Ep 88 Tales of Leadership with David Goode

David Goode is a Principal Operations Lead with Chick-fil-A Corporate in Atlanta, partnering with Operators and Operator Groups to execute their business strategy in order to achieve their vision and goals. He serves 30 Operators with 35 restaurants in Charleston SC, Newport News VA, and Virginia Beach VA. Prior to his current role, he served a 30-year career in the Air Force, retiring as a Colonel in 2022. During his Air Force career, he commanded at group and squadron levels, and held various operational and staff positions within logistics, strategy development, and legislative affairs. He volunteers as a board member for the Georgia Veterans Service Foundation, as well as a student mentor at the University of Georgia. He is married to his wife Kristyn, of 23 years, and they have two daughters--Ashlyn 19, and Avery 17.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You're listening to the Tales of Leadership podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader what I like to call a pal. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership. All right team, welcome back to the Tales of Leadership podcast. I am your host, josh McMillian, an active duty Army officer with over 16 years of leadership experience and a leadership coach, and I'm on a mission to end toxic leadership by promoting a better leader what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader, and I plan to do that by sharing transformational stories and skills. And on today's episode, I am going to be bringing you a transformational leader Dave Good.

Speaker 1: 0:49

Dave is a principal operation lead for Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, partnering with operators and operator groups to execute their strategy and achieve their vision and their goals. He currently serves 30 operators with 35 restaurants in Charleston, south Carolina, and in Newport News, virginia, and Virginia Beach, virginia. Prior to his current role where he works at in Chick-fil-A, he served over 30 years in the Air Force, retiring at the rank of a colonel in 2022. And during his Air Force career, he commanded at a group and at squadron levels. He has held various operational and staff positions, including logistics, strategic development and legislative affairs. He volunteers as a board member for Georgia Veterans Service Foundation. You'll get that.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Theme throughout this episode is that he is a servant leader and he's also a mentor at the university of georgia, and one of the themes that I got through this episode, before we bring dave on, is that he continuously chases hard things. He chases growth, bottom line. Dave is a purposeful, accountable leader. Let's bring him on to tells the leadership is a purposeful, accountable leader. Let's bring him on to Tales of Leadership, dave. Welcome to the Tales of Leadership, brother. How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 2:08

Hey, I'm good man, I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 2:17

Yeah, it's an honor and privilege, and I mean every time that I get to talk about something that I'm passionate about, it's a good day. And the pedigree that you have coming onto this show. I know it's going to be a great episode because you have a lot of wisdom to share. But, with that being said, just kind of take the time to provide an overview to the listeners of who you are.

Speaker 2: 2:35

Yeah, absolutely. Again, thanks for having me. This is very cool, looking forward to the opportunity to talk about leadership. So a little bit about me. So I currently work for Chick-fil-A. I'm basically a business consultant. The title is operations lead, but essentially I'm an internal business consultant and I support owner operators within the company. So I've been doing that for about a year. Transitioned from the Air Force last year, last October I retired after a 30 year career. So pretty, pretty abrupt transition there, going from defense to restaurant. I have no experience in the restaurant industry. We can talk about that a little bit too, if you'd like.

Speaker 2: 3:23

So yes, I did 30 years in the Air Force mostly sort of logistics, did a little bit of strategy development and some legislative work. Things like that Married. My wife and I have been married for 23 years and we have two daughters. I have a daughter who is 19, in college. We live in Athens, georgia. She goes to the University of Georgia, so it's kind of cool. I've got my college kid 10 minutes down the road. Then I've got a 17-year-old who's a junior in high school.

Speaker 1: 3:48

I have to ask the question because I was LinkedIn stalking you, because I always like to watch these podcasts. You went to school at Georgia and you went to school at Auburn. What's your favorite football?

Speaker 2: 4:04

team. I'm absolutely a Georgia man. I don't know if you can see it here. I got the bulldog going there You're living in Athens, you have to be all Georgia. So I grew up in South Georgia where there's a lot of Auburn fans, a lot of Georgia fans, so I was familiar with Auburn. I was really a Georgia fan. I enlisted for four years out of high school and then came back, went to the university of georgia because they had a good like scholarship program there.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Well, then when?

Speaker 2: 4:29

I went back on active duty. This was back in the day. This is really going to date me because, like every, everything is online now. You can get degrees from anywhere. Back then, like auburn was one of the few schools that offered a, an online or distance m and. I was embarrassed to tell the story, but they would send you.

Speaker 2: 4:48

You would record a videotape and you would send the videotape and it would let you do your presentations and they would send you videotapes to the classes. It evolved to DVDs. That's how advanced it was, but that's how I got my MBA in 2002 from Auburn.

Speaker 1: 5:04

That's amazing. So when I spent most of my time at forgive me now, I can't think of the name I think it's Fort Moore. It used to be Fort Benning, if I'm wrong. I'm sorry, but it was right beside Auburn, but it was in Georgia, so there was always that. You know who's the team in that area. So when I saw you went to both of those schools I was like, oh, that'd be an interesting question to bring up.

Speaker 2: 5:30

Yeah, I play on it depending on who I'm talking to. If I'm working with an Auburn guy, I'll play on the Auburn side but, mostly it's Georgia.

Speaker 1: 5:38

So you have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to leadership, and what I would love to kind of start off with with just the question is is how do you define leadership and how, how has that changed kind of over the years?

Speaker 2: 5:53

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.

Speaker 2: 5:56

I don't know if I necessarily define it because I think, like most things, it depends.

Speaker 2: 6:03

It depends on what you're doing and kind of what role you're in.

Speaker 2: 6:08

What I valued as a leader in the military is quite different than what I value as a leader in the corporate world, and really with Chick-fil-A, which is kind of a bit of a niche within the corporate world as well. But I think, if I look at common threads amongst all of it, to me it's having an outward mindset and selflessness and humility, being focused on taking care of others and caring about others more than you care about yourself. If, if I look back at the leaders that I had in the military that I really really respected and the ones that that stand out to me, that I really really respect and the ones that stand out to me, they were very selfless and they were very humble and they were more interested in opening doors for other people than for themselves, necessarily, and I see the same thing in the corporate world. I see a lot more of it at Chick-fil-A because that's the kind of company it is, but still it's that same thread of just being focused more on others than on yourself.

Speaker 1: 7:09

I love the term of outward mindset because so one of the key problems that I'm trying to address is the difference between a toxic leader and a transformational leader, and that's just another way of thinking about it. Is that an outward mindset is how can I add value to the team, the organization, people around me, versus having, you know, like an inward mindset, how can the people and the team benefit me to get to my goals? I never, never, thought of it that way. I love that.

Speaker 2: 7:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Yeah. So, starting off with your leadership journey, I really want to kind of take it back. Is you know, why did you decide to join the Air Force in 1992?

Speaker 2: 7:53

Yeah, yeah. So I grew up. It's not the greatest patriotic story I would love to say, because you know, I wanted to defend my country and I wanted to serve. There was an element of that.

Speaker 2: 8:03

But I grew up in a really small town, not a lot of opportunity, and to me it was the vehicle out of that town and to grow Right. So I was just like, okay, how do I grow from this little small town kid without a lot of options? And I thought the Air Force could give me some options and it did so. When, often you know, I enlisted, I was an aircraft maintainer. I probably wasn't the best mechanic in the world but I really enjoyed the Air Force and I like the system of aircraft maintenance and I like the idea of you know what we were doing and how it all fit together. All that really interested me. But as a young E2, e3, nobody really cared about my opinions, right, just wanted me to go work on the airplane, which is not the part I was the greatest at, I probably didn't have the most passion about.

Speaker 2: 8:55

So I did my four years and actually I got out. I got my DD214. I didn't do any of the programs through the Air Force. I just said I'm going to do this on my own. So I this was old school. I picked up the phone. I was calling university saying, hey, do you have a slot in ROTC that I could get into and fortunately when I called the University of Georgia they did and so I decided to pursue that. So I knew I love the Air Force, I like the idea of it, but I wanted to have more influence. I wanted to have, you know, just to have a seat at the table, I guess. So so I went to ROTC, did another two years, because I'd already done like a few years doing night school and things like that while on active duty.

Speaker 2: 9:39

So I did two more years and then, commissioned as a lieutenant, went back into the same career field, which in hindsight was really fortuitous, because then I'd laid that foundation, I knew sort of how it worked at the ground level. Now I was getting into the management side of it.

Speaker 1: 9:52

So, being prior service, there was always a distinction between military officers who walked that path before and officers who kind of just came there. They had one. They had the institutional knowledge, or at least the foundational knowledge, to be successful. But they also had almost instant rapport, in a way, Like when you talk to your, your team members, I guarantee you that they automatically listened to you, versus like a brand new second Lieutenant who came in was was kind of giving orders. They had to really gain the influence from their, their platoon sergeant, at least from in the army. We have our counterpart, which is the platoon sergeant.

Speaker 1: 10:31

So I really want to kind of hit on that, because that that is a key point. And I did not know that you were prior service. So wow you, you got to the rank of E2 and then you go chase hard things, figure out how to get a master's or a bachelor's degree, not even using some of the programs you know, like green to gold and other things that I'm aware of. Then you stay in 30 more years and retire at the rank of a Fulberg Colonel. That's an amazing career, so that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 10:59

I just want to say that yeah Well, thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, I never really think about it. I guess when you say it like that, you know it was a great journey. And I'll be honest, you know, probably like most of us, I didn't. If you had told me I was going to do 30 years, even when I went back in as a lieutenant, I probably wouldn't have believed you. But you know, I felt like as long as I was continuing to grow, then it was something I wanted to continue to do and you know that took me all the way to that point. There's many reasons why I decided to transition over to do something else, but it all comes back to growth Just wanting to, you know, continue throughout my career and throughout my life to grow. I think you know, if we stop growing, you know if you're not growing.

Speaker 2: 11:45

you're dying, so I don't want to be dying.

Speaker 1: 11:47

So I always think of it from the mindset is that you're either planted for a reason either you feel that you're being buried or you're. But you have to kind of change that mindset. You're, you're planted for a reason, and then you're planted because you're growing and maybe, like in the season of life that you're in, you don't understand it at the time, but you had the foresight and the kind of understanding to to to chase that, so that that is truly awesome, like getting to talk to someone who's had such a historic career. But when you first joined, as you know, second Lieutenant, what were some of the challenges that you had to face, specifically as, like, a junior officer, and how did you?

Speaker 2: 12:29

work through those. Yeah Well, I mean, it's probably like any job where we're, you know, especially a leadership position where you have the authority, but you don't necessarily have the knowledge to be able to effectively exercise that authority. You know, you do have to lean on other people, and I think that's where sometimes some people can go astray a bit. You know where you, you know you, you think you think you have all the answers. I think the key is realizing you don't have the answers.

Speaker 1: 12:57

Right.

Speaker 2: 12:59

And you know. You know that as well as I do and finding the people that can help you.

Speaker 1: 13:04

You know, find the answers, find the people that have the answers, exercise the authority in the right way and depend on other people people who have influence within the organization, and then getting close to them to a way of where you can use them as a sounding board for some of your ideas, but also being able to win them over to kind of help within the organization.

Speaker 1: 13:38

It took me a long time to kind of fully grasp and understand that. I finally understood it when I transitioned over into acquisitions. It took me a long enough time to do it, but that's awesome. Can you think of one specific story when you were a junior officer that you had to work through?

Speaker 2: 13:55

Oh gosh, there were so many. I came in in the aircraft maintenance career field so you get a lot of responsibility early.

Speaker 1: 14:02

So I I don't know 440 people in my first job as a second lieutenant now keep in mind I had a chief, an e9 it was probably really running the place.

Speaker 2: 14:13

You know, um, it's just I, I was the, the oic, um, but they, they do, the air force does a really good job of taking junior officers and pairing you with senior NCOs. Yeah, I mean, I guess the story that comes to mind when you ask that. So I was a first lieutenant at RAF Lake and Heath in the UK and this was a case of learning to be careful what you say and how you exercise your leadership, because I'm riding around and it was a golf cart or a gator or something. I can't remember specifically now, but I'm with one of my senior NCOs. I think he was a senior master sergeant, e-8 at the time, retired E-9,. Dave Calandra, salt of the earth, great guy, still a good friend. We're riding around. I think I'm a first lieutenant. I may be a junior captain. I junior captain, I can't remember, but there were guys. It's England, so it rains a lot, right? So there were guys standing around smoking outside of the munition storage area to bomb them.

Speaker 2: 15:12

I mean it was a smoking area. I mean it's legit what they're doing with their smoke. But they're getting rained on and so I'm like man, it's kind of, you know I get where you know we're moving away from tobacco. We don't want to encourage this. It kind of sucks that these guys are sitting out there in the rain. They're going to smoke anyway. You know, it would be nice if we could take care of them. It was just a passing comment.

Speaker 2: 15:29

The next day I come in and there's this beautiful glass-encased like plexiglass-encased structure where these guys smoke and it was just smoke rolling out the bottom of it because they were all in there smoking and I'm like, where did this come from? So I go in and I see Dave, senior master at planner. I said Dave, what happened? He said hey, don't ask. And so immediately I knew this is not going to end well. So it turns out they had done a spirit mission. They got a 40 foot truck and a truck and a 40-foot trailer and they had gone into base housing and stole one of the security forces, reallocated one of the security forces' gate shacks and they had moved out of there.

Speaker 2: 16:15

He's like well, you said it'd be nice if they had something to work in. I said, well, yeah, but I didn't intend it's to steal a gate check. But it was. He was exercising leadership. I learned a lesson about being careful what you say yeah you know, that's incredible.

Speaker 1: 16:33

so I remember when I was in uh, afghanistan and my platoon, we had an outpost and we had everything gym equipment wise other than a squat rack. Yeah, our battalion commander had like this epic gym and they had a crisp yard and the crisp yard is like basically equipment that would be getting put, sent out to outposts through our logistics team. So, opposite as I by my platoon is like we really want a squat rack and I was thinking you know what, I'm going to go find you guys at Squat Rack. So we take control, we go to our battalion cop and we basically do like a mission within the cop to acquire and find the Squat Rack. And I go to the crisp yard, we acquire, we find the Squat Rack and then my battalion S3, I think he's out of the army now.

Speaker 1: 17:23

The time was major, major book out, retired as as a Fulberg Colonel. Book out meets me at the gate when we're getting ready to leave and he's like Josh, I watched you the entire time on the raid camera, I knew what you're doing and he's like go put the squat rack back. So it's, it's funny. That story kind of reminds me of that. Is that I? I didn't necessarily say something. But someone said ooh, you know what? I'm going to go find a squat rack for you guys and maybe get in trouble along the way.

Speaker 2: 17:52

Right, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:54

So how did your leadership style mature being a junior leader and I know there's that pivot point of when we become a field grade. That's why I love talking to people who have that military experience how did your leadership style kind of morph or change as you made that transition into a field grade officer?

Speaker 2: 18:15

Yeah. So I think back to when I was a young CGO and you're looking around at role models, you're trying to find examples of how to lead right and there were some good examples. There were some not good examples and early on the career field I was in sort of has a reputation for being a little bit of a dog-eat-dog career field and I think I tried to emulate some folks and I probably wasn't true to who I was. You know you try to be hard and you know you try to be that grizzled. You know you're trying to be like the grizzled lieutenant, colonel, or when you're the lieutenant and it's just not. You know it's not genuine.

Speaker 2: 18:59

And as times change, the Air Force changes, you know the Army changes, the culture changes. You have to. So as I got older I started to realize by seeing some other leaders that I really appreciated. So you don't have to be that way. You know you can. You can lead and care for people at the same time. And the next step was realizing hey, actually you can just be yourself. Realizing, hey, actually you can just be yourself.

Speaker 2: 19:29

And that took a while for me to get to that, to be comfortable enough. Where you are good enough, you know they put you there for a reason and take the lessons you learn good and bad from others, but then be your own leader. You know you can read books about leadership, you all these things but ultimately be yourself and just just be true to yourself. And I think once I realized that I kind of turned a corner as a leader. I was more comfortable just being who I was and I didn't have to be somebody else. And I think that's where I truly started focusing on the welfare of others versus my own advancement. And you know it's not about being in charge when I was young. It was about being in charge as I got older. Like you know, you can be a leader and not be the person in charge you can be the person in charge and not be a leader.

Speaker 2: 20:18

Yeah, but it takes a little bit of age and I don't know if it's wisdom or what, but it's experience. You learn that over time and I don't know if it's wisdom or what, but it's experience.

Speaker 1: 20:29

You learn that over time. I had a blessing, in a way, to have a job that really set me up for my two company commands that I had. I was an observer coach trainer at Fort Polk, louisiana, and I got to see I believe it was like 26 different rotations. I was embedded with that company commander at the hip and I got to see the good, know, the good, the bad and the ugly, and I saw all these different types of leadership styles. But what I, what I did is exactly what you just said is I just pieced them all together of like, hey, this is what works, this is what doesn't work. And at the end I got to do a deliberate AR with each one of the companies and I asked them them, you know, sidebar conversation what do you like about your company commander? What are some of the policies that he has that he likes? And I, when I walked into my company command my first one, I, you know, I confidently knew who I was and one thing that has always kind of set me apart, um, at least in that company command space, from a lot of my peers is that I was not afraid to be who I am and me now working in SOCOM as an APM. I am not afraid to be who I am and I believe that when you can do that, leadership doesn't have to be lonely.

Speaker 1: 21:43

I don't know if you ever heard that quote by John Maxwell. Yeah, so many people, I believe, think that leadership has to be a desolate job, that you're sitting on top of this mountaintop and you're making decisions and everyone's going to hate you and that's just the burden of leadership. There's a portion of that, I believe, at times of where you have to make tough decisions and people are just not going to like you for them. But that's the responsibility that you have because of the authority that you possess. But I believe if you can authentically be yourself, you can enjoy leadership. And when you can do that, what you just said is really the sticking point you can open your eyes, see the whole battlefield and realize, oh man, there are these people out here and I'm going to go make their day as best as I possibly can.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Yeah, I love that yeah, I I became less directive. Yeah, the more. The longer I was in and the more senior I became from a position or rank perspective, I was less directive. I was more collaborative. I was probably less brash as a as a Colonel group commander than I was as a captain flight commander, you know.

Speaker 1: 22:59

Oh, a hundred percent. I remember me as a young Lieutenant. I was like knife handed everyone especially when I was in Afghanistan, like infantry combat arms, knife hand, knife hand.

Speaker 1: 23:10

And as I'm getting older I don't know if I'm just mellowing out, but I am so much more mature and I like the, the military, at least in the infantry side. We always say tactical patients. I have developed the ability to just have amazing tactical patience and just let the environment kind of mature around me. So that's a nugget, being able to mature and have that wisdom to be in the military. I guess in the army they have this concept of mission command. Do they have that in there?

Speaker 2: 23:41

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Mission command, allowing other people within your organization, giving them the authority and the power to operate, but you just keep them in the left and right limits of making sure that they're executing the intent, the desired end state of what you're trying to work towards.

Speaker 2: 23:59

Yeah, absolutely my last job in the Air Force. I was a group commander at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. So big F-16 base it's a combat coded wing. So I mean you're doing the real stuff, super busy, constantly deploying Kind of a stressful job by nature. But what I found so I'm the group commander, I've got five squadron commanders. I got a lot of energy out of just blocking and tackling.

Speaker 2: 24:26

I used to tell them I'm the group commander, I've got five squadron commanders, I got a lot of energy out of just blocking and tackling. I used to tell them I'm not the quarterback you guys are, I'm just I'm your left tackle, tell me where to push to clear out a running lane for you. And that's what my job is. I'll use these for good to help, you know, to help you. And and that's how I mean, there were some times you you know you had to do some things that were part of the job, but for the most part that was the approach and I got more energy out of doing that than I ever did, out of just being in a directive position, and it honestly it helped me carry over to my, to what I do now, which is much more influence based than it is authority based.

Speaker 2: 25:06

I had the position authority but I didn't exercise it in the way that I could have. I tried to push that down and push that to the squadron commanders. I felt like that was a good way to run an organization. I had people say what's it like to run a 2,000 person organization? I can't run a 5 person organization. They run a 2 000 person organization. I can't run a five person organization. They run a 2 000 person organization.

Speaker 1: 25:30

You know, I'm just there to help them that's a great point, um, and you know I'm experiencing it right now is that I was a company commander and it's it's funny, when you were a lieutenant you were leading more people than I was in the army as a um, an hhc company commander. So a seasoned company commander had 250, some soldiers a normal infantry battalion has like 600 and some you. You coming straight into the air force with over 400 um airmen. Uh, it is is absolutely incredible with the just amount of responsibility that you had thrusted on you.

Speaker 2: 26:08

Yeah it was probably a very bad idea. It probably should have been much smaller than that, but we made it work.

Speaker 1: 26:17

One of the questions that I have is when you were in that senior role, how did you kind of mentor the junior soldiers that you had underneath you, of grooming them to become that next leader?

Speaker 2: 26:31

Yeah, so that's the hardest part, right, because when you're in that position the job naturally pulls you away from that, right, you know it can pull you to your computer, to your email. You're constantly working with, with your boss and with your peers. So it's a real. You have to be very intentional and very deliberate, I think, to make sure that you are making those connections. Yeah, and the ways that we did it and I'll say we because it's kind of me and the chief, our E9, we would make sure, you know, anytime there were new people coming to the organization, we always spoke to them.

Speaker 2: 27:15

You know there was a class they put together for new members, we would make sure we did that one-on-one and it wasn't the, you know, like you said, the knife hand thing. We tried to be genuine with them and kind of explain from our perspective you know how much we appreciate them and all that, and then it's just a lot of. You know, it's kind of old school. But management by walking around, I mean just going around and talking to people and just being present, no-transcript, and showing them that you're not this mythical picture on the wall. I mean, you're actually a person. But it's hard.

Speaker 2: 28:00

That was probably the hardest thing I found in the job was that there was this constant pull to keep you from doing the things that you really enjoyed. I would say my last year I probably drove my exec crazy because I had a back door in my office and I would sneak out of it. So I would do some emails and I would sneak out. She's like where did you go? I'm like I got in my car and I went and drove around. I drove down to the weapons load barn and talked to some guys or did this or that. I would just disappear because I could, you know, and I knew that was the most important part of the job you know next to training those or developing those squadron commanders.

Speaker 1: 28:39

I thought that was really important, so that is an amazing nugget the higher you go in rank, the more you have to fight for white space on your calendar. And so often people, because it's hard, they don't try to do that, they don't take the time to genuinely believe. That's when the culture begins to sour, because the individuals around you, unfortunately, they model and they emulate the behaviors they see above. So if you are taking the time, regardless of how busy you are, to go and see time and I'll just use soldiers because I'm in the army of spending time with soldiers.

Speaker 1: 29:24

They will make the time to do it, and that was always been a pet peeve of mine is that senior leaders not taking the time to counsel junior leaders and spending the time of kind of developing them. We always talk about, you know, developing team members or soldiers or airmen, but we never do it. So kudos to you for forcing that within your calendar, cause it's hard and I guarantee you that may have some very long days, but it was worth it.

Speaker 2: 29:53

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:54

And I, you know, I can only imagine like so I was.

Speaker 2: 29:56

You know I was at group level, but I can only imagine wing level. It's more difficult. You know once you get up above that and, truthfully, you know once you enter the general officer ranks that looks really hard.

Speaker 1: 30:08

Yeah, your calendar is from five in the morning to like 10 o'clock at night something going on yeah, that was part of when I was doing the calculus on okay, when do I retire?

Speaker 2: 30:18

what you know what's next? Part of it was, honestly, I'm like this is probably the last time I wasn't going to promote to go, but I would have gone to staff or something like that. It's like this is probably the last time I wasn't going to promote to geo but I would have gone to staff or something like that. It's like this is probably the last time that I have the the autonomy to go, sneak out a back door and hop in my car and go, go see, airman, I'm going to be sitting in the cubicle at the Pentagon or something. I was like I just felt like that I wasn't going to get a chance to do that much anymore and that, to me, was the pinnacle of military leadership. So I was like, okay, it's probably, you know, it's probably time to go. And now in my current role, now I get to interact with young people in restaurants, so I get fed by that same energy and young leaders in restaurants and things. So so I'm getting to do those things that I really enjoy, just in a different environment.

Speaker 1: 31:08

All right, team, let's take a quick break from this podcast and I want to personally invite you to our private Facebook community that I call Purposeful Accountable Leaders, or PALS, and PALS is a community dedicated to inspiring and developing servant leaders by sharing transformational stories and skills exactly what tells the leadership is all about. My goal is to build a community of like-minded leaders that can share lessons learned, ask questions and celebrate wins when it happens. And my mission in life is clear I will end toxic leadership by sharing transformational stories and skills, and you will find countless transformational leaders in this group, many of them I have had the honor to serve with in the military. If you want to find a community that can help you grow both personally and professionally, we would love to have you. You can simply search Purposeful Accountable Leaders on Facebook or click the Leadership Resources tab in the show notes to join. I am looking forward to seeing you guys and continuing to grow together on our leadership journey.

Speaker 1: 32:10

Back to the podcast, so I would love to kind of hear, knowing some of your background. You worked in congressional affairs, so walk me through. You do has an impact on the big picture.

Speaker 2: 32:43

I got to be involved in some really cool things so as a LL is what we call in the Air Force Legislative Liaison. So I was the logistics, readiness LL guy. So for everything logistics and readiness, I was sort of a link between, you know, congress, mostly the Hask and Sask, but there were some you know any states that had a military base, in particular an Air Force base? You know they?

Speaker 2: 33:06

you know, we had interactions with them. So I was the link between them and sort of the you know, the senior levels of the Air Force. So if, say, the Hask wanted to write something in the NDAA on a particular subject, I would go find the experts over here in the Pentagon and I'd find the staffers over here at Congress and I'd bring them together to make sure that what they were, you know, say, writing in the NDAA, didn't paint us in a corner over here. That's just one example of the kind of the linkages that you drew. But I really enjoyed it because and this leads to my career choice that I'm doing now I had freedom and I had autonomy and I was empowered. The Air Force. Basically the way I felt was we value what, we value your opinions, we value your judgment to be able to make important decisions without having to go up the chain.

Speaker 2: 34:04

I was a was I a Lieutenant Colonel, I think, at the time, but I was you know I was pulling together three and four stars and senators and congressmen and having conversations with mostly staffers but, you know, making decisions that had long-term effects for the Air Force and so I got a lot of satisfaction out of that. I thought it was a really, really interesting job. I did it for two years and I think that's about the longest you want to do it, because then you've probably seen most everything once and then you start going through. You can get cynical in that environment.

Speaker 2: 34:40

A hundred percent Too long right, so I did it for two years. It was enough to make me dangerous, but it really helped me for the rest of my career understand how decisions were made and the impact of what we were doing at the tactical level to the big picture. So it was really, really great. I wish everybody had the opportunity to at least you know, have some experience with that.

Speaker 1: 35:07

Yeah, that's an interesting kind of pathway within the military and, as I'm seasoning, you know, selfishly, that is a potential area one day that I could go do. So that's the beauty about podcasting I can ask a retired colonel of how they enjoyed their experience. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:27

I thought it was great. So walk me through your transition. You spent 30 years, well, actually probably more than that, probably closer to like 33 years, 34 years, with your enlisted time as an airman, and then you get out. How long did it take you to kind of find what you wanted to do, that passion, to where you currently are right now?

Speaker 2: 35:51

Yeah, yeah it is. It's a process I knew. So, if I go back, it was about a year out. I knew when I was going to retire, submitted my paperwork. So now the clock's starting to tick and I really didn't know up front what I want to do. I knew what I didn't want to do and that's where I started. And I knew and we all approach it differently because you know we're all wired differently I knew, and we all approach it differently because you know we're all wired differently I did not want to do what everybody else had done. I didn't want to go into, you know, government contracting. You know I wouldn't want to be a government contractor. I really didn't want to go into aviation. And it's not that I didn't appreciate or enjoy those things.

Speaker 1: 36:33

I just felt like I didn't run its course.

Speaker 2: 36:34

You know I was done with it. I just felt like I didn't run its course. You know I was done with it. And that growth thing we talked about, I didn't really feel like, you know, going to company X and you know, you know, running a program or something was going to be growth and so I knew I didn't want to do that. I, my background was a little different, so I didn't have a technical background. A lot of folks in my career field are engineers or they have technical backgrounds and it lends themselves to doing that. I had a business background, an undergrad business. I'd done MBA. I did some internships while I was in the Air Force with UPS and Microsoft and different folks.

Speaker 2: 37:13

I knew I was kind of interested in dabbling into that world. So I was looking at opportunities. I'm like okay, so I know I don't want to do government contracting. What do I want to do? I looked at first to. You know I was in central South Carolina. I looked at Charlotte. I said, well, charlotte's a big banking town. Maybe I'm going to do banking right, pretty naive.

Speaker 2: 37:34

So I was looking at location and job. I'm sorry, I was looking at like job, company location and I had a friend who was a retired 07. He said, man, you're doing it all wrong. He said you need to flip the script, figure out where you want to live, where you're going to be happy living, and then let let the job stuff work itself out. That's a pretty risky way to look at things, but I'm going to try it. So I had a little faith and I did. I decided you know, we live in Athens, georgia. That's where I'd gone to school. I'm like, okay, you know, I love Athens, I want to go back there.

Speaker 2: 38:04

Then our daughter later made the decision to go to UGA. But then I'm like okay, I'm moving to a college town. What am I going to do? Right? So I narrowed down. I said I'm going to be in Georgia. What companies are big in Georgia? You know, I have this whole process, this system I've worked out. But then the way I actually got the job was a friend of a friend, like like normally happens, right, a friend of a friend introduced me to someone that was a retired Air Force colonel and he happened to work for Chick-fil-A. And he happened to work for Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-a wasn't even on my radar at the time, but he mentored me just as a retired guy that had walked the path before me. After about six months he said hey, are you interested in doing what I do? And what he did included all the things that I enjoyed as a group commander being a coach, being a mentor, being an advisor, being a problem solver.

Speaker 1: 39:01

But it didn't include all the things that I didn't enjoy.

Speaker 2: 39:03

I wasn't going to run a large, you know I wasn't going to have. I have no direct reports and I'm an individual contributor, but I get to use influence authority. I thought, okay, that actually sounds interesting. So the more I learned about it, the more I got excited about it and realized that, yes, the restaurant industry is completely different than the military, but at its essence, leadership is the same thing. It's still about solving problems. I don't know if luck's the right word, but there was.

Speaker 2: 39:29

There was a little bit of luck or a divine intervention or whatever it happened to be, but it was also a a lot of, a lot of hard work too, because if you are going to go into con government, contracting or aviation or something as a, as an air force guy, well you've got contacts. You know all your friends are there all the people you work for there. You're going to go corporate.

Speaker 1: 39:59

It's doable but you have to build that network in like a year.

Speaker 2: 40:05

It's a lot of using LinkedIn. I use the heck out of LinkedIn just to do informational interviews and get to know people.

Speaker 1: 40:12

Find out what.

Speaker 2: 40:12

I didn't want to do Talk to people that are doing certain things and say how do you like it, what do you like about it, what do you not like about it? What's a day look like in your life and you go, okay that sounds great, or scratch that off the list, Cause that doesn't sound like something I'd want to do. You know, and you just do research. I felt like looking, figuring out your second career was a full-time job in and of itself. So that's your.

Speaker 1: 40:38

if you're doing it right, you're very, very busy as you're preparing to transition. You know it gives me anxiety because one day I'm going to have to put on, take off the uniform and luckily that is not going to come anytime soon because, like you, I still have a deep passion of what I do and I absolutely love what I'm doing and I'm I'm, I'm seeing the actual impacts, and that that's the critical thing is that when I stop seeing the impacts and I stop enjoying what I'm doing, then that's when it's time to hang it up. But I still love what I'm doing. And I noticed a theme throughout this whole whole episode, and everyone has a theme. Your theme is chasing growth. Yeah, e2, you go get your bachelor's degree and you figure out a way to do it not taking any of those you know traditional paths that most people take, and you continue to just chase growth, chase growth, and then you get your master's degree through a very archaic way, which, which was hard.

Speaker 1: 41:37

But I love that is that you had this burning desire to continue to grow and now where you're at in a very seasoned, you know position through a lot of experience, you still have that. How did you maintain that?

Speaker 2: 41:54

Yeah, yeah, I don't know, man, it's just like you said, it's the desire to continually grow. I know, when I went to Chick-fil-A it's small things, right, and this is going to sound silly, but I had always been like an Android guy. I never touched Apple.

Speaker 1: 42:12

But when I went to Chick-fil-A they offered me. I said I'm going.

Speaker 2: 42:14

Apple? Yeah, because I want going Apple. Yeah, because I want to try something new. I just want to stretch myself, and now's the time to do it, if you're going to try new things. My kids thought I was losing my mind because when I was in the Air Force, I kept myself in between some pretty tight parameters. When I retired, they're like Dad, you're wearing orange shoes. What are you doing? You've never worn orange shoes before. I'm like I don't know. They look fun.

Speaker 1: 42:37

I'm a Crocs man now.

Speaker 2: 42:40

That's right, I'm getting outside of my zone. So you know, it's not always easy Because you go from being the person I won't say I had all the answers, but generally when you've been doing something for a while, you either have the answers or you know where to get them. And now I may be the oldest guy in a room but I have the least amount of knowledge in the room and you just have to be comfortable with that. You go okay, that's fine, I'm going to work my way up to this. And that's where you get that challenge every day and you get that little fire in your belly to learn and to pedal a little faster. So some days I feel like that lieutenant all over again trying to learn, you know, and at 51 years old I feel like that's healthy to have that drive.

Speaker 1: 43:30

I think it's healthy and I think it's something that we as humans kind of crave in a way, so we don't have that level of complacency. And I had that within the infantry is I saw what my career was going to be and it was just stagnation, like, yeah, I was going to be able to work with soldiers, which I absolutely loved doing, but I saw my career path and a lot of the work that I had to do and it just no longer excited me. But I knew I wanted to stay in the military because I love to serve and I read a great book, I think it's called the A Team and it talks about S-curve. So when we do something, we always experience resistance and we have slow growth. But when we start to continue to do something consistently, we have slow growth. But when we start to continue to do something consistently, we have exponential growth. And at a certain point in time we choose to either stagnate and stay in that current position, which I think a lot of people do, because they feel comfortable, or they do what you do, dave, and you chase something else and you continue to do that and it's building upon each other every single time to where you've had a highly successful career and you probably shared a lot of fruits from those labors. But the amount of work and ethics that has kind of went into that.

Speaker 1: 44:48

And the other thing, too that we haven't even talked about is the character and reputation. So you, you talk about networking, networking, networking. It's hard to do that when you have such. You don't have the best reputation Right, and being 30 plus years in the military and I'm learning this is that my name already carries weight. When I walk into a room, even if someone hasn't met me, they know who Major McMillian is. Probably they have a good understanding of who I am and that already formulates their opinions of them. And that's a nugget that I wanted to go back to. You never know when you're going to be working for, for someone or with someone, and I'm not saying that from a way of trying to manipulate the situation. Yeah, but going back to the point of just being yourself don't be someone that you're not, and everything will work out in the end.

Speaker 2: 45:39

Right.

Speaker 1: 45:40

Right, well, I love that brother, so I got to ask you Chick-fil-A. Why are the lines so long?

Speaker 2: 45:48

The food's so good. I hope that's the reason. I hope that it's fast and accurate. I hope that it's clean and safe. I hope that you get genuine hospitality and the food tastes good. All those things combined is what brings people in the door.

Speaker 1: 46:04

It's what brings me in the door?

Speaker 2: 46:05

I'm still a customer.

Speaker 1: 46:06

I'm telling you right now, chick-fil-a is my favorite restaurant One because it aligns for fast food, it aligns with my core values of what I want my family to kind of be surrounded by. But you always know what you're going to get. You're going to get great service, you're going to get great food and exactly what you just said, and it's going to be a great facility. And what always blows my mind is just the system. It can look like it's absolutely crazy, but you're, you're probably going to have quick service. So I've drove across the country now like four or five times and I only stop at Chick-fil-A. My kids are like McDonald's. I was like, no, no, we're going to Chick-fil-A, I'll pay that little bit extra because I know what I'm going to get. Yeah to get.

Speaker 2: 46:47

Yeah, you know the bathroom is going to be clean. You know you're going to get. You know people are going to treat you well. I will tell you one thing you made me think back to that I didn't mention before when we were talking about why. You know why I went to Chick-fil-A.

Speaker 2: 46:58

One thing that I did learn when I was researching you know, retiring and transitioning and the areas where people tend to have problems a lot of people when they go from the military to the corporate world. It's purpose. You know, you've had purpose and you've been in a principles-based, values-based organization your entire career. And now you go somewhere where it's about, you know, stockholder wealth. You know, and it's about profit. And so I was thinking where can I go in the corporate world that's still principles based and values driven? And, man, did I land in the right spot? I mean, chick-fil-a. Is that in spades? I won't turn this into a big Chick-fil-A session. I'm not representing Chick-fil-A or the Cathy family here, but you know, the first three words in the Chick-fil-A's purpose statement is to glorify God. Yeah, Wow.

Speaker 2: 47:54

You know, I don't know of any other company that that's bold.

Speaker 1: 47:59

You know it's bold yeah.

Speaker 2: 48:00

Yeah, and you know, it's. They say it's a people company that sells chicken. You know, which is a little campy when you first hear it, but then when you do it, you go. Actually, that's true, they do a lot of things in the community, they do a lot of things for people. Chicken's, the vehicle that drives it, whether it was Chick-fil-A or whether it was somewhere else. I was looking for something that filled that void so I wouldn't find myself going. Why am I getting up every day? Why am I doing this?

Speaker 1: 48:27

Those are some of the questions that I really wanted to dig into is because every single time I come to Chick-fil-A, the quality of the person who works there is always top notch, and I know there's some magic there. Maybe you can't share the proprietary, like hiring, but when you're looking for the culture of how you're hiring someone, what is that selection criteria? Because I guarantee you there's some wisdom there.

Speaker 2: 48:54

Yeah. So what's interesting and what I learned is you know you have Chick-fil-A the company, and it's a franchise arrangement, so you have owner operators that own their restaurants and so they're responsible for hiring so the person, the team member that's taking your order and is preparing your food they're actually employees of that owner operator. I think where the real magic is, chick-fil-a Inc hires really good operators and they really are focused on supporting. Everything is subordinated to supporting that operator. So so my job specifically is a good example. So I have 29 operators with 36 restaurants, because some have more than more than one, but but my entire existence is to to serve them. I'm there to help solve problems for them, almost like when we talked about legislative liaison yeah we hear that go-between between Congress and the Air Force.

Speaker 2: 49:51

I'm that go-between between that business owner out in that community and Chick-fil-A Inc. And I'm there to serve them and to help them clear those roadblocks and be that left tackle and do all the things to solve problems for them, and I think that's the real magic. So if you're taking care of them, they're taking care of their team and if they're taking care of their team, their team is taking care of those customers and so it really does work very well. It's almost that inverted pyramid that we still talk about in leadership a lot, but it really is that way, but it really is that way. That's how things operate within Chick-fil-A. So I think that's and it's not always the case. I mean, everybody you hire is not going to be the all-star, but for the most part I think the process works very well from Inc to the operator, to the leadership, to team members, customers.

Speaker 1: 50:50

You know ultimately it's all about the customer, but if you take care of everyone along that chain, you know they'll pay that forward I have, I have a boss right now, um, and he always kind of defines himself as a traffic cop, if you kind of think about that like he's not necessarily doing the programatics and making things happen, but he is removing barriers from us and being the connector to allow us to do our jobs more freely and in turn, we can take care of our people more, and I love that.

Speaker 1: 51:24

And now that you brought it up, I can see that connection between the congressional affairs. And then now what you're doing. And do you say 26 different operators, that you're Twenty?

Speaker 2: 51:35

nine, twenty nine operators, thirty six restaurants, yeah, wow, yeah. And so the three parts of the job. I'm there Three hours. I'm a relationship builder, I'm a resource broker and I'm a restaurant specialist. I will admit that third one. I'm not there yet. I'm learning to be a restaurant specialist, resource broker. I'm learning figuring out where to help connect the operator to the resources at Chick-fil-A. But the relationship builder that part I've gotten pretty decent at. I've basically become. I mean, they're my friends, these guys that are running these restaurants. That gives me energy. It takes a little bit of what I did as a group commander and some of the things I've learned along the way to get to that point. It takes a little bit from what I did as a congressional liaison guy. It puts it all together. It's just a really good fit. It's really neat how it worked out to be able to do that this season in my life.

Speaker 1: 52:34

I think it's funny, like how it's true in anyone's life, if you really genuinely kind of look back, of how the jobs that we've had and the events that we've had shape where we are right now. I can't remember, I think it's Proverbs 19, 21 or 21, 19. I have to look at it of where the we, we can take basically our own path, but the Lord determines our steps. And I got to go back and I got to look at that exactly so I can find it. But nothing happens without something in the past.

Speaker 1: 53:08

I guess, if that makes sense, everything that you've done has led you to the point that you are right now and it's interesting to kind of see that from my perspective of getting to talk to someone you know amazing like you that have done all these awesome things and seeing that connection, that thread and that's what I love about leadership is that there's always a thread. Maybe we're not going to get to point A to point B in a perfect line, it might be a pinball machine, but there's still a thread connecting us there. And as long as we continue to chase hard things and we just try to grow every single day because I remember us starting this podcast episode off, as, like I'm a restaurateur and I have no experience in restaurant- and I see the theme of you chasing hard things and all it is is just putting yourself out there, being uncomfortable but being comfortable with that.

Speaker 1: 53:59

Because, when we are unusual, we stretch ourselves. So I would love to know yeah, 30 plus years in the Air Force, Now you're running the several or supporting several Chick-fil-A's. What was the one common theme and I think you kind of hit on it now but the one common theme that allowed you to be successful in the Air Force? That is, allowing you to continue to be successful in the private industry?

Speaker 2: 54:25

Yeah, I'd say it's a couple of things. I mean, it's self-awareness, right, knowing what drives you and what gives you energy, and it's that what you just said being comfortable with, being uncomfortable, and then the desire just to continue to grow. You know, I think those things being aware of what gives you energy and what, where your passions lie I think is very important and I don't think enough people probably spend time thinking about that as they're transitioning. I had a lot of nights sitting around fire pits with a cigar in my hand thinking about who am I.

Speaker 2: 55:05

You know it sounds silly, but it's worth the time to think through that.

Speaker 2: 55:10

you know, and when you, the most beautiful thing we get in the military is terminal leave, and I always encourage people to take all the terminal leave they give you, because that's that time for you to sit and think and really reflect on where you've been and where you're going For me that was very helpful to build that self-awareness, and that's where I realized what you pointed out earlier is that I very helpful to build that self-awareness, and that's what I where I realized what you pointed out earlier is that I just want to continue to grow, you know, I just don't want to, I don't want to stagnate, and so yeah, yeah, that that to me, those are probably the three things that that I think are common threads for me.

Speaker 1: 55:43

There there's an acronym that I created, cause I'm an infantry officer and we're wizards at creating acronyms. I think anyone in the military is but T-Ball. So thoughts, beliefs, actions and legacy it all starts with how we think. If we can spend the time to quiet our minds, here's another acronym STOP, take a silence, take a tactical pause, observe and then pursue with purpose, and if we can do that, we can have alignment in our lives. But I think too often we're always wanting to stay busy but, we don't gain any traction.

Speaker 1: 56:16

A tire can be really busy looking right, spinning in the mud, but it doesn't gain any traction. You gain traction because you spent the time thinking about exactly who dave is, and I think, in the too, that that is absolutely pivotal, because you confidently knew who you were throughout this entire time and that allowed you to show up, to be authentic. Leaders have to do that. They have to spend the time, not necessarily what your leadership style is, but who are you Like, what do you care about? What is your purpose? What is your passion? Why do you get up every morning? And I went to an amazing church when I was in Alabama from Chris Hodges Church of the Highlands okay.

Speaker 1: 56:55

I love that church and he talks about Christmas morning. Like when you wake up on Christmas morning, you're happy because you know what you're going to be doing that day. You're going to be eating some of the best food in the world, opening some underwear and socks because that's what your wife got you and it's going to be awesome and doing all these things right. What? What's your christmas morning? And then, when you can find that you have alignment and that's what makes you happy and I can see it on your face is that you have alignment in your life right now.

Speaker 2: 57:23

Yeah, absolutely, and I would add one thing and I'll steal a quote from the book if you've ever read, briango is the Enemy. Your ego can absolutely be your worst enemy as you transition careers. You go from a place where you walk in a room and you have instant credibility because of what you're wearing and your name tied to that and your title. The faster you can get past that, shed that and become you again, the better you are. You won't see a lot in my house, Actually the things you see here about all I have that's out and invisible because I'm focused forward and I'm not focused on the past and for me it helps me to get past that ego thing. So you're going to go from that person. When you walk in the room, you have instant credibility to you. Walk in a room, you have no credibility.

Speaker 2: 58:22

You have to earn it from day one. Now you may have some people know where you came from and all that sort of thing, but you do. You have to earn it from day one. So if you rely too much on your ego, that might be a difficult, a difficult path to walk. So I always suggest to people, if the one read ego is the enemy, you know and and to try to try to work through that stuff as you transition.

Speaker 1: 58:48

I'm going to have to remember that because in the closing segment of my podcast I always ask a question and I'm pretty sure you already answered it with that book. But I'd love to know now, kind of transition, looking forward, where are you aspiring to continue to grow? I've saw that theme. Where do you want to go?

Speaker 2: 59:08

Yeah, yeah, so I'm still figuring that out. So the job I'm in right now I've been doing it for 14 months and I'm nowhere near competent yet I I I'm getting there, but I still have a lot of growth to go. So so I'm still focused on, like, my five-year plan in my mind. I just want to become the best obsolete I can be. You know, um beyond, I don't know yet. I don't know, and I'm giving myself some grace to not know. Do I want to continue on and continue doing what I'm doing for another five years or so? Maybe Don't want to grow within the company? Maybe Don't want to do something else, maybe I just don't know.

Speaker 2: 59:46

And so I'm allowing myself some growth time to figure that out and not to put things. As long as I'm growing, josh, that's really all I'm concerned with at this point. The beautiful thing about where I'm at now and having already had a career is I'm not trying to climb any ladders. There's no position I'm aspiring to. It's just will I enjoy what I'm doing, will it give me energy, will it challenge me, and if not, I'll do something else. But right now it does all of those things. So I don't know. We'll circle back in five years and have the conversation again.

Speaker 1: 1:00:27

Yeah, that'll be interesting and I totally plan to do that. So I will still be making podcasts. In five years, we're going to have this conversation again. Yeah, either join the Air Force, make a transition out of the military. What would be one of the biggest pieces of advice that you would give to them as they navigate those waters?

Speaker 2: 1:00:57

Yeah, just put in the work, do the work. Understand that your transition year is probably going to be the busiest year of your entire career. It's like the most complicated PCS you've ever been through. We just moved, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:01:14

Yeah, we all think when you're at the end you'll be able to breathe easy. But it's good because you're going through a lot of things. You're going through things emotionally, spiritually, possibly. You know you're everything in life too. I lived more life in between last September and now than I think I had the previous. You know, 30 years of my career, just because so many things happen in a short time. Now, having said that, I had a daughter getting ready to go to college, I had another kid to drive, I was turning 50. I mean, there's a lot of things you're dealing with that normally, any one of those things would be a significant emotional event. Well, they were coming at me like every week something new was happening, so I didn't have time to sit around and, you know, focus on it too much.

Speaker 2: 1:01:59

It was just like all right, you know you got to work hard, you know you got to put in the time. So just be willing to put in the time, put in the work, do the research. You know, that's probably that's, that's probably the best advice I could.

Speaker 1: 1:02:13

I could give it's time for our final show segment that I like to call the killer bees. These are the same four questions that I ask every guest on the Tales of Leadership podcast Be brief, be brilliant, be present and be gone. Question one what do you believe separates a good leader from an extraordinary leader?

Speaker 2: 1:02:37

I'm going to repeat myself because it's an outward mindset. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:02:41

I love it. So question two, and this is the one I think you've already answered, but we'll see what one resource that you could recommend to our listeners.

Speaker 2: 1:02:49

Yeah, but lots of books. But I guess, if I have to narrow those down to sort of this, this transition season seems to be what we're talking a little bit about right now is I love Ryan Holiday books Ego is the Enemy. There's another, the Obstacle is the Goal. Those are probably two of the books that I got the most out of as I was actually while I was in command. I use those as well and they helped me from that aspect, and then it also helped me as I transitioned to doing something else.

Speaker 2: 1:03:20

Wow, and then I'm going to plug LinkedIn because I LinkedIn is an incredible resource if you do it the right way.

Speaker 1: 1:03:29

Yeah, I will second that and for one of the reasons you know, you had no idea who Josh McMillian was. Josh McMillian sends you a message. Hey, sir, I'd love to have you on the podcast. No other platform would I have the ability to find amazing people like you to do that, and I have some really high caliber people on the show and I meet them on LinkedIn, so I'm grateful for that. The third question if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be Be more?

Speaker 2: 1:04:02

focused on. I would say be less focused on what position you'll achieve or who you know where you'll be in the chain of command, and more focused on taking care of people. I figured it out later in life, but I wish I had focused on that in my earlier years and understood that as I was growing as a leader.

Speaker 1: 1:04:24

I love that. So the last one is if someone listens to this podcast and they genuinely resonate and they can reach back out to you, how can they find you? And then, what is the best way to add value to your current mission set?

Speaker 2: 1:04:39

Yeah, so you can reach me on LinkedIn. I actually have. I have a lot, of, a lot of veterans do that already and I'm always willing to talk, to talk to anybody and help the next person in line.

Speaker 1: 1:04:52

There's a lot of people out there who.

Speaker 2: 1:04:55

I don't want to disparage anybody, but there's some for-profit areas in the veteran transition space and I would just say there are enough people out there who aren't looking for profit that can help you. So pursue those, and I would like to consider myself as part of that. I'm always willing to help the next, next person.

Speaker 1: 1:05:16

And I'm sorry. What was the second question? No, you. How can they add value to you?

Speaker 2: 1:05:21

Yeah, how can I add value?

Speaker 1: 1:05:23

How can our listeners add value to you?

Speaker 2: 1:05:26

Add value to me. I mean I'd love to hear about anybody's journey and where they're going, and I'm a I'm a lifelong learner. So you know, I would just just love to connect with as many people out there, whether it be in the military transition space or somebody joining the military or or in the middle of their career. You know, I just enjoy getting to know the network and learn from them as much as I hope to be able to help teach them as well.

Speaker 1: 1:05:55

Dave, it's an absolute honor and a privilege to be able to record a podcast with you and be in a room in this space with someone who's had such a wealth of experience through being in the Air Force and now running a successful business in Chick-fil-A. I'm humbled for the opportunity. I learned a lot. I know that anyone who listens to this episode will learn a lot, so just thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:06:19

Yeah, no, thank you, my friend. I appreciate it, had a great conversation and look forward to continuing to follow you.

Speaker 1: 1:06:26

I appreciate it, brother. Well, have a great night.

Speaker 2: 1:06:29

All right, you too. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 1: 1:06:34

All right team. What an amazing episode with Dave. I personally learned a lot and I wrote again multiple pages and it's really hard for me to distill down what the top three takeaways, but it's time for our after action review. So what are the top three things that I? It's time for our after action review. So what are the top three things that I learned from Dave for this episode?

Speaker 1: 1:06:56

And the first one that I learned is you have authority when you're a leader, but you do not have the knowledge. And it kind of goes back to one of the last things he talked about, and that was ego. As a leader, you have to be willing to let go of your ego, and what better examples than him sharing his leadership journey. He spent over 30 years in the Air Force and had to reinvent himself, getting out of the military and he retired the rank of a colonel. And to be able to let go of that rank, to humble yourself and understand that you're not the smartest person in the room, requires a healthy dose of humility. And as a leader, you have to understand that you may have authority but you don't have the knowledge, and understand that there's other people that are much smarter than you, and you have to have humility. Let go of your ego. The second thing that I learned is there was a theme throughout this episode talking about discovering who you are, understanding what your purpose and what your passion is, and that's a theme throughout all of these. But, thinking about it in this lens, if you don't know who you are, confidently know who you are, then you can't lead authentically.

Speaker 1: 1:08:13

And there's a concept that John Maxwell talks about is that leadership does not have to be lonely. You don't have to be sitting on the mountaintop just talking to yourself, right? That's not what leadership is about. It's about spending time with the people and it's about being able to create positive change and drive culture where people want to come to work. But if you don't confidently know who you are, what you're naturally going to do is emulate the behaviors of other leaders that you have around you, and maybe those behaviors are not the best. So understand who you are, so you don't emulate bad behaviors, because one of the things that I'm trying to end is toxic leadership habits, and one of the best ways to do that is to understand who you are and understand what your purpose is and what your passion is, and ask the question do I know who I am, what are the core values that I hold near and dear to me, and do I emulate those core values every day?

Speaker 1: 1:09:16

And the last one that I wrote down and this was the entire theme with everything here is chase growth. And I brought up a metaphor of an S-curve. When we hit resistance up front when we try something new, it's going to be challenging. We're probably going to fail, and fail pretty epic, but you never truly fail if you don't stop trying. Just keep moving forward. Maybe you have to take a couple steps back, but just keep moving forward and eventually you're going to learn it and you're going to do well.

Speaker 1: 1:09:49

And to share a vulnerable point, I just started a new job in August. It's the time I'm recording this, it's November the 2nd. Right now. Do I fully understand what I'm doing? No, but I go in every single day with an open heart and an open mind and I want to learn and I have that curious, coachable, committed mindset, the rule of three C's, and that's life. You are never going to know all the right answers and life is a series of discomfort, but in that discomfort is where we learn to grow.

Speaker 1: 1:10:24

So stop chasing complacency and contentment and chase growth, because when you put yourself in positions of growth, you will naturally stretch yourself, and all you're doing when you stretch yourself is making yourself better. You're a better leader for yourself. You're a better leader for your family. You're a better leader for your team, your organization and your community. Hey, team, do me a favor If you like what you heard so far, make sure you share this podcast, you give it a five-star review on whatever platform you're listening and go support this podcast episode. You can go to talesofleadershipbuzzsproutcom and actually go support this channel, and everything that I make from this podcast goes directly back into that. That's a promise. I'm never going to use it for anything else. It's always going to be making better content for you guys, because I am busy and I use a lot of systems to make sure that I can create time to produce powerful content. But, as always, I'm your host, josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours. I'll see you next time.