Why You Should Run Towards Your Fear | Martha McSally PT2

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2:02Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

2:56Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I am chugging away on the wisdom book. I'm not saying I can see the end in sight because I can't, but I am underway. I have left the harbor. I cannot see the land behind me. I don't know exactly where it's going, but I'm chugging away. So that feels nice and good. I love being in the middle of a book. I love when the book really starts to gel and come together. I'm not there yet. I'm not where I am, of course, with the Justice book, which is done and finished. I'm doing the audiobook now. Now, you can grab a pre-order of the new book, Right Thing Right Now, at dailystoic.com slash justice.

3:47I think you're really going to enjoy it. And there's some cool pre-order bonuses. I have to sign 15 ,000 pages of the book. So that's what I'm in the middle of doing now. That's at dailystoic.com slash justice. But back to today's guest. I was telling you last episode about Senator Martha McSally, who's had just a crazy life. She's like, she could be on that sort of most interesting man slash woman in the world category. She has a master's degree from Harvard, master's from the Air War College. She was one of the first female graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy, first female fighter pilot to fly in combat.

4:25She files this lawsuit about what kind of clothes women have to wear when they're deployed in somewhere like Saudi Arabia. She's run over a dozen marathons. She's done two Ironmans. She was a congresswoman and then a senator. Look, I don't agree with her politically. I imagine we get into that a little bit in today's episode. Now that we talk politics, but I did feel like it had to be addressed. And I've got to be honest, I didn't love that she didn't want to address it. I don't think you can run for public office, stand for certain things, vote repeatedly for certain things, and then just be like, oh, that's not me.

5:00I don't want to talk about it. I didn't love that. But look, to each their own. I've got a lot of respect for what she's accomplished in her life. I really enjoyed this interview. And I think she's fascinating. She has a great book, Dare to Fly, which you can pick up at The Payne-to-Port. She signed some copies. You can follow her on Instagram at Martha McSally or go to her website, Martha McSally, or go to this cool challenge she's doing. That's at 2024bestyear.com. Thank you to Senator McSally, fighter pilot, congresswoman, endurance athlete, and overall all fascinated person for coming on the show.

5:34And I hope you enjoyed this interview.

5:43Well, we used to also joke that like, they just, they would, you know, a lot of guys would be like, okay, I still don't think women should be doing this, but you're the exception. And somehow that would make you feel good. Like, no, your bias needs to be shattered. You need to, you can't, because the cognitive dissonance, I joke that part of my purpose in life is to create cognitive dissonance in people. But the cognitive dissonance, like something has to give. You can't believe this and this, and then somehow try to hold on to both of them. So if you have proof of something different than your core belief, then be open to shattering your beliefs.

6:20I think I was reading, I'm trying to remember who I was reading. It might've been in a Wayne Dyer book recently about what do we believe and what do we know? Yeah. And the things that we believe, if we're not willing to hold them with an open hand because we believe them because that's what society believes, that's what our parents believe, that's what somebody else said, that's what we read a book about. But if we really don't know, like know from experience, know from a divine knowing, like we know something, be willing to hold those beliefs with an open hand, that's not easy to do though. Well, what happens is you have your prejudice or your view or your understanding of something.

6:58You want to be wrong. You think, oh, I don't like sushi or I don't like avocado. And then you don't eat those things, right? And so you can't have that understanding or that view changed, right? So that's the reinforcing nature of a prejudice or a biased system or whatever is that people are unfamiliar with a thing or afraid of a thing because they're unfamiliar with it. And so they set up structures or norms that make it unlikely that that will ever be challenged, let alone shattered. Yeah. Right? And so you were entering a system in which women had never been allowed. And then the few women, when they were forced to be allowed, were set up to fail.

7:43And then when they did fail, right, like then it confirms. Like, see, we told you. We told you, right? And then when one or two did succeed, well, it's just the one or two exceptions. You know, it's just, you're never going to have that immediate transformation of like, oh, everything I thought about this was wrong because the world and your own cognitive biases, as you're saying, are set up to prevent that from happening. For sure. There were some guys, though, who very quickly realized like everything I thought about this was wrong. That's good. Because they would see how you were performing and see, I mean, the plane doesn't lie.

8:26Right. The scores at the bombing range do not lie. You either hit the target or you don't. Like we would, you know, bet, you know, quarters, dollars or whatever, like in a little friendly, whoever, you know, wins the competition. So it doesn't lie. If I hit the target and you were 10 meters away, hand over your quarter. Right. So, again, I would watch the wheels turning with some of these guys. I'm like, you know what? I was wrong. No, and you think about the self-awareness and also the sort of confidence or sense of self it requires to be able to do that. That's really tough, right? Because the more insidious thing you tell yourself is, oh, the system, even though it's the opposite of truth, we see this now in different areas, you go, oh, it's because the system is rigged in that person's favor.

9:17They're getting preferential treatment. They're tokens, right? We tell ourselves about how instead of having to face, oh, I've been awful to this group or this person or this person is just flat out better than me. We go, oh, well, actually, they're not the victim of, you know, various structures. They're the beneficiary of systems. And me, the white dude who's had everything in my favor pretty much all along. I'm the real victim here. Yeah, well, this is one of my after a few beers officers club stories early on when I was in training, A-10 training. So the jury was still out as to whether I had what it took.

10:00I thought I did, but I still had to go through the training. And we had this one evaluator instructor pilot who had several beers in him and just started going off on how it doesn't matter how I perform, that if I fail, they're not going to be allowed to fail me out. In this single seat attack plane, like there's no two seater, like it's my life in my hands and the mission responsibility for me. So he had this, nobody told him that, but he had this idea that the standards were going to be lowered, that if he decided, if I didn't have what it took and he, he just, he fast forwarded this whole thing based on this crazy bias.

10:40And I just went, I verbally, I, with lots of F-bombs, I, My classmates were just like, oh my gosh. I was like, if you don't have the, if I don't have what it takes and I don't meet the standard and you don't have the effing balls to flunk me out, then that is your problem. That is not my problem. That's something going on inside you. Yeah. And so anyway, it was a bit of a scene at the officer's club, but it just, I would have this anger coming towards me based on what people were perceiving what may or may not happen. And again, I understand human behavior a little bit better now. I was just in the midst of the, you know, the scrum at the time, just trying to survive and thrive.

11:21But yeah, he just was spewing venom towards me based on some hypothetical situation that wasn't even real. Right. And yeah, part of it is probably if I just say horrible things, eventually that person will make a mistake or do it. Like I gave a talk at a military base not that long ago when I was talking about Jackie Robinson, who some people know was in the Army. But he's dishonorably discharged, right, because he was told to go to the back of a bus. And it was actually illegal at that time. The segregation was not allowed on federal bases. And he knew that. And he said, you can't make me go to the back of the bus.

12:01And so, you know, a commanding officer gets called out. And they can't bust him on that because he's in the right, but they can bust him for how he's talking to the officer who, you know, to Jackie Robinson is the embodiment of the injustice. But there's also all these sort of cultural issues there. And so he acts imprudently and loses self-control in that moment. And that's how they get him. And so the Jackie Robinson we see as a baseball player has had to learn a not fair but very real lesson about, oh, they're trying to bait me into doing the kinds of things that will then allow me to bounce me out.

12:48And so, you know, Jackie Robinson is, you know, he gets hit with pitches. He gets hit with spikes. They're saying horrible things to him. It's not just that they didn't think he could play. It's that they tried to prove himself to be the stereotype of the brute or whatever that they were using to justify not. So I imagine with as a female fighter pilot, you know, there's all these stereotypes. Women are too emotional. So the whole paradox or trap of it is that they're trying to prove that you are the thing that they are stereotyping you as. Which I'd always joke that I've never met a more emotional group of people than those arguing that no woman should be a fighter pilot.

13:33Super emotional argument. But you're exactly right. And I went through this in my battle with the Pentagon. Can I talk a little bit? So here I am 10 years from the time I dreamed to be a fighter pilot to when I'm finally taking off in the A-10 and we're breaking the barriers and I'm becoming a fighter pilot, technically an attack pilot, flying the A-10. And my squadron that I first was a part of immediately deploys over to the Middle East. So my dream has finally come true. I'm a fighter pilot. We're deploying. and while I'm there on that deployment, I was in Kuwait, I walked by the duty desk one day and I saw a little like newsletter of the region and it showed a picture of what I thought was like a local local, uh, you know, Muslim woman, but it was actually a USGI wearing a full black Muslim garb and headscarf saying this is the appropriate way to dress in, you know, when going off base in Saudi Arabia.

14:34And I was like, what? Wait, what? Yeah. Like we're having our troops. What are we doing? And it just, it, Ryan, I can't explain it. Like it just gripped me that I'm not, you know, we shouldn't be the ugly American when we go to host nations, but I think everybody would agree the way women are treated in Saudi Arabia is pretty much property is getting a little better. They're in like the eighth century now, but now they can drive. But, um, at the time we were essentially, very long story short, as I started to look into this, we were imposing on our female troops over there to, you know, can't drive, sit in the backseat of the car, put on the Muslim garb, always be escorted by a man, lie, claim your fellow servicewoman as your wife to comply with like there's all sorts of crazy stuff.

15:20And I had a decision to make when it when I first felt this conviction that was wrong. I'm in a position as a pioneer and as an officer, as a leader. I have a voice. The young enlisted women being subjected to these demeaning policies don't. And I really struggled with, should I, I just believe this is wrong. What should I do about it? So I started researching it. What's the policy? Where did it come from? Classic bureaucracy. Is it law? Is it policy? Who's the authority? All sorts of stuff, which a lot of things can be folklore or bureaucratic policy creep. So I had to make a decision in that moment.

16:00The Secretary of Defense was coming to visit. A bunch of media was there since I was flying combat missions, and that was noteworthy. You had a bit of a platform. I had a platform. And I struggled with whether to say something about this, because I just felt like it was so wrong. But I had finally reached my dream, and you had all these hostilities. You had something to lose now. I had a lot to lose because, you know, last thing I wanted to do is bring up a women's issue, right? I was just trying to be one of the guys, do my job. So I really, really struggled. I go into more details, you know, my book about it.

16:35But ultimately, when I call back to get some assistance from somebody, he quoted scripture from Esther to me, which at the time I thought was irrelevant. But when I read it with a bad attitude, just like to comply, the quote was, can it be that you were put in this position for such a time as this? And I really struggled with, am I ready to blow it all up? Like this dream I had to be this because of something I believe is wrong on so many levels? Am I willing? Yeah. to let it all go. And I mean, I didn't know what that even meant at the time, but am I willing to speak up? That was the first decision.

17:19If asked by the secretary of defense or the media, do I answer that I'm, you know, about this policy? If asked any question, right? Do I say, hey, what about this policy? So I, this was not an easy decision, but I decided I needed to say something that I needed to be a voice. I told my commander, he supported me. And in the end, I mean, I brought this up to the secretary of defense. It got covered by the media. It was this little article on page like A28, little AP article. First half was secretary of defense visits the troops were committed, you know, to the security of Kuwait. The second half was Captain McSally raises this controversial issue.

18:04Everybody between my commander and the secretary of defense, of course, gets pissed off and people wanting to get fired. And this started a crazy eight-year battle to try and overturn this, where it got more and more lonely. But I kept asking myself, what's the next right thing to do? And am I willing to walk away from this dream in order to do the right thing? And ultimately, my oath of office that I took, when I raised my right hand as to the constitution, not to stupid policies of the people above me that I felt were unconstitutional. I mean, the taxpayers are paying for religious garb and forcing people to wear it.

18:47So anyway, the journey, that eight-year journey where I kept asking what's the next right thing to do, and the cost kept getting higher. Right. They then order me over to Saudi Arabia about five and a half years into it. This is not a mistake. I'm sure. Then they said, if I don't put the burqa on, essentially it's not burqa, but, you know, sitting in the back seat of the car, as soon as I arrived, I would be taken up on charges and court-martialed. I mean, at that point, I had been promoted four years ahead of my peers, top couple percent on track to senior leadership, and now I'm being threatened to be court-martialed because I didn't wear a burqa.

19:28I won't wear a burqa. and I mean that's they're trying to get you to light yourself on fire right in this whole process I decided to comply that one time after getting some advice from my boss I went in to tell him hey I'm about to light myself on fire I'm about to get arrested and he's like Martha if you're committed to getting it changed you're finally getting on the inside yeah to convince the general to change it, who's responsible, like this is your chance. Don't blow yourself up. So against my feisty, I was willing to blow myself up. Right. I complied with it one time with a really bad attitude and I was seething Ryan.

20:11I was sitting in that car with my, I was the highest ranking person in the car. Everybody else is in jeans and a polo shirt. And I'm wearing this burka in the middle of the night in a convoy of Suburbans. and I'm just like so angry. I'm so, I was just so angry. And every decision along that path was like, what's the next right thing to do? But there were times I almost reacted out of frustration blowing up, you know, because of my frustration that people and the system was not listening to do the right thing that I could have really hurt myself. Yeah. Eventually you have to read the end of the story.

20:48But eventually, years later, I was driving a car in jeans in Saudi Arabia. So yeah, this idea of when to comply and when to defy and how to pick your battles is one of the trickiest ones there is, right? Because if you go along with everything, you know, but you're telling yourself, oh, it's because I'm going to change things when I'm on the inside, probably fooling yourself. But then, you know, it's also it's easier to be the outsider. It's easy to be sort of intellectually or morally pure, but are you actually morally pure? Because you could have changed things. You could have made them better for people, but you didn't because...

21:30Yeah. I mean, the argument from my boss mentoring me when I went to tell him I was going to get arrested was, if you're committed to making this change, do it one time in order to get on the inside and bring about the change from the inside. Otherwise, you're going to be arrested, court-martialed, kicked out of the Air Force, your career's over, and you haven't changed the policy. And I remember putting on a little graph, these ideas of my career's not over, my career's over. The policy's changed, the policy's not changed. And I found myself like, well, the worst case is in the lower quadrant here where I'm no longer serving and the policy hasn't changed.

22:12Right. So I got myself to a place where I was willing to blow myself up and have my career be over, but have the policy changed. So I found like those, that's what drove my decisions along the way. So once the general refused to listen and told me to shut up and comply, that's when I basically was like, okay, now it's time to do something different. No, there are three branches of the government. Yeah. And the executive branch is failing here. So I'm going to go to the other two and bring about this change. Yeah, I think that it weighed on you and you had to really think it through. I think it's important because we often think of people who sort of break down barriers or bring about change as sort of having this sort of moral call that they never waver.

23:02They never doubt. They always know what's right. But in fact, it's really hard. You have that expression that you like do things afraid. I think we think that brave people are not afraid. That's true. And it's totally not the truth at all. People think sometimes people who have done brave things are like action figures. So they're not like me. They can't relate to me. And I mean, when I took off in the A-10 for the very first time, my dream 10 years in the making, I thought I was going to throw up. I was very afraid. I love your distinction of scared versus afraid, actually. That's a really good one.

23:42Do things scared. I was scared, but I chose to take off afraid. You might using my term, I chose to do things afraid. And it's only then that you realize that the fear didn't have power over you. You build your capabilities of confidence. You expand yourself. And then when you get right on the edge, you're going to feel afraid again. So it's choosing to do the thing in the midst of the fear that actually brings you courage. Dan Sullivan says courage is doing what you need to do with wet pants or something like that. Well, look, if you're not afraid, if there's no fear, then courage is not necessary.

24:23Not necessary. And certainly whatever you did can't be described as courageous. The whole point is it had to be scary to you. Yes. Right? Like if you are the kind of person to whom that thing is not scary because you've done it a thousand times, then it just is. Or if you're somehow a sociopath or something, you're wired differently, you're not feeling it. Right. That doesn't mean it's not impressive or it wasn't necessary to do. It just means that for you, it wasn't an act of courage. Courage is the triumph over the doubt or the fear, the hesitation. Exactly. It's not wanting to do it and doing it anyway.

24:57Exactly. That's the whole point. Exactly. And, you know, going back to a point you had previously about when you are a change agent, like I am, like you tend to push against everything. When I was younger, I would be like, well, why are we doing that? Especially in a bureaucracy. So I had to learn how to pick my battles. Like, why am I, you know, pushing back and all sorts of stuff? You could diminish your impact if you're just always, you know, always resisting, right? Or always looking to change. So you have to have that discernment of when it's time to stay in the line on what issue and when it's time to find a way to bring about change in other ways.

25:38So I had to learn that with maturity for sure. Yeah, there's that quote, discretion is the better part of valor. Like if you're fighting over everything, people just get tired of you. They get tired of you. They don't listen to you. And then also you don't have the capital or the credibility you need to really get things done where it matters. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But when it comes to those big moments, like the moment that I, in this burka battle, as we call it, filed Martha McSally versus Donald Rumsfeld in court. Like, you don't just wake up in the morning and say, I'm going to sue the secretary of defense today.

26:15That, you know, that was a multi-year journey that I never would have imagined at the beginning of it. If somebody told me at the beginning, this is where this is going, I would have been, uh-uh, no, there's no way. But do the next right thing. Do the next right thing. So when I decided I'm suing the Secretary of Defense because I believe this is wrong and the bureaucracy has failed and we need oversight from another branch of government, I mean, at that point, I knew, like, all right, I'm done. Yeah. This is part of my mission and calling to be a fighter pilot, but I'm, you know, finished here, even though I didn't do anything wrong.

26:52I think the system doesn't appreciate that kind of behavior, even though I eventually had a unanimous law passed and 535 members of Congress and the president agreed with me, not the bureaucracy. But that was not easy.

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29:29In retrospect, we celebrate activists and whistleblowers and change agents, but at the time, they're usually obnoxious or inconvenient or, you know, airing dirty laundry. There's all these reasons why we don't see them the way that later, when all the little things have fallen away and what remains is what's important, which is just like, was it right or wrong? Yeah. But in the moment, that's not how it is. So I think people think, oh, I'm going to do this right thing. I'm going to file this lawsuit or whatever. And then everyone's going to celebrate me. No. It would be amazing. It's like, look, like Martin Luther King was overwhelmingly unpopular.

30:11And then they killed him. Yes. Do you know what I mean? And so like this idea, we like to flatter ourselves with the idea that, you know, the right thing is popular. with the exception of some in a small minority that objects. It's the opposite. Most people want to keep things the way that they are for good reasons and bad reasons. And then the people that want to make them the way they should be are usually a problem. Yeah, I didn't know at the time that I was going to succeed. Sure. And, oh, yeah, people, I mean, I was vilified. I was attacked. I mean, it was once you make a move like that, it was a whole nother level of

31:01hostility. There were quiet people supporting me, but they wouldn't stand with me. Of course, they didn't have the courage to do that. But you were familiar with that. Yeah. They were like, I'm staying, to use a munitions term, we're staying out of the frag pattern, you know, where they could actually, you know, get hit, but cheering me on quietly, which I was disgusted by, to be honest with you. It's just all they could offer at the time. In their minds, they're making a distinction. I'm not like the bad people, but to you, it's almost worse. Worse, it's worse. Because they know the right thing and they're not doing it.

31:31Yes, exactly, exactly. And like I said, there could have been a different end of the story. Sure. And there are many stories similar to this where you don't win. Sure. But the question is when you feel a conviction to do the right thing. And I remember looking around like, isn't somebody else going to do this? Isn't there someone else who's with me? But in the end, it was my mission. It was my conviction. I couldn't put it away. And so I had to do it alone. I mean, I eventually had support from people in the legal process. But at the time that I made that decision, it was not easy for sure. And I'm sure also you would have liked for it to have been handled much simpler and easier and in-house.

32:21Like you should have just been able to get someone on the phone and say, hey, what about this? This is obviously wrong. But that's not normally how it goes. And that has happened, I mean, thousands of times when I was in the military where you see something that's not quite right. You do your homework. You build a, you know, not an argument, but you bring about the change. You know, often the indirect way is a better way than the, you know, direct approach or like the direct kind of assault, if that makes sense. You attack on the flanks. Make it the general's idea, right? You know, instead of – so I've done that a million times.

32:53In this case, it actually – the legal authority was a two-star general, the one I ended up working for. And he thought it was above his pay grade until I pointed out it was his policy, which had been handed down to him from the general before. It's a classic case of bureaucratic policy creep. But once challenged, everybody defends it to the death, right? Don't you challenge us. We're not going to change. So he could have done the right thing. But he was more interested in getting his next star in his own career. He didn't want to rock the boat or change on his watch. And so he chose to, I mean, order me to not bring it up again.

33:31Yeah. And to berate me. I mean, this is probably the most difficult experience I had in my time in the military was this general berating me with his JAG and his chief of staff both there. What's the matter with you? Why do you care so much about this? Why can't you just shut up and comply like everybody else? You know, do we need to send you for a mental health evaluation? Are you why are you so obsessed by this? You know, no one cares about this but you. And I mean, I remember going back, I had complied one time to get it changed, to get this guy's ear. And I had suggested a very reasonable initial policy change after I shared my research.

34:11And he's just shutting me down and berating me. This is my boss. I mean, I literally went back to my room and crawled into bed. I was like, what do I do now? Like, I don't even know what to do next. Right. It was horrible. It was horrible. But years later, I'm sitting in the gallery of the House of Representatives when unanimously they voted on the bill that I had drafted to overturn these stupid policies. And I remember sitting there thinking, I'm not the only one who cares about this, you fucking asshole. Excuse my language. No. Me and 435 representatives of the American people care about this.

34:57Right. And, I mean, that was a deeply satisfying moment. Now, I had done a bunch of media to get to that point, right? I decided, hey, if I'm going down, I'm getting this thing changed. So 60 minutes, you know, all sorts of crazy. I was trying to bring attention to it, saying, like, I can't take this hill by myself. I need some allies. I need another way. It can't just be me. So I kind of went on a PR campaign hoping somebody else would care about it enough to, you know, get this thing across the finish line. And that's in the end what happened. So another lesson in there, you don't have to fly solo.

35:35Sure. You may have a, it was my conviction, but looking for wingmen and looking for allies and looking for creative ways to try and solve the problem was the only way I was actually going to get it done. So is that sort of what drew you to politics, watching that process happen? No, I mean, I hate politics, ironically. I mean, but I was able to see as a citizen how I could make a difference and find consensus to solve a problem. And I can't help myself. Like, I can't walk by a problem. It's a part of who I am, much to the frustration of people who know me and love me and work for me at times. I just have a hard time walking by a problem, whether it's a stray dog in my neighborhood that blows up my whole schedule or, you know, something that I just believe, like, can I do something to fix it?

36:31So I just found myself after I retired from the military, I was teaching as a professor over in the German Alps, teaching national security studies. I was, you know, providing my experience to a lot of former Soviet Union countries and NATO allies and paragliding at lunch in the Alps. I mean, I was living a pretty good life. Yeah. But I just found myself yelling at the television and, like many people, just frustrated with the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. And look myself in the mirror. Well, get your ass in the arena. The Teddy Roosevelt quote is one of my favorite. Yeah. You opened up a book.

37:09Yeah, get in the arena. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's for somebody else. But it was just, again, wrestled with it for a while, but it was a calling. Like, get your ass in the arena. So I, it's a crazy story. I mean, I quit my job, got on, not yet, got on a plane, came home. I had been overseas for, at that point, four and a half years. and I was like, hey, I'm running for Congress. What do I do? Do I fill out paperwork somewhere? Like I had no idea what I was doing. Yeah. Was that scary? Oh, it was totally scary. Yeah. Totally scary. But it was purposeful and I felt like I needed to do my part to try and make a difference in this new combat zone.

37:52And it wasn't easy. I mean, I failed, failed, failed, failed. Took 1 ,049 days. and, you know, eventually I won by a whopping 167 votes. Actually, in 2012, I thought I won. I went to freshman orientation, photobombed the freshman photo and came back and conceded. So it took three long, hard, hard years, but eventually I was able to get there. Was it like what you thought it was going to be? I'm always curious what it is like because I think people have an idea of what government is And as an outsider, you're like, I'm going to get in there. I'm going to fix everything. And then you kind of figure out it has its own logic, its own rules.

38:36Yeah. Well, the year before I went to Saudi Arabia and this whole, you know, battle culminated around there, I actually had a career development opportunity to work on Senator John Kyle's national security team. Yeah. So I kind of saw as a staffer for a year how focused on a lot of national security and defense policy. So I had a little exposure there as well. Yeah. Again, walked away saying, hey, we need good people. I hate politics. Yeah, so once I got there, it wasn't completely foreign to me with that previous experience and, you know, pushing the legislation through that I did. It's not as bad as it seems, but it's worse than it was in the past, if that makes sense.

39:23Yeah. Yeah. And I just tried to stay, you're dealing with all sorts of things that are out of your control, right? Back to the stoic philosophies here, right? So I very much stayed like, what can I control? What can I do today to make a difference to solve a problem that's impacting my constituents? And I tried to stay grounded in, if I was trying to fix something, I would ask myself, is this a government issue? Because not everything is or should be. Sometimes it is when maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. So I don't resist what is based on a philosophical view. Is this a federal government issue?

40:02Because not everything should be. And then I would say, does this literally take an act of Congress to fix? Because not everything does. And then if the answer was yes, then I would craft legislation and look for that Venn diagram overlap. that. We all know where everyone disagrees. It's on display on cable news every day. Where can we find some sliver to move this forward to help veterans or small business owners or ranchers or whatever the issue was? Can we find some sliver? Sometimes the answer was no, but I would always look for that sliver. A lot of people craft legislation and then put out a press release and pretend they solved it.

40:47Right. But I know your audience is a little younger. They probably don't remember Schoolhouse Rock, you know, Saturday morning cartoons, how a bill becomes a law. Like my intent was like, do the hard work now to build a constituency, to make it bipartisan, to get it through committee, to get it to the floor, to get it through the Senate, get it to the House, get the support of the administration. I worked under two different ones. So like, how do I solve this problem? How a bill becomes a law. Right. And so that was how I grounded myself. Yeah. It was not easy because there's all sorts of craziness going on around you.

41:20But I just was like, what can I do today? Yeah. To move these issues forward while I'm dealing with landmines that, you know, I imperfectly stepped on from time to time and just dealing with all the, you know, dynamics going on. I would just try to focus on solving problems. So I was probably a little too pragmatic for the environment there. Yeah. I was very frustrated a lot. I've talked to a lot of politicians. What's always, I've had trouble wrapping my head around is almost to a rule, they hate it. It's like not a good job. They're frustrated with how inefficient it is, how broken it is, whatever.

42:01And then whenever there's moments that they have to bet, you know on like they have to they have to put some chips on the table like hey i could lose my job over this they're like well i don't want to lose my job over this and i was like you were just telling me how much you hated it and then you know it's not like being a fighter pilot where if you fail you die right you'll just go be a lobbyist or an author or a consultant or there's so like you know there's so many things i mean your predecessor uh one of them is like the ambassador to Turkey now. It worked out okay. But people are so afraid to step over the line, to speak out, to take an unpopular stand or a stand for which there'd be potentially retributions.

42:47I don't get that. I don't get it either. Because again, when it comes to like what your vote is, there's a lot of people I would call them the vote no, but the hope yes caucus. Yes. Like they knew what needed to be done. They knew what the right thing was. We had a binary choice at that moment. Now, whether you liked the process up till that moment, you have a binary choice at the moment, yes or no. And they maybe would want it to pass, but they were afraid of a primary. Right. And this is on both sides, you know, so they would wait in the house, they would wait and see the vote count go up for the people who are willing to govern.

43:23Yeah. And then as soon as it went over to 18, they'd put their voting card in a vote no in order to save their ass from a primary. And so I mean, I don't get like I a couple times, a handful of times, you know, I would say something I don't talk a lot like in the, you know, whole group, but it'd be when we would have like meetings, be like, nobody's going to remember your fucking name, right? Like, with few exceptions, what are you here to do? Like, what do you what are you actually here to do? And if this is a lesson in life, you're going to operate out of fear, yeah, then you're going to bring about the very thing that you're trying to prevent usually.

43:59And then you're going to be ineffective and miss opportunities to actually do what's right for the next generation, not just worry about your next election. So I don't get it. Like when I, you know, fast forward, I was there two terms in the House. And then, you know, the governor appointed me to the Senate. I was the last person in the moment to think that was a good idea. After I, you know, running. I was like, there are so many things outside my control right now. And this, the founding fathers created it to be frustrating, by the way. Yes. On purpose. To frustrate. To frustrate. Reactionary.

44:36Reactionary. Immediate trends of the moment. Right? So that we would have the house is the hot cup of coffee and the Senate's the saucer. Yes. Whatever analogy you want to use. Yeah, that's such a, that's a famous analogy and it makes no fucking sense to me because it's not what a saucer does. I know. But the point is – To prevent you from spilling and to not – Whatever. You get the general point, right? That if you're trying – if I was trying to get something passed into law, I needed the majority of the House, I needed 60 votes in the Senate, and I needed the administration to be – That's the bottom line.

45:12And so even, you know, whether you agree or disagree with the 60 vote, which I believe the Senate's supposed to be the for major change, kind of that, whoa, wait a minute, like the sort of voice of wisdom for the longer term. So it's designed to be somewhat frustrating by nature. But then the environment has just gotten so toxic and you just add all these different elements. I mean, I found that I was in the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is 23 Republicans, 23 Democrats. And some of my best memories are sitting in my office with beer and tacos with a whiteboard trying to find common ground on stabilizing the health insurance market or something related to border security.

45:59Like, just can we please find some common ground and just work together? And those conversations were really important, but there's less and less opportunity for those to happen. Yeah, that group you said that sort of votes no, but hopes yes is interesting. I tell this story in my book, Lives of the Stoics. There's this poet who, you know, he's asked to perform one day in Rome and Julius Caesar is in the audience. and he goes on this rant sort of, he very courageously calls out Julius Caesar to his face. And Cicero is in the audience, sort of the consummate politician who had played it all perfectly.

46:47He was a Republican, but then he manages to say, just not enough to offend Julius Caesar. He survives. And he says to the poet as the poet's leaving, he says, oh, that's amazing. I'm so impressed with your courage. Come sit next to me. And he says, you know, the poet says, oh, I'm surprised there's room to sit next to you because you take up two stools. He sits on both chairs, basically, which I think is the sort of the problem with politicians, leaders, people before, you know, then and since, which is like they don't want to take a stand because to take a stand is to make you vulnerable. or they don't want to be too out of step with the moment, the trend, or the leadership, or the base that loves the leadership.

47:37And so we're stuck in this mess where, you know, you have a lot of people, as you said, they vote no but hope yes, or what they'll say in private is very different than what they're willing to say on the record. Yeah, and then there's this element of like, there's often really complex issues we're dealing with. And so, you know, you know, many things are going to be turned into a 30-second TV ad. Anything in any bill could be to use against you. So it's just like, and you got to, there is a pick your battle thing too, right? Because if you're just going to like rail against everything, like there is a, there are some team elements to try and figure out consensus to move things forward.

48:15But when do you say, like, this is just a, this is a red line for me. And this is voter conscience, voter constituents, you know, is really, really the approach to take, which is not easy when it's a 80-20 vote. I mean, that was a very swing or split constituency. If it's an 80 percent, yeah, 20 percent, I don't really like. That's an easier vote than a 51-49. Yeah, those are the tough ones. Those are hard. But it's our job to understand the policies and the complexities of them. You're talking about health care, the complexities of the health care system while ensuring that you're not hurting people as you're trying to move towards something that may be, you know, more available, more affordable, more access, all that kind of stuff.

49:04So anyway, it's hard because the media and the social media and then all sorts of dynamics want to simplify something really complicated into a five-second, 30-second blurb when we're trying to solve a very complex problem, if you're actually choosing to solve the problem. It's easier to be against everything, though, than to be for something that can be used against you, depending on how it gets spun by the pundits. You know, so, you know, back to the whole, I thought this is the, you know, as the last person to think this is a good idea. I don't mean that I wasn't honored to be a United States senator.

49:40But I look at things like having lost my dad at 12, like, OK, if this is the last two years of my life, is this the highest and best use of my time and experience? Right. Right. Knowing the environment was very much out of my control, knowing there were going to be all sorts of political. I'd been in political combat for seven years at that point. I was signing up for two more. Right. Knowing how things might be framed, should I not hang on to the seat, which was a whole lot outside my control, but some in my control. And I just had to get myself to a place of peace to be like, I'm in the arena and I can make a difference and I'm going to say yes.

50:22for this moment so it can help people. Yeah. And I've got to imagine that having not wanting it your whole life should make it easier for you to make decisions. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, going back to the whole, this doesn't define me. Right. This is just something I'm doing, which is a continuation of my service and purpose to make an impact, but it's not like the title and the role doesn't define me. So I'm not going to attach to it. I'm going to serve in the opportunity and be willing to be unattached to it and unattached to the outcome. Not to say it wasn't easy. I mean, it was really hard.

51:12Yeah. Like it was really hard. Like when we came up short, I just, I mean, I went through a grief cycle. I mean, I literally poured everything into this service for that season. And so I very much like, and this is kind of a pattern in my life, I go through a deep grief cycle, but I rise from the ashes pretty quickly. So you don't stay flatline because then you still, you know, you have things to process. you go there you process you release and you you know become the phoenix rise from the ashes quickly the very day i knew that it was going to be over while i was sitting in the grief i pulled out a piece of paper and i titled it the bright side and i started writing like okay you know this is what you know this is this is this this phase is over another one's opening like what you know what's the bright side of being able to move forward, freed from, you know, the insanity of that place?

52:16You had such a good quote in the book. It said, real courage is shown when the bystander decides to step up and refuses to tolerate behavior that he or she knows is wrong. I got to ask, why is that so hard when it comes to Donald Trump? Like, why can't people just call a spade a spade, especially people who were elected to, you know, protect and serve and, you know, hold up these ideals that we inherited from the founding fathers. I knew we were eventually going to get to talk about Trump. Look, I mean, my view, which is imperfect in my experience, which is imperfect is the environment was such that what all the pundits and all the people, all the piranhas were looking for is you spend your whole day responding to everything that was said or tweeted.

53:11Sure. That's not my fucking job. Right. My job is to serve my constituents and put good legislation onto the president's desk that he'll sign into law that helps my constituents. That's my job as a legislator. Yeah. The environment was ridiculous. And again, to me, it's not about like you won't say it. As soon as you say something about one tweet, then you spend your whole day responding to every tweet. And that's what the environment wanted from people. Right. Versus like I viewed it like we got a duly elected president of the United States. It's my opportunity to work with him in the administration in order to help the people I was elected to serve.

53:48And this craziness going on around us about responding to everything. It's like it's an unending, eternal, infinite. And there was never going to be enough. So I did my fucking job. Yeah. Right? That was the approach that I took.

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56:56No, no, that makes sense to me. And yeah, you need people to do their job because if everyone gets sucked into the noise, the system of government breaks down. But I mean, there was an insurrection. I mean, you know, there was an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power. I guess I'm talking you, but also just generally why, how are we possibly in a situation where this person is the presumptive nominee and may well win the presidency again, having so profoundly, not just disappointed, not fulfilled the obligations of that office, but transgressed against the most sacred oath that is that office and all offices.

57:48Ryan, I'm not in politics anymore. I was, you know, this is not the purpose of our conversation today. Let the voters decide. There's, just let the voters decide. No, but you're in a position to have a perspective on it, I think, that the average person is not going to have. So I'm asking as a person who is trying to wrap my head around what's happening, and you're one of the only people I've talked to here that's been a person. I mean, let me just say that since I left office, I am paying no attention to politics. Like, I truly am not paying any attention. I'm not watching cable TV. I'm not watching it on social media.

58:21It has been a beautiful, you know, shift for me after being in the scrum for those years. We don't have career politicians. I am now a voter. And I've, you know, got a calling in Martha 3.0 to impact as many people as possible, you know, through messages of courage and resilience and anti-fragility and all that goes with that. So I'm just not like I'm not out there punditing about these issues and I'm not going to do it here either. It's just not my calling right now. Yeah, I mean, I go back and forth on that. Obviously, it's a happier way to live, to not pay attention to what's going on in the world.

59:01And I mean, this is true. Well, I'll be an informed voter, just to be clear. Yeah, yeah. No, no, I'm just saying, like, what's happening is negative and awful and frustrating. And so even in the Asian world, the big debate in the Stokes time was between the Stoic way, which is to be engaged and involved and run for office and hold office and participate. And then the Epicureans who are like, I'm going to focus on me. Yeah. Right. And so I go back and forth myself, too. I'm happier when I pay less attention. Well, look, I got my ass in the arena. Like nine years of my life was dedicated to making a difference in this arena.

59:38And we don't want career politicians. I'm not. That phase is over. and now I'm impacting people's lives in other new ways that are far more satisfying. No, I'm just kidding. And I'll be an informed voter for sure. But I'm just not, I mean, I hope you can just respect and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anything you said. I know everybody has their own political views. I am just not talking publicly about politics right now. I'm just not. It's just a line I'm not gonna cross. But isn't that similar to the sort of vote no, hope yes? Sort of, I want to sit on two stools. Absolutely not. I got my ass in the arena, Ryan.

1:00:16You run for office, right? I got my ass in the arena. I did my part. And that chapter is over for me. And I'm not a pundit. And that's just not what I'm focusing on right now. So talk to me about seasons then as we wrap up. You had your fighter pilot season. you had your uh your your political season and now you have this one i think people tend to see themselves as one thing or uh i'm going to do this thing forever yeah uh or i am this or i am that but you seem to have a different view i do i mean life is full of seasons and we should be constantly open to transitioning whatever that is naturally we don't need to reinvent ourselves for the sake of it.

1:01:04But if our life is, first of all, if your life, if you're listening and your life is not satisfying, if the work you're doing is not satisfying, if the relationships you're in are not satisfying, you're not living the life that you dreamed, that you feel you desire and deserve, it's time to create a new season for yourself. So I believe in that. For me, 26 years in uniform was one long season of service. Nine years of political combat. Martha 2.0 was another season. And now I'm in Martha 3.0. And I'm also just where I am age-wise in a place more of mentoring and teaching and coaching the wisdom I learned the hard way, much of what is in my book, but I've learned a lot more since then.

1:01:52So sharing with people through my keynote speeches, my online courses, my soon-to-be adventure retreats. I'm really excited about that. So that I can really help people from the hard lessons that I've learned. I mean, not to take, you know, take an easy way, but to, in their own life, overcome fear, overcome the negative things they've experienced in life, to drop the drag, stop having things, hold them back, so that they can truly thrive and live the life they desire and they deserve. That's my passion. Now, it's always been my passion to serve and impact people. I've just done it with different outfits on and different roles.

1:02:32And this is the role in Martha 3.0. What do you think you've learned as Martha 3.0 that you wish you'd known in 2.0 and 1.0? Well, I feel like, as I said, you know, I think I think I did a lot of like really grinding earlier on in life. And that was a season. Sometimes that's required. In order to become a fighter pilot, I had to blow through many obstacles. Maybe I could have gone around some or over some that I decided to go through. I often, I think, took the hardest way for whatever reason. Maybe that's all I saw or that was the mindset that I had. I wish I had understood the 80-20 principle a little bit more when I was younger.

1:03:20It's easier after a person has succeeded or achieved to be able to go, okay, I could have done it a little more slowly. I didn't need to work. But that's only because you have the luxury of sitting around and having done the thing. You didn't know it was going to work on the way up. I recently heard Andrew Huberman talking to David Goggins about this part of your brain. It's called the interior, I'm going to get it wrong, interior something cortex. I can't remember the name of it. He was talking about this part of your brain that grows when you do something that you didn't want to do. It actually gets bigger when you do something that you don't want to do.

1:04:06And I wish I remembered the name. And I was like, when I heard that, I was like, that's my biggest fucking body part. because I have done so many hard things, much of which I didn't want to do, but I made myself do them because of the person I wanted to be and the things I wanted to achieve and the impact that I wanted to make in the world. And so, yeah, that's my biggest body part for sure. And I'm in a different season, interior something, something cortex. We'll have to pull it up, put it in the show notes. But now, because I'm in a different season, I think I now cram in my morning routine.

1:04:44You know, I joke that it takes me three hours to do what took me 15 minutes in the past because I now see the value of the things that I do each morning setting me up for success to be as productive and as creative as I can be in a focused way, taking care of myself, getting good sleep, all that goes with that as opposed to just brute forcing yourself through life. But I think the brute force was necessary for me to graduate from the lesson as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But brute force was the only tool that you had. Exactly. And then, you know, maybe you'll get a little more finesse in phase two and phase three and phase four and that's what wisdom is, is that sense of finesse and a broader toolkit and a bigger perspective.

1:05:33that's that's what we're trying to get and if you're not getting that as you go what do you fucking right exactly i think about um i don't know if you saw it but i was last year towards the end of the year i was out running in iowa and i'm so sorry yeah horrendous it was horrendous i was attacked by a guy who we now know stalked me for close to a mile um he he passed me on the bridge opposite direction turned around put a pulled a stocking cap out of his pocket put it on and started stalking me for, not directly behind me, but until I got further away. We all know this now. And then he jumped me from behind and sexually assaulted me, molested me everywhere.

1:06:14It was just, I mean, shocking. Ironically, I was listening to Untethered Soul at the time, lightly in my AirPods. Yeah. So I was in a state of bliss when I was attacked and assaulted. and I fought him off and I chased him down, which is not necessarily advisable, but in the moment, I was like, you're not getting away with this. And, you know, we were, it was able to get caught. But I think about like I had been, I'd shared abuse by my coach and later, you know, experienced sexual assault in the military as well. How I responded in those situations was very different. It was very, very different.

1:06:57Than now. Than now. In part, because of all the inner work that I've done and the growth that I've had and the healing and the integration, I was in a place when that happened that I didn't give my power away. Yeah. That I fought back and I was able to think clearly enough in order to ensure that he was caught so that he didn't hurt other people. Right. But whereas often many of your listeners have been through this, men and women have been through something horrible like this. Sometimes they go to the grave, never telling another soul because the shame, even though you're the victim, the shame that comes from it.

1:07:30But in the moment, once the police came and I went back to my hotel room, I pulled out my phone and did like a little, first I was just trying to capture how I was feeling. And then I was like, you know what? I'm encouraging people to overcome their trauma, to not live in fear. And I just like, I'm just posting this to the world. And like, it had just happened a couple hours. and I just decided like I am going to share real time how to not have trauma stuck in you real time usually we unpack it later we go through something bad and then we unpack it later years later and I didn't even know what this meant I just like real time I'm not going to let this get stuck in me and I'm going to broadcast you know I did daily for a while what I'm going through what resources I'm using and how I'm processing it to make sure that I'm freed of it yeah and it wasn't impacting me.

1:08:22So I never would have done that in Martha 1.0 or 2.0. I'm just, you know, I feel like I'm in a stage of exponential growth and it put me in a place where I had the courage to be vulnerable publicly about what I had experienced, even though I was still in a heightened adrenaline state and I hadn't started processing it until a few days later. But I just felt like I can serve so many people here if I can just show them the way. Yeah. If I understand your first reaction, your reaction the first time was I got to run away from this as far and fast as possible. And then literally this time you ran towards it, towards him.

1:09:02Yeah. Right. And then also towards talking about it and sharing about it and not pretending it didn't happen. Yeah. Or We're living in shame. Yeah. In the moment, using his energy, he was trying to make me fearful. It's a, you know, it's an obstacle is the way. It's a martial arts. Like somehow in the moment. He was hunting you and then you hunted him down. I hunted him. I shifted the energy where he was being hunted. And I was freaking out, just to be clear. It wasn't like I was like, you know, an action figure going after him. I was freaking out. But I just was like, you're not going to get away with this.

1:09:36And so I was able to, I had the ability to shift it in the moment. We all have it. You also had a lot of training. I mean, this is what they. Yeah, but I was a fighter pilot. I wasn't a Navy SEAL. Yeah, but they trained you in some stuff. You know what I mean? Yeah, but it was, for me, it was more the inner training. Where I have a conditioning to think clearly. But that's training too. That didn't just happen. Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, how to respond under pressure, make the decisions. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. In that, in that moment. And then, you know, to be able to in the moment deal, you know, deal with the threat.

1:10:15But then the scarier part often is sharing and talking, talking about it. Sure. To not, you know, be contracting. And I did it in part, I think back, I did it in part because I needed to make sure I didn't contract. So part of it was holding me accountable. If I'm telling the world, then I can't, it's harder for me to contract and hide as I go through it all. That's self-awareness. You knew yourself. You knew what you needed to do to get the most out of yourself and to not be negatively impacted. I mean, obviously you're negatively impacted, but you knew what made the most sense for you to do in that situation.

1:11:01because you learned from your experiences. Yeah, and I mean, I was speaking that night to a group of people about how to live and lead with a brave heart. Yeah. And I was like, well, am I going to sit in my hotel room or am I going to go serve? Right. So I decided to serve. I told them, look, I'm in an adrenaline state right now. I have not started processing this, but I deleted all my slides. And I said, let me tell you how my day started today. And I came here to talk to you about not living in fear and not having negative things in your life hold you back and how to live the life you desire and deserve with courage and with heart.

1:11:44And so let me just share with you these tools that I was going to share that I am going to be implementing real time in my own life as I process this trauma that I just experienced. How did that feel? Was it the best talk you gave or the scariest talk you gave or both? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I mean, in between, and it was a multi-hour, it was like an hour round table with a smaller group and then an hour dinner and then an hour keynote and then 30 minute Q &A and an hour book signing. It wasn't even just like a in and out. And in between, of course, I wasn't hungry because I was still in an adrenaline state and a sympathetic nervous system.

1:12:23I mean, the detectives like calling me saying, can you please look at these pictures We pulled up on video. So I'm going to the bathroom right before my keynote while they're eating. And I'm in the stall looking at, he was stalking me for like the, when I saw those pictures on the bridge, I was just chilling. Right. And because you were operated not knowing what was happening. Yeah. That's always. Yeah, exactly. But then I, I, you know, just, all right, let me allow the, just be a vessel of service. to these people sharing these lessons that I am going to live out, you know, real time with the hope that somebody there, whether they had been through something negative in the past or whether they did the next day, that there would be some nuggets they could grab onto so they wouldn't get stuck in the trauma and in fear so that they would be able to process it healthily and, you know, thrive in their lives.

1:13:29Like that's, that's my hope. That's my, that's my calling. It's not all these political questions, right? No, just kidding. It's, that's where I'm at. I mean, this is, this is where my heart is right now. That's what I believe. This is my calling in this, in this place in life. Beautiful. Well, thank you for sharing. Yeah, sure. And like I said, If people want to get the rapid transformation guide that I put together, 2024bestyear.com. Spelled out. 2024bestyear.com. Spelled out. Okay. I think go to my website, obviously, marthamicksally.com. But I put together a free rapid transformation guide just to help, just little tools that you can use in your own life if you really want to transform.

1:14:08They're simple. They're step-by-step nuggets for you to use in your own life. Beautiful. And the book is great too. Dare to Fly. Thank you. Simple lessons and never giving up. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up. Love it.

1:14:29Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.

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