevating yourself from the mantle of perfection because you're not. And if you do make a mistake, people are going to be, they're actually cheering for it, which is crazy, which is terrible. We don't want that. It's also really telling if you are confident enough to admit those mistakes and it's not well received that maybe this isn't the culture for me.

33:40And I think that's sort of an opportunity cost that a lot of high performers don't see where they're in the wrong culture, but they haven't really pushed against it enough to realize it. So they play down to their competition. They play small. They allow fear to override their actions and diminish their abilities. And in the short term, yeah, it keeps you in the seat. It keeps you in the job. But in the long term, if you're really pursuing greatness, that is the easiest way off course. The culture of ownership is undeniably a culture that leads to long-term success. And I think to your point, when you think about the type of organization you want to be a part of and the type of leader and the type of success you want to achieve, you need to be thinking the long game, the long term game.

34:23And if you find yourself in an organization that doesn't value teamwork, that doesn't value effective communication, that doesn't value ownership of your own mistakes, you got to change that culture or to your point, find yourself in a place that does value that because in the long run, an organization that refuses, refuses to admit their own short falls in mistakes, that is not a team that's going to be successful in the long run. And you don't want to be part of that. For me in my twenties, one of the biggest leadership lessons that I had just running the company was that problems were not people problems.

34:54They were leadership problems. And I very early on in running the company, I would, you know, put excuses on others. Oh, he didn't follow my directions or they didn't listen to what I was saying or, Oh, they're not talented enough. Let's move into a different position. And I wasn't looking enough at myself and saying, hey, as a leader, this problem is me. It's not the team. So talk about that mind shift for you and how you made it and what we should be telling young leaders around this exact thing. Because I think it feels like a bucket of cold water. What they should do is listen verbatim to what you just said.

35:24It's exactly right. And in a leadership role, any problem, any issue, any challenge, any failure for the team is your responsibility. It's your fault. And while that's hard for the ego to absorb, it's hard for the ego to accept. What it actually does is give you the thing that you want the most, which is the ability to solve a problem. Because our natural tendency is exactly what you said is if something goes wrong, well, that's not my fault. That's John. He didn't do his job. Or that's John. I got to get him out of the, he's the real reason. It's not me. That problem actually doesn't go away.

36:02But if I look at that problem go hang on a second before I start pointing the finger at John and figure out what he did wrong let me think about what I might have done wrong and what I could do differently what the ownership of that problem does me taking ownership of that problem does is it gives me control it gives me influence it gives me the power to solve it which is what we want as soon as I point the finger and place the blame what goes along with that is I relinquish the opportunity to solve the problems so as a young leader as you're thinking about how do you want to approach these issues?

36:33How do you want to approach the challenges? How do you want to approach the solutions to these problems is retain as much control as you can. Don't let it be external factors beyond your control. Let it be about you. That's ownership. And actually what that gives you is freedom. It gives you power. It gives you control, which is what we all want. And it gives you freedom of power and control to solve the problems that only comes from pointing the finger at yourself, looking at yourself in the mirror saying, what did I do wrong? What can I do better? That's the core of ownership and that's the core of leadership.

37:04Now we have patterns developing. So if you do not take ownership of your leadership or the mistakes that you're making, or you're always looking for the out to put it on somebody else, you're just going to continue seeing the same things over and over and over again until either you give up, your ego wins, and you figure out a way to live comfortable, comfortably in your, in your mediocriness or you go, I don't want to see this problem ever again. And I know for AJ and I very early in our company, we're like, why are we having the same meeting three weeks in a row? If, if, if I have this meeting again, I'm going to be incredibly upset.

38:00And then, so, That's when you start looking like, what needs to happen so we're not sitting here again, all sitting in a circle, pointing the finger at each other. That is exactly right. And I think another thing that it does too is it sets the example. Other people can do the exact same thing. Oh, you're pointing the finger at me? Cool. I'm going to point the finger right back at you. That's the habit you are creating. And if it's not happening at your level, it's definitely not happening at the level downstream. So you create that culture of finger pointing and blame placing. Those are cultures that don't solve problems.

38:29And next thing you know, week after week after week, you're having the same meeting and everybody's in there with a mental exercise of how to blame someone else, which means the problem doesn't get solved. So you got to walk in and go, hey, you know what? This is my fault. I screwed it up. Here's the mistake that I made. Here's the consequences that it caused. Here's what I'm going to do to fix it. And you go fix that problem. And you start to get on the path of taking ownership and solving problems and the culture of the team will change. For me, the thing that aggravated me the most in that pattern recognition was if I'm sitting in this meeting again, a fourth time, I'm the idiot here.

39:07And it drove me up a wall. The real important shift here is responsibility equals power. Because oftentimes, our ego says it's the opposite. We keep the power by appearing perfect. We keep the power by appearing mistake free. And we do this exercise, whether it's on military basis with our military training or with civilians around conflict resolution. And it's very hard in the beginning when we tell people, take responsibility before you go into that conflict. Recognize and prepare before you're entering that conflict to resolve it. What can I take responsibility for? It's not for the entire problem, but maybe it was a miscommunication.

39:49Maybe it was you hadn't thought about this other variable that came into play. Maybe you just had a rough morning and you showed up to the meeting in a real gruff way and that carried on. But taking ownership is really the big shift and it's hard. We do these drills and exercises and role plays in class and we can see the top performers really struggling with this, but I didn't do anything wrong. There's nothing for me to take responsibility for. It's all on them. And the shift happens when you are willing to take responsibility, even for the smallest piece. It allows the other person to feel comfortable enough to be like, yeah, you know what?

40:28That was on me too. Every time you take more responsibility for what's going on around you, you get more intel on what's really going on. You get the truth. That's right. And to your point, AJ, the power that it gives you isn't the power over other people. It's the power to solve the problems. That's what you want. The power you want is the power to solve the problems. And that only comes from ownership. You know, that is, again, it's the core of what we teach. The foundation of all of it is the book Extreme Ownership. This is about you. This is about what you need to take ownership of. And by the way, if you really do that well, going into that meeting and think, okay, let me think about the things I did wrong.

41:03That list, if you're really honest with yourself, is going to be a long list. More than enough lists that you can just work on yourself. You don't need to worry about what anybody else is doing wrong. You don't need to have any bandwidth about what AJ and John have done wrong. My list is way too long. So you focus on yourself. And what it does is what you said is the other person goes, you know what, Dave? I screwed this up, too. Now we got two people trying to solve the problem. The likelihood that problem gets solved goes up significantly as opposed to going, hey, AJ, let me tell you everything you did wrong.

41:30You're like, well, now you mentioned it, Dave. Here's all the things you did wrong. Next thing you know, we got these two people going to war, which means that problem is never going to get solved. Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way. You want to sell those wheels. You want to get a CarMax instant offer. So fast. Want to take a sec to think about it. Or like a month. Want to keep tabs on that instant offer. With OfferWatch. Want to have CarMax pick it up from your driveway. You want to get it done today. You want to do it all. So, want to drive? CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere.

42:07Restrictions and fee may apply. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. listening to this podcast smart move being financially savvy smart move another smart move having state farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor state farm is there prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state What this does ultimately is it creates credibility. When you take extreme ownership and you follow through on the things that you're taking ownership around, you build credibility and you argue that that's real currency in leadership.

42:52What do you mean by that? We have this term leadership capital, you know, and this concept of, you know, with everybody, I have a bank account. I have a bank account of credibility, the word you described. And it might be a little bit different between the two of you. You know, John sees me as a certain level. AJ sees it. And my leadership bank account is going to vary from person to person. But every time I'm in an interaction with another human being, every comment I make, every conversation I have, every email, every meeting, I'm either contributing and adding to that bank account or I'm taking away from it and every time I get to a meeting and I subtly hint that aj is the problem and kind of blame you a little bit what I'm actually doing is taking money out of my account and the opposite is true is every time I go hey john I screwed this up I set you up to fail I didn't give you the right resources I can do a better job I put a little money in the account the problem with the leadership capital the leadership bank account that credibility account is most of us walk around thinking we're millionaires thinking we got all sorts of money in the bank.

43:52And if I'm rich in that account, I don't really manage my spending all that well. I don't really think about, am I making a deposit or withdrawal because I think I'm rich. The reality is most of us should be thinking we're almost bankrupt because if you have very little money in that account, I'm gonna be really conscientious about how we interact with you. I'm gonna work really hard to make deposits. The mindset should be is you're always looking for ways to grow that leadership capital account, to grow that credibility account, to build leadership capital. And you do that by assuming your account balance is very low.

44:28And most of us fall into the trap thinking our account balance is very high, which it very probably isn't. When you're new to the organization, you don't need to be contributing so much. You need to be learning what's going on and just being in neutral, making sure you're not taking anything out of the organization or that bank account. And for a lot of people, they get so comfortable in that neutral position, they think I'm due for a raise. I haven't caused any problems. It's like, yeah, you haven't caused any problems, but you haven't added anything to this organization. Great. You showed up on time.

45:10You haven't argued with anybody. Yeah, you haven't caused any friction. But have you added any acceleration? People need to understand that. Those promotions are going to go to the accelerationists. The relationships are going to go to the accelerationists. The leadership is going to go to the accelerationists because they've shown that they're there for the organization. They're not just coasting and they're not causing friction. Yeah, I think a good habit is always look for a way to contribute. Always look for an opportunity to find how you can contribute to that team getting better and improving over time.

45:49And certainly if you've got a long-term plan for success, that will not just happen on its own. You have to work hard and you have to work to earn that. In our trainings, we show the guys how to find those gaps within their relationships, within their organizations, so they can be a contributor because they had been coasting for so long. They've coasted through school, done the things that they were told to do. They're coasting straight into the organization. And now like, hey, I've been here for two years. I haven't caused any problems. Where's my promotion? I'm not making waves. Where's my promotion?

46:28Yeah, it's more than that, right? Yeah. I want to talk about another dynamic because it's something that Johnny and I also train our clients on, which is listening. And you had a real interesting dynamic where you like moving your mouth more than you like using your ears. How did it feel to get that lesson? And then what have you done to shift to become a better listener? That was a really hard chapter to write. You know, I was talking about lessons that I learned and it was a very personal one involved my wife. And to your point, AJ, you know, this really came to the forefront. It really kind of boiled over when I came back from Iraq on the ground being in Ramadi and I was a pilot, but I'd done this tour on the ground and it was violent.

47:10It was a really brutal combat deployment. I came back with, with some, some stress and some, and a lot of anxiety, a lot of frustration. And I was having a hard time reacclimating to, you know, beautiful Southern California, San Diego, having been in Iraq and Ramadi. And again, I'm paraphrasing that the book is much more in depth and the experience is much more in depth. But one of the things that I had decided when I came home is based on what I was struggling with is I really, I really didn't react well when other people were talking and sort of interrupting me or influencing what's going on when I really wanted them to not do that.

47:50It's a totally ridiculous mindset, but that's the mindset I had was, was I had built these habits throughout my career where I was essentially the primary talker. And I explained it like when you're a fighter pilot by yourself in an airplane, it's very obvious. You're the one talking. Um, when you're an instructor at Top Gun, you're the teacher, you're doing most of the talking. When you were a flight lead in a formation, you're the one doing in the talking. When you're in Iraq in a Humvee looking for things outside of the vehicle and you're the vehicle commander and you're the air controller communicating with the aircraft, you're the one talking.

48:25So what I had recognized, or I guess I should say initially, failed to recognize was I had very comfortably fallen into the habit of being the primary talker, which meant everybody else should be the primary listener. And when I came back from Iraq and I was struggling with my returns, I was having nightmares. I was having a really tough time dealing with the loss of a Marine and coming back. What I had done was kind of created the scenario by which I was really the prime decider on who's doing the talking. And what really started to do is I sort of pushed my wife into a subordinate role where she had to be deferential to me.

49:02Even just hearing that term, I pushed my wife into deferential role should be a red flag that clearly that is not a good way to have a relationship. It's not a marriage. It's certainly not how I should be with my wife. And I was struggling so much and I started to recognize it was affecting my marriage. I had to take a step back and in my mind, diagnose what is really going on here? What is happening? And what I had to admit to myself and had to accept to myself is that I was talking way more than I was listening. And I was forcing everyone else around me to listen way more than they were talking.

49:34And I know how simple it sounds, what I'm about to say. But all I did was reverse that. I just stopped talking so much. And I just started listening more. I started to break the habit of being the primary communicator. And not only did I start listening to my wife and listening to the people around me more, I started listening to what was in my head more. And so I was explaining how I was having these nightmares. Those are usually being triggered by some other thing, some frustration or something going on in my life. And what I was doing is ignoring that. I didn't want to admit that I was frustrated about something.

50:07I didn't want to admit what was going on in my own head. I wasn't listening to myself. Ended up writing entire chapter. The title of the chapter is just listen. It's one of the most overlooked leadership skills in the world is just talk less and listen more. And if you do that, it can redefine and change your entire life. And I don't want to admit that I'm perfect at it, But it really was a tough lesson of to have a better, stronger marriage, better, stronger relationships, personally, professionally, talk less and listen more. And it's a good habit that I got into after after Iraq. And it helped me significantly get off a path that was really destructive of just I'm talking, you're listening.

50:47And that's just how it is. It's an awful way to be. A lot of leaders talk too much for myself personally. And I know a lot of our audience members being analytical. You know, we think of leaders, we think of problem solvers. and we want to listen to get to the problem. And then we want to showcase our talents and our skills and solve it and move on to the next one so we can keep charging forward. And what I found and the lesson in there for me is I was spending a lot of time solving the wrong problems, the wrong problems for my wife, the wrong problems in the business, because I was rushing to make assumptions about what the problem was.

51:18Oh, I heard a little bit. Oh, I know exactly what it is. Diagnose, move forward. Let's keep moving. and that over time, that depletes your marriage, that depletes your relationships, that depletes your team because they feel like, well, they're not being heard. They can't come to you with the real issues. You're just gonna charge ahead anyways. You're not even gonna listen. And all of a sudden, now I have blind spots happening, blind spots in my relationships where they don't wanna share with me because they don't feel that I'm a good outlet, blind spots in my business where my team's like, well, I can't tell AJ about that issue.

51:47He's just, he's got a bunch of other things that he wants to focus on. And that listening piece really unlocks so much of that for me, recognizing, am I making the right assumption here or do I need a bit more information? Maybe I should ask another why or how question or how'd you come to that conclusion or what's going on behind the scenes there and gather more intel before charging into problem solving. Although problem solving feels really good for my ego. It's like I get the pat on the back. I get the win. In the spirit of not saying much, I agree completely. That's exactly right. Let's talk about taking a backseat there because that's a great transition to a moment that you had where you're sitting at your graduation exercise.

52:26Now you're watching all your classmates lead. And for someone who has that ego and the talent and really sees themselves as the leader, it's hard to take the backseat and let others lead. I started the book, the introduction is this. I was the flight lead for the Top Gun graduation exercise. And in my mind, I'm like, what is the flight lead? Flight leads out in front. He leads his team to victory. Follow me. I'm going to get everybody in and out of this terrible situation. And I'm going to be the savior of this whole challenging mission. And about 30 seconds into the mission, I had missed an enemy over my shoulder.

53:00I ended up turning and fighting with this guy. Took way longer than I wanted to do. And what it did is it took me out of this leadership role, at least the leadership role in my mind. And I was the last guy in the formation of my Top Gun class through this big, long mission that I planned and prepped and envisioned being out in front. And so this whole flight, I am what's called tail end Charlie, the last person in the whole flight. And when we got to the debrief, I was thinking, all I was thinking in my head was like, I'm a failure. Well, it turns out, shockingly, the team did incredibly well.

53:33We shot down all the enemy aircraft. We got to the target. We did everything in that training mission we're supposed to do. And it turns out the mission was a complete success. And the only thing that I struggled with is the success was, wait a second, I wasn't out in front. I wasn't the lead. I wasn't the one shepherding my wingman and my flock to this target. And it was a reminder of leadership. The image of like a good leader standing up, telling everybody what to do, and everybody following is not a good image. The image should be a good leader prepares the team to be successful, no matter where you are or what happens.

54:07and I really had to come to grips with successes when the team wins, not that I'm the showcased out in front leader that's front and center. And there's all these cliches, lead from the front and I understand where they come from, but actually a lot of times a leader should lead from the middle, two thirds of the way back, from the back, sometimes in the front, sometimes, it doesn't make it for a good poster, but a leader isn't always out in front. And oftentimes, most of the time, you shouldn't be. Your team should be out front. And so that was a tough, another one, just like John was talking earlier.

54:44My ego didn't like that, but it was a good recognition of what leadership is. Leadership is not you're in charge telling everybody else what to do. Leadership is the team is prepared to succeed no matter where you are or what you're doing. And that mission, the entire team succeeded. It just didn't look how I wanted. But it was a good lesson of what leadership really is, is you don't have to be out in front to be a good leader. In fact, sometimes, oftentimes, you shouldn't be. Unfortunately, a lot of us, maybe we don't want to admit it to ourselves or ego and let us admit it as we seek leadership for that spotlight.

55:18We want that opportunity to be in the spotlight. And there are certainly times in the last 18 years of our company where I had to be the grunt worker, invisible behind the scenes. no spotlight, completely behind the scenes, just making sure that things are moving forward so the team can win, so we all can win. But as a leader, it can feel really jarring to be in ground support. You had an experience. You think of a fighter pilot, you don't think of being on the ground. You want to be up there chasing bogeys and doing all that amazing stuff in the plane. And here you are on the ground in an invisible role.

55:53It was called a FAC tour, a Ford Air Control Tour. I'm on the ground. I'm running around with a bunch of Navy SEALs. Uh, you know, I've got a rifle and a radio. I'm talking with aircraft using, calling in airstrikes and shooting my, my rifle, nothing, nothing like I ever dreamed or envisioned as a fighter pilot and nothing like my time in the airplane. And it was a massive out of my comfort zone experience. And just like you said, uh, the image of a fighter pilot in an airplane versus being on the ground, you could not have a starker contrast between the two. obviously it was an incredibly influential experience i learned more in that year on the ground than i could have ever imagined but it was a completely opposite of what i ever imagined or ever expected or ever wanted and i think the lesson from that is just like you alluded to is you have to be open-minded to being in wherever you need to be to make the biggest contribution at the time and it doesn't have to be the prominent uh front-facing uh look at me i'm in charge or on the centerpiece role.

56:58Sometimes it's anonymous, it's quiet, it's under the table, it's behind the scenes. But your role to contribute to the team's success is going to change and vary and look different from what your ego wants. And you have to be open minded to that. As we wrap, I'd love to hear any other communication strategies or changes that you had to make in order to become a more successful leader. We talked about listening, we know how important that is. But as we do with our training and working with our clients, really focusing on the people part. So, so much out there around honing your talents and building the skill sets that you need to be impactful.

57:32But when it comes to communicating with others, and I know even the military brings us in to help train on this because it's become so important for them as leaders. What do you see that communication piece being and any other strategies you'd like to share with our audience? This is a good way to close. I think you two have done a masterful job kind of bringing out some of the key things, the mindsets and the behaviors that I was talking about as I wrote some of my key lessons from my experience and put them on paper in that book. But one of the hardest things to do is something we call detachment, which is the idea that your perspective, your point of view, what you think you know is not the whole story.

58:15So if you want to be a good communicator, we already talked about listening. I think, again, you've done a bunch of great things. I think connecting to the leadership principles that I wrote about in the book. But one of the hardest things in all this is if I want to be, if I really want to listen, if I really want to be a good communicator and listen, I have to recognize that what I see isn't the whole story, isn't the whole truth. I have to be open-minded to other people's perspectives. And so we talk about detachment, the concept of detaching. We already spoke, I think a lot, John hit the nail on the head.

58:45You got to detach from your ego. You have to detach from what your ego is saying. You have to detach from your emotions, your frustration, all those sentiments, but you also have to detach from your point of view. It's all too often we see a situation, we see a problem, like you talked about, AJ, we see a situation and we think, okay, I see the whole picture. I know exactly what's going on. I know how to solve it. Well, you don't. And the detachment is I am missing something. I don't see it the same way that AJ does. I don't see it from John's point of view. And what I have to do is understand your perspective, your point of view, how you see that, and the collection of all those different points of view from your team is what opens you up to the whole picture.

59:26It's really hard to be a good communicator. If you think you see and know everything, it's hard to detach from that, but it's one of the best lessons. One of the hardest things we can do is detach from our point of view and be open-minded to other people's point of view. But man, that is such a great way to be a more effective leader and be effective communicator is detaching from that. I believe that's perfectly said. Yeah. And I really appreciate you coming on the show under the microscope, sharing all your mistakes. I know as someone who's driven as a leader and also has that strong ego, it's difficult, but you were willing to write a book about it and come on the show and share that with our audience.

1:00:02Where can they find out more about the work you do? Well, first, let me say, I appreciate being here. This is so much fun. You guys are awesome, man. What a couple of great hosts. This is a really fun conversation. If you want to get ahold of me, you got the two best places or go to our company's website, echelonfront.com. I work with Jocko Willink, who's a very prominent leader and the company is awesome. He wrote the book Extreme Ownership with Lee Fabin. That's the company I work at, echelonfront.com. Or if you're a social media person, I hate to say it, I'm not the most active on social media, but I do a pretty decent job on both LinkedIn, on Instagram, and just put in my name, Dave Burke or David Burke, whatever it is, and I will interact with you there as well.

1:00:41Thank you for joining us, Dave. You guys are awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you, Dave.

1:00:53And now comes the part of the show where we showcase one of our X Factor Accelerator members. Take it away, Tammy. Hey, everybody. This is Tammy. And as a retail business owner, the old saying, you know, it's lonely at the top. It's true. I joined X Factor because I wanted to be in a group of people who were kind of on the same level that I was, who were trying to live their best lives. and it has been an amazing community to be a part of. I am an X factor with people who are really trying to create their best future and their best lives. And I highly recommend the program to anybody who's thinking about it.

1:01:32I don't think that you'll ever regret it. To invest in yourself is the best investment you can make. Thank you, Tammy. It was a pleasure working with you too and good luck to you and your future endeavors. If you've gotten value out of this, or any of our podcasts, head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show. It means the world to us, and it helps others find the show. Until next week, go out there and make it MF.

1:02:17You sold the world, you sold the tragedy. Cause you had your taste of black only yesterday. Yeah, but I remember you. Oh yeah, I remember you. Oh yeah, I remember you.