Leadership & Valor: A Conversation with Vice Admiral James Crawford

19:56Michael Savage:And I, I get asked a lot in the entrepreneur space in the business space about what I'd call like leadership fatigue. And I just wonder, you've been doing, you've been a leader for a long time and there's an emotional burden that comes with leadership, particularly somebody as dedicated as you are. You carry that with you all of the time. I wonder how you've navigated carrying the, what I call it, carrying the emotional load of an organization over and over. And sometimes maybe even reporting to somebody who you didn't align with. I'm sure that had to have happened in your career at least once where you have to name them by name, but how have you dealt with that?

20:33Michael Savage:You've been in leadership for a long time. Did you feel an emotional burden when you did it and how did you deal with it?

20:39Ed Mylett:Well, it's all about values, right? So leadership is an amalgam of many, many, many things, right? Three critical things to your point that I look to is character, humility, and authenticity. Humility. Interesting. And so humility is the leader's greatest shield against the leader's greatest enemy. And the leader's greatest enemy is that leader's ego and the arrogance. Because when you have an authority like that, you have a position like that, you can easily allow that, as they say, go to your head and make it about you. But it cannot to be about you. It must be about the mission. It must be about the people.

21:25And humility is your

21:27Ed Mylett:shield against that. And humility allows you to recognize and embrace the self-awareness that there's a lot you don't know. And what you do know may not always be relevant to the point that you're dealing with. And when you embrace that, you're able to open yourself to solutions that appear around you. You don't have to be the architect of the solution. You open and you encourage others. You have to give the folks that you work with, and I like to refer to working with instead of people who work for you. You work with people. And you have to give them the space, the freedom to think, the freedom to initiate, the freedom to innovate.

22:10Ed Mylett:And so if you think about leadership as a job or the position as a job, as opposed to an opportunity to embrace, to do something, as I said, going back to my dad, something that has value, something that you want to, you feel deeply, then it doesn't feel like a burden. Are there trying moments? Certainly. I was blessed to be mentored by some incredible women and men, both in uniform and out of uniform. And they say there are 16 different personality types. And I will tell you, I experienced all of 16. for the good and for the ill. But they all had one thing in common. They all did it differently, but they had one thing in common.

23:01Ed Mylett:And this is something a lot of what I've thought about over time and how I've tried to pattern myself in this space of leadership is from what I've learned from them and things I've read. And one of the folks that I try to read about is Mr. John C. Maxwell. And he said something very simple but very profound. And he said, leadership is about people and for people. Now, that doesn't sound like a lot, but that's a big deal. And every leader professes to do that, but they don't do that because it's not easy. As a very, very, very young lieutenant, there was a senior leader of the Navy who was asked a question that I think the journalist thought was going to be a got you question.

23:47Ed Mylett:and they asked him, and he was the head of the Navy, and they asked him, and I won't use his name because I don't want to name drop, but they asked him, what's most important? Is the mission most important or the people most important? And I would think, and I think in my mind, the journalists think there's no good answer to this. I've got him however he answers this. If he says the people are more important, then they'll say, well, he doesn't get the priorities. You don't understand what priorities are. because the mission is more important, then he doesn't really care about people. And without missing a beat, this admiral said, mission first, people always.

24:26Ed Mylett:That has stuck with me. And that's why it's not a burden. Very good. Because that's what it's about. You can't accomplish the mission without the people. Very good. And it's about finding a way to integrate it and not seeing your people that you work with as chess pieces on a board to accomplish the end game. Because you have to see people, you have to hear them, and you have to feel them. And you integrate the two, the mission and the people to be successful. Sustained success was important. Sustained, sustained success.

25:04Michael Savage:So, hey, guys, new year, new systems, right? You know, it's the time of year, probably like you, I'm looking at my business and trying to find out how to get an edge any way that I can. And, you know, a lot of times I'm looking at my business going, there's got to be a better way. And that's why I'm so excited that today's episode is brought to you by Quo. It's spelled Q-U-O. It's a smarter way to run your business communications. For me, I don't want to miss any opportunities this year. And one of the things that I love about Quo is I've been leaving money at the door. Quo helps you and your team share one business number, reply faster, and stay on top of every customer conversation.

25:32Michael Savage:No more missed messages, disconnected conversations, or any of that stuff that kills productivity. Everyone stays the full thread all the time, making replies faster, and customers feel genuinely cared for. I really love Quo. Look into them. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash MyLet. That's Q-U-O dot com slash MyLet. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. Can I ask one follow-up on that and I'll jump back in. The third thing you said there was authenticity. And I think for myself, you know, Maxwell's a good friend, by the way, of both Michael and I.

26:16Michael Savage:If there is an area there that I've probably, I'm sure I've struggled with my ego plenty. I should say I've struggled with all three. Having said that, the authenticity piece, there's these two camps in leadership. Some say get as close to your people as you possibly can because the closer you are, more like family or friends, you can lead them. The other camp, as you know, is keep some distance there. So there's a level of whatever respect and that distance creates a tension, a dynamic tension that causes you to lead people. And I'm curious as to where you fall on that and what authenticity meant to you when you said it.

26:49Ed Mylett:Well, I would offer that that perspective also depends upon where you are leading. Let's take the military. There are hierarchies. There's a hierarchical organization for a reason, for a very good reason. And there are rule sets around how you relate, how an officer relates to enlisted personnel. And there's a reason for those rule sets. but you have to see people you have to see them and understand that they are more than the person walking around in that uniform performing a task they're more than that person walking around in your uh classroom that faculty member uh that biology professor there's more to them than that and you have to see them from for the wholeness of the person that they are and that allows you to sort of on that tether about how you engage with them day to day, point to point, but you have to always be authentic.

27:52Ed Mylett:And this is why authenticity is important. And I go back to value-based decision-making leadership is so important because you can't fake it. You can only fake it for so long, right? So if you are not, in the times of simplicity, when things are easy, everything's smooth. There's no issues. But if you watch how a person leads, it tells you a lot about who that person is, what they value, what's important to them. And in times when the the institution is under stress or the organization is under stress, it will reveal who that person is. Power also reveals who a person is. Lincoln said, you know, we can all deal with stress, but the people that can deal with power, those are the ones that you can trust to lead.

28:50Ed Mylett:and so and so if you are I'll just give you an example so I would when I was on active duty I would I would travel around and go to different commands and different locations and speak with our folks and so I would say this to them standing on the stage right I said today wear my best uniform make sure my ribbons were measured properly they're in the right order in the right place, shoes perfectly shine, my gig line straight, nothing out of order, just had a haircut, you know. And so I did all that because I'm sending a message. There's a message in that. If this is what I expect of me, this is what I expect of you.

29:38If I do it, so should you.

29:42Ed Mylett:So, and then I'm prepared to speak to you about these various subjects and I'm going to articulate them and give you my vision of how we should, what my expectations are, and how to be respectful, and how to treat each other, and how to carry yourself in that uniform. Because when you're in that uniform, you're more than yourself. But then if I leave the stage, you've taken those lessons. I leave the stage, and I go into what I like to call an unguarded moment when I think come unobserved and leaders must know you're never unobserved. Someone's always watching you. Someone's always watching you because many people are watching you because they want to be where you are.

30:26Ed Mylett:They want to see how did you achieve that? How can I aspire to be that and be better than that? And if you go into that unguarded moment and you are berating someone and you're acting completely 360 degrees away from what you just articulated. There's a lesson there too, but that lesson is so much more powerful than the scripted lesson you just delivered. And you've undercut that. And so if you're not authentic, when you really need your team is in times when the organization is under stress. That's when the leader has to be at their best. and you can't then begin to gather people around you. People have to already be gathered.

31:09And if they're trusting you because they can trust you, you've created that consistency, that sense of reliability,

31:19Ed Mylett:then it takes away some of the auxiliary stress, right? The unnecessary stress. So that's why authenticity is so very important. Yeah.

31:31Michael Savage:These are my, I just want to say one thing. And about every once in a while, there's moments where it reminds me of why I started the show. That was one of them right there. That was just outstanding. An unguarded moment. And by the way, I relate to having those unguarded moments where I wasn't consistent in the things that I've said from the front, behind the scenes. And you're 100 % right. The idea that they have to be gathered around you prior to the stress hitting, too. These are... And I want to be clear here. I don't always get it right. I understand.

32:01Ed Mylett:I want to be clear. Right. I mess up just like the next guy. But as long as you think like that, as long as you try to keep that as your guiding, as your guidepost, then you'll stand there.

32:11James W. Crawford III:It'll pull you back on track. Very good. You mentioned something when you were talking about, you know, presenting yourself in front of your team and standing in front of them. Not only to share a message, but sometimes to share a vision. And very often, I think the idea that a leader has to hold a vision for their team, for their organization, in your case, for higher education at this point, even when things aren't working well. You know, Steve Jobs said it's one thing to have an idea or a vision. It's another thing to make it real. You're holding this vision for what you'd like to do in higher education.

32:48James W. Crawford III:And I don't know if we mentioned this. my brother and my sister and myself all went to Norfolk State University. So I've received education at an HBCU. My brother and sister both played athletics for them. And so it was extra special to be able to come and visit Texas Southern. But you're holding this vision for a school, one of the most important schools in our country, for a number of reasons that needed a lift, if I can be really frank. Absolutely. How do you hold vision as a leader when things are so far away from the vision that you're looking to create? How do you manage the gap between the vision that you hold for what you're looking to create?

33:27James W. Crawford III:Translate that to your team under stress and when it's far away. Where do you go for that?

33:33Ed Mylett:A lot of people talk about trust, but it starts with belief. It really starts with belief in my mind.

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35:41Ed Mylett:You know, when you, when I did not have the opportunity to go to an HBCU, my parents, however, my dad didn't graduate. He went off to the Korean War. My mother graduated, was a teacher for 37 years in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system in North Carolina. So it's very interesting experience to have teachers in school and teachers at home. Yeah. But I'm very, very happy about that today. Yeah. But because of their experience, I had a connection to HBC, although I didn't go to one. In that era, in the era that they grew up in, that's where essentially their opportunities were. Right. And so that's where so many talented African-Americans were educated.

36:30Ed Mylett:whether it's sports, whether it's entertainment, whether it's academics, whether it's governance, whatever you may be, those very talented people. And I was exposed to those folks who were, who carried themselves with dignity, who were respectful. My dad used to say, if you expect respect, treat others with respect. And I saw all of that. And the thing about HBCUs, it's so, it's such a family, such a sense of creating success for each other. Yes. And so when you try to create this vision, if you will, and sometimes that word's overused, I think the first thing you have to be is very precise about what it is.

37:18James W. Crawford III:Yes.

37:19Ed Mylett:What it is that you're looking for, what it is that you're looking to do, and the belief that, yes, it can be done. You know, we graduated 820 plus candidates yesterday from the university and through bachelor degrees, masters and doctorates. And one of the things I said to them is that education is more than the accumulation of knowledge. It's about the culturation of good character and personal excellence. So you have to get people to believe that there's that whisper that they hear in the back of their heads that you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it. And it sounds like a roaring lion.

38:04Ed Mylett:It's really just a whisper. And you can't let that deter you. That you will face defeats. Maya Angelou, I love this. I say it over and over to what people can start quoting it before I finish it. And she said, you will face many defeats in life, but you must never let yourself be defeated. In fact, those defeats are important so that you can see what you can get up from and how far you can reach. And what a leader is trying to show, we can reach. Don't allow theoretical limits to be the barrier to where we can go because there is no barrier. So being precise about what it is, helping them see themselves in that picture, modeling it yourself, communicating.

38:50and communicating is about not just transmission, but receiving and then providing that feedback

38:56Ed Mylett:so they know you have received it. But setting the conditions for them to do, you can't ask people to do something if you don't set the conditions for them to do it and give them the tools to do it. Then you have to be strategically patient. And I say strategically patient means you can't expect newness to occur tomorrow, but it can't take all, it can't take forever. So you have to strategic patience means there must be a sense of urgency that yes, we will get there and we can't time is not our friend. And then everyone has to be accountable. And the leader is the first that must be most accountable.

39:32Michael Savage:I'm curious about education in general, not just HBCUs. Do you it's a two part question. One, are we developing leaders? I don't know because I haven't been on a college campus other than my daughters in a long time. Does the traditional education system encourage free thinking and diversity of thought? Tough question. And number two, what's the future of it? I just look at, I wonder with AI and the advent of, you know, people are no longer like they used to go into brick and mortar businesses. Does that eventually make an impact in higher education as well? So just your overall thought about higher education in general.

40:10Ed Mylett:So I mentioned the graduation yesterday, the commencement, the fall commencement. And I referred to that in the president's charge. I said, the marketplace that they're going into now is dramatically different than it was when they just started their educational journey.

40:26Michael Savage:My goodness, it is.

40:28Ed Mylett:So what they were learning as freshmen is so much different. But the job that they're looking to go into now didn't even exist probably when they were freshmen. And we as the administrators of education and the deliverers of education, we have to understand that. We have to understand that the world moves so much faster than it ever has before. That change is so rapid. And it's not just the speed, but it's the pace of change that's really the key. And so we're sending our young women and men into a world of smart machines, artificial intelligence. So we have to enable them to be agile. So they will have a major, right, an area where they are leaving as an entry-level expert, so to speak, right?

41:22Ed Mylett:They learn their craft in the doing of that craft. But we also have to teach them those aspects. Everybody talks about STEM today. Liberal arts remains very important because the core of liberal arts is developing an educated person, a person who can think. Yes. Who analyzes and questions. Who thinks about artificial intelligence and says, how should I apply that? What's the effect it's going to have within my organization? What's the effect it's going to have in the populace with my customers? You've been thinking people. We have to graduate thinkers. Thinking leaders. feeling leaders not bleeding you know as they say but you you you have to understand that change requires you to change and we have to equip them to be agile what a perfect word i'm i'm

42:14Michael Savage:blessed that uh so i want to just follow up on that like you give advice to young people right now so i'm i'm just crazy they selected me of all human beings but i'm a member of the college football hall of fame the national football foundation board and so we're dealing with all these graduating athletes all the time and we're trying to equip them to go out into the marketplace and uh i wish i would have thought of the word agility and telling them how to pivot but if you were to give advice to somebody right now that's say 25 and under and they're looking ahead with a vision for their future and they're scared you know there there are i think there's actually more fear in the marketplace right now about what is all of this going to mean two three for what industries will even exist any longer just curious because you're you're right in the middle of all this stuff every single day what would your advice be to a young person who's looking ahead at their future and what should they continue education past graduation maybe it's not formal education but it's reading and listening to things all the time etc you hit it the capacity the human capacity um is unlimited and what we should be doing as

43:23Ed Mylett:educators is helping to unleash that human energy. And they have to be constant learners. They can't see themselves graduating as, okay, I'm done with that. Now I'm going to go out. They have to be constant learners because that job today, processes may affect it. Technology may affect it. So you have to be, as I said to the graduates yesterday, day, you have to be attuned to external trends. And external trends are those things that people are talking about, things that people are investing in, things that people are spending their time on. And you have to be attuned to that in your area of endeavor.

44:07Ed Mylett:What is happening? Because if you embrace external trends, and this is really, I've read this about, thinking about an organization, that's why I think about this, but it's true with people. So organizations, Jeff Bezos talked about this years ago, about being a day one organization versus a day two organization, having a startup mentality versus having that I've got it made mentality, which is which day two is on your way out at some point in time. And what I said to the graduates is this, you have to have the sense of constantly learning, recognizing external trends, because if you embrace external trends, there will be a tailwind for you.

44:50Ed Mylett:Just like an organization, if you fight against external trends, it's going to be a headwind and you're going to have a problem. So those who don't embrace AI in the classroom, don't embrace it in the delivery of learning and how you shape your learning environment, you're not preparing your students, your graduates for the world that they're going to face.

45:11Michael Savage:So good. I'll let you jump in. I just want to second that just for the audience, too. That's sort of been my own mindset in my life is like, what do I identify as? as a human. I'm a learner. Yeah. And I could tell you of the 850 guests that have been on the show, and I sense this with you as well. If you ask me, what's a through line, not of all of them, but of the majority of them, it's that no matter what level of success you think they've attained, they are still grinding. And I remember the first time I had my, you know, Alex Rodriguez has been on the show before, but post his career. First time I met with Alex, we were at a home and he literally brought out a yellow tablet.

45:48Michael Savage:I thought you're, you're Alex Rodriguez. I'm just me writing notes after guests that have been on the show, whether it's, you know, McConaughey or even a guy like David Sinclair, who's a professor at Harvard, asking questions of me or other guests and constantly learning. I think that can eliminate a lot of your fear as well. So I love that agility and the idea of learning. Fear is important.

46:09Ed Mylett:I'm glad you mentioned that because you can't be afraid of taking that first step. And you have to encourage, we encourage our students, don't be afraid of taking that first step because every journey, no matter how long or how short starts with that first step. And if you don't take that first step, you never know what that destination could look like. So you can't allow fear to freeze.

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47:33James W. Crawford III:Yeah. You know, we bet through our good friend, Brandon Simmons. He's a good man. He's a really good guy. And I have this curiosity, and I mentioned this to you, which is you're both lawyers and very good at what you did in terms of law. And then you come in as president of the college, having had a military career and been in another institution. And Brandon's very entrepreneurial, and you're working together to create this change. What was it like having what I would call a more structured background and working with someone who's a bit more entrepreneurial? And what has that done, do you believe, for the relationship that both of you had with the school in terms of change?

48:17Ed Mylett:Well, you know, with anyone, I had to listen. That's so important, listening to understand how Brendan thinks. Yeah. And it doesn't take long because once you listen to him, you see his heart is about doing good for people, doing good for others. It was never a conversation that he and I had about that university where it wasn't about how do we make good things happen for these students? how can I take the relationships I have, the contacts I have, how can I take that and turn that into something that creates benefits for these students? Never a conversation that did not involve that I kind of had with him.

49:04Ed Mylett:What made the relationship and continues to make the relationship with him so easy is that he's an honest person. He's just a sincere, authentic, honest person. And so I can trust what he says. And I hope he feels he can trust what I say. And that's why I feel that our partnership worked. Because I respect and admire his achievements. And sometimes I felt like, Brandon, stop. And he would never stop talking about how happy he was brought me to the university. And so I think it's just a mutual admiration society between he and I. I love the guy. He's a wonderful person and has a beautiful family.

49:51James W. Crawford III:I'm happy to hear you say that. And a lot of the audience that Ed has that listen to the show regularly, the clients that I've worked with for years, are entrepreneurs. And there's a stigma sometimes in entrepreneurship that it's hard to have a partner in business. And I'm happy to hear you say that because you're both partnered in supporting all these students in a leadership capacity, solving a problem for them, giving them a better education. And I found in my years as an entrepreneur that it's not always horrible to have a partner. You just have to find that trust and be able to listen to each other and get curious about each other to make it work.

50:26James W. Crawford III:And I think for the audience, sometimes they hear, no, you've got to go it alone. You've got to hustle. If you're going to build a business, it's hard to rely on other people, even in the book E-Myth, You know, Gerber says that people will disappoint you. And people quote that all the time. And I think that's true in some senses, right? You build your systems and then you find great people that can work the system. But I think there's times where partnership is actually the valuable thing to do. And it's just encouraging that that partnership.

50:54Ed Mylett:You know, it's funny you say that people disappoint you. You know, I had the pleasure in the Navy to work with some really, really incredible human beings. And also see and observe really good commands and see and observe commands that weren't that good. But the through line of that was that the people, whether they're in a good command or in one that's not performing where it perhaps is expected to perform, they all want to do well. Yes. People at their heart, most people at their core want to do well. They want to be valued and they want to be delivering something of value in what they're engaged in.

51:42Ed Mylett:because they want to see that they are actually doing something that matters. So I think, you know, you guys know where I took this from. Excellence breeds character and character breeds excellence. And if you expect excellence of your folks, the ones you work with, they will soon begin to demand excellence of themselves and those around them. And when that happens, you've got something.

52:09Michael Savage:That's so good.

52:10Ed Mylett:Yeah.

52:10Michael Savage:So I know the humility button was number two there, but just for a second, try to step out of that, because I want people to live through you for a minute. I am your life's been remarkable. I mean, your resume is so long that I wanted Michael to do the introduction because it's just there's too much. So I understand the humility hat, but I but I want you to take people on a journey with you. I have to imagine as a little boy, if I had asked you what your life was going to turn out, I'm sure you had big dreams. But it's been one remarkable life that you've led. What is that like? I mean, there's a lot of dreamers and people with hopes and dreams that listen as well or are watching.

52:48Michael Savage:And they don't ever really get to, I think if you can, you know, there's this great Chinese proverb that says, if you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. Right. And you've been down a long road in your life. did you ever suffer with uh imposter syndrome like i i'm not prepared for this or i'm not equipped or i'm not ready or whatever it might be i don't come from you know your family seems remarkable but you know you were the highest ranking military officer in the navy who was an attorney i mean that's a pretty significant achievement did you ever get out over your skis a little bit

53:20Ed Mylett:and if you did how did you handle it every position that i was blessed to take i was like really? Am I capable of doing this? I mean, it's a lot. I was an athlete for many years. My family, as I said, modest financial resources. So my dad told me at an early age, I can't send you to college, but you need to go. So you need to figure out how you're going to get there. Be really smart or be really good at something. And fortunately, jeans and I grew. And I loved running up and down hardwood floors. And so that paid my way through college. That's awesome. And so before every game, I was always nervous.

54:08But once the ball went up, those nerves went away.

54:12Ed Mylett:And you just perform. You either in times of stress or in times of performance, you become who you are or you revert to your training or to how you practice. And that's, and so I think it's important to always, as I say, when you look in that mirror, be astounded. When I would look in the mirror and see in my uniform and see those three stars, I would be astounded. Is that really me? Wow. And not to see that as, of course that's me. I never saw it like that because I was like, really? I was a little kid who literally lived on a dead end street because you couldn't go through the street on that end.

55:01Ed Mylett:And I had a lot of dreams, but I wasn't certain how those dreams were going to come true. And one of the first things I said to Brandon, which he has repeated from time to time, is that I love Texas Southern University because these students are just like I was. They don't know how they're going to get there, but they really want to get there badly. Yeah. And I want to be the one to help them just like so many helped me get there. So I think having that sense, whatever that position you have of significance, having a sense of being astounded. Yeah. That it's you. Because those three stars could have been on any number of my peers because those folks were so very good.

55:47Michael Savage:I'll give you one more question and I get one to finish.

55:50James W. Crawford III:You know, in preparing for this, I read a little bit about you growing up and working on your grandfather's tobacco farm. My grandfather's a World War II Korean War vet. He was in the Army Air Corps, you know, before it became the Air Force. And he lived with us for six months out of the year. And some of the best lessons I took away in life on leadership and character came from my time with him. And I'm curious, what did you take away that you still, you know, live or breathe or use in your leadership today from your time on that farm with your grandfather? You know, that was such wonderful times.

56:31Ed Mylett:I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's where I went to school. I wasn't a cradle Catholic, as I said. I was born into an African Methodist Episcopal family. and through the week I went to Catholic school because my dad worked out a deal with the nuns at Catholic school and said if you let my son I can't I can't afford the tuition but if you let my son go to school here I'll develop a sports program for you yeah the mother's period shook his hand got a deal now it's coming together for me so I would spend the weekend in Catholic school going to mass on Fridays, and then the weekend in the Methodist church.

57:12And I had the greatest

57:15Ed Mylett:benefit of faith raising because I had the best of the Protestant development and came to embrace the Roman Catholic liturgy. And so it's been such a remarkable journey for me. And I would go down to eastern north carolina clinton north carolina in the summer spent two months every summer on the farm working in with my dad my grandfather's uh tobacco farm he had been a sharecropper and then it started farming on his own and um that was perhaps the most impactful classroom than any that i would i ever attended was working with those folks who were you hear the term salt of the earth Yes. They were authentic, genuine people who it was neighbors.

58:08Ed Mylett:How do you they they expected that they need they would have to at some point in time help their neighbor. If you were someone that could create job opportunities like my granddad working in tobacco, you did that. and those folks were constantly teaching me, constantly teaching me something, constantly talking to me about things, helped me understand what life's about and their expectations of me because I was getting an education, right? And their expectations of me, like they didn't want to see me in that tobacco field. They had much higher expectations. Now, don't get me wrong. Farming is one, And farming is such an important capacity that we have in this country.

58:56Ed Mylett:We have the best farmers in the world. We can feed the world from this nation. That's something to be extremely proud of. But in that subsistence farming that he was engaged in, they had such higher aspirations for me. And that motivated me to, I can't let these people down. They're investing in me. And so that's what I try to do. I try to invest in those that are around me. You asked me a question earlier about why did I take one direction versus another after retiring? When I retired in 2018, my sons, I have twin sons. They were 18 on the fourth. And so it's hard to believe. And they were 11 years old and had seen me.

59:46Ed Mylett:all they knew of me was wearing a uniform, being gone, doing things and serving. And I had always talked to them about the same way I was spoken to, about services, faith, family service. Those things are so important. What are you giving back? What are you giving? What are you contributing into your community? How large or how small it is? What are you doing? So I didn't want them to take the lesson, okay, now they design a uniform, none of that matters anymore. That was just for them. That's not real. So I wanted them to see that service can continue and it doesn't have to be in uniform. You don't have to be in uniform to serve this country or your community.

1:00:25Ed Mylett:Service is so many different, comes to so many different forms. And so it was, I wanted them to see that that is something that is value to your community, value to your state, value to your country.

1:00:39Michael Savage:I think you're doing that today. By the way, compliment about sons. I was thinking about halfway through this. I can't wait for my son to listen to this one. Yeah, I really can't. Yeah, I mean that. Let me ask you one last question. First off, you can come back anytime you want, because we can go hours. You guys are great. This flew by. I love hanging out with you guys. Well, I'm loving this. I'm honored. I just got a chance to meet you today. So thank you so much. Thank you for your service as well. Is there something, this is a hard question, but it's just like, if I ask it something, I could just tell there's a treasure chest in there, something's going to come out when I ask it.

1:01:09Michael Savage:So I'm gonna open up right now. Is there something that you used to really fundamentally believe about leadership that you no longer do? Something changed. You went, I used to think this and now I think that.

1:01:22Ed Mylett:So I used to think that it was really, the leader had to be the sharpest tool on their given subject, right? So law was mine, right? So I've really had to, you know, I got to know my stuff. Now, you do need to have a level of competence in your area, but that's really not the most important thing. Showing that you know the most, are you the best flyer, are you the best ship driver? I don't think that's the key. And I no longer believe that, particularly in an age when you can ask Siri anything and Siri can give you an answer. I really don't think that's the key anymore. So that's something that I would say has changed because I think it's more important to understand where you what's your reservoir of strength.

1:02:24Ed Mylett:where do you draw what do you draw on when you have to be the when you're the person when things are challenging all eyes turn to what is it that you're going to draw on if all you have to draw on is that your talent or your intellect you are eventually going to come into a situation, a storm of such magnitude that you're going to be unmoored and you're going to be adrift and rudderless because talent and intellect is not going to be enough. So you have to, and it will be different for everyone, but you have to understand as a leader, what is my reservoir of strength? For me, it has, it's faith.

1:03:14Ed Mylett:I don't get it right. I get it wrong. I'm an unfinished vessel. I'm like that piece of clay on the sculptor's hands that's being shaped by the vagaries of life. But if you have, once you've figured out what that is for you, then you can withstand whatever that storm may be whenever it comes. And my dad said to me, you do not get to choose your time of testing, but you do get to choose how you're going to respond at that moment of testing. And do you just turn into yourself and make it about you? Or do you turn out when all those eyes are looking at you and you're ready to lead forward?

1:04:03Michael Savage:This has been like a master class today. I'd love to meet your father, too. Yeah. My goodness. Jim. Thank you. This was extraordinary.

1:04:13Ed Mylett:Thank you for having me. It was so much fun.

1:04:16Michael Savage:It flew by. Michael, thank you so much for organizing this. And that was Admiral James Crawford, everybody. By the way, he's the president of Texas Southern University. You should go check out that university. You're thinking of sending your kids somewhere, because you can obviously tell they'd be in great hands with this leader, with this man. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Today was tremendous, everybody. God bless you. share this episode with anybody who wants to lead better, who wants to strengthen their faith, or else don't know anything about their education in their life.

1:04:44Michael Savage:All right, you guys, God bless you. Max out.