From Tanks to Tribes

Hosts Sam Alaimo and Rob Huberty chat with Otis McGregor, retired Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel, as he recounts his journey from driving tanks to becoming a Green Beret. Hear about his early days at Texas A&M, his unconventional path to the Special Forces, and how he navigated military life and entrepreneurship.

Episode Transcript

Sam Alaimo (00:03):
This is the No Bell podcast where we talk about how
to optimize your technology,life, and mind. We're joined by
special operations veterans,entrepreneurs, investors, and
others who have overcomedifficulty to make it to the top
of their craft by staying in thefight. Welcome to the No Bell

(00:24):
podcast. This Sam Alaimo. I'mjoined by Rob Huberty, and our
guest today is Otis McGregor,founder of Tribe and Purpose.
He's an author, a speaker, apodcast host, and a retired
lieutenant colonel in the armyspecial forces. Otis, welcome.

Otis McGregor (00:39):
Hey. Great to be here guys. Happy to share some
of my experience to help others.

Sam Alaimo (00:45):
Stoked to have you. We'll start where we always do.
Where did you grow up?

Otis McGregor (00:49):
I grew up in Texas. Grew up in Fort Worth. I
went to Texas A and M and thecorps cadets and had all kinds
of good fun that would get getyou arrested now. Fortunately,
my timing was was just right forthe things I got to do and and
did. I enlisted in the guardwhile I was a cadet.

(01:10):
I was a tank driver somewherebehind me. If you look really
hard and mixed in with the booksright there, that's the forty
ninth Armored Division patch,lone star. I was a tank driver
for about a year and a half, andthen I was a TC, tank commander.
And then I became a I switchedand became a LRSU. Not many

(01:32):
people know what LRSU, longrange reconnaissance
surveillance.
It's the the recce team for thearmored division. And I did that
my last year before gettingcommissioned.

Sam Alaimo (01:42):
Did the coracadettes, what was your
earliest memory of wanting tojoin the military?

Otis McGregor (01:46):
Well, you know, my dad was a aerospace engineer
at General Dynamics right upright next to Carswell Air Force
Base outside of Fort Worth. Ithink it's now Naval Air Station
Carswell. And I grew up in theCold War era of watching the b
50 two's fly over and going tobomb the Soviet Union out of

(02:09):
existence. And then thankfullygetting a phone call to return
home. And I always dreamed ofbeing a fighter pilot, because
that's what my dad as anaerospace engineer, that's what
he designed.
His first big project was the f16. And as a kid, I got to sit
in the f 16 and do all thesekind of cool stuff. And my

(02:30):
freshman year in high school, Iwent to dad's office there at
home I said, dad, I wanna be afighter pilot. And he said, son,
you can't. I said, why not?
He said, well, you wear glasses.Pilots aren't allowed to wear
glasses. And I said, well, I'lljust join the air force. He's
like, you don't want to do that.You're not a pilot in the air

(02:51):
force, you ain't shit.
Dad didn't say shit, dad doesn'tcuss. But whatever phrase he
said, you ain't gonna getanywhere and you won't like it
unless you're a pilot in the airforce. I said, fine. I kind of
hung my head and walked out andnext day I said, I got it. I'll
join the army, screw the airforce.
And that was that was what setme on that path and that's why I

(03:13):
ended up at Texas A and Mbecause, you know, the
interesting thing when I reflectback on it, those those choices
made early on, I had no desireto go to the military academy.
Even though I was dead set, dadhad dad had said, don't enlist,
go to school. Dad's very big oneducation. Go to school, get
your education, go in as anofficer. And he's, you know,

(03:35):
guided me in that path.
And I never even looked at WestPoint. Was something about
everything being the same atWest Point, right? Whereas Texas
A and M, you're a small fish ina big pond even as a cadet. You
know, you're 2,000 and when Iwas at A and M there was 30,000
students. So 2,000, do the maththere, whatever that equates to,

(04:00):
10% or less of the student body.
So it was a much broadereducation. And that was also
what led me to enlisting was Iwanted to learn what being a
soldier was like before I ledsoldiers. So yeah, that's that
was how I got there. That's howI got there. The only other

(04:22):
school I applied to was PennState, because I thought I was
gonna play a linebacker form orsomething like that, I don't
know.

Rob Huberty (04:27):
I have a couple questions about the the
differences. So one of my closefriends in the military went to
Texas A and M and he was notpart of the corps of cadets and
he ended up enlisting out of itas well. What was it like going
to a college that presumably isgood at football, good at
sports, big fun school, but thenyou have to put a uniform on

(04:49):
from time to time but not allthe time. Whereas the service
academies are buttoned up allthe time. How different was
that?
Did you ever have that momentwhere you said, What am I doing
here when you're wearing auniform in the sun and you see
people going out to a party andyou're doing, you know, marching
or whatever it is?

Otis McGregor (05:05):
You know, I don't recall ever having that feeling
of looking on the other side andsaying, oh, look how much it
sucks. Yeah. And I thinkprobably what it was, the reason
I didn't have that feeling isbecause misery loves company.
And I had my classmates with me.And it sucked for them just as
much as it sucked for mestanding in formation.

(05:26):
We did morning formations andevening formations. We marched
to chow, marched to breakfast,marched to dinner, know. I mean,
we had to wear a uniform toevery building on campus when I
was there. There was no otherthan other than going to the PE
class, you you could wear shortsand a t shirt every other time.

(05:47):
Even to go like meet mygirlfriend for coffee in the
Memorial Student Center.
I had to be in class b's to gointo that building. So yeah,
there were some times where, oh,this kind of sucks. But you you
were there with you know, 2,000of your closest mates who were
doing the same stupid or reallybeneficial stuff like that, you

(06:11):
know. Every I mean thetraditions at A and M, they've
they've changed of course, astimes have changed. But the, you
know, several of the things likewearing a uniform and teaching
you how to wear a uniform,that's that's important, know,
and taking care of your yourroom and having room inspections
and all those sort of thingsthat you do at a military

(06:33):
academy.
And to include study timerequired sitting at my desk my
freshman and sophomore year,Sunday through Thursday night. I
don't remember, I

Rob Huberty (06:43):
think it

Otis McGregor (06:43):
was like 07:30 to 09:30 or something like that. We
had to be at our desk studying.But you know what? At 09:30 on
Thursday night, I was meeting upwith my girlfriend and we were
going to the Dixie chicken anddrinking pitcher beer, you know,
pitchers of beer. So and thenyou get up in the next morning
and run five miles with orwhatever because you weren't

(07:05):
supposed to do somethingaccording to the upperclassmen.
And got the best of both worldsis the way I look at it. And
that's why I went to A and M, toget the best of both worlds. I
enlisted beginning of the springsemester my freshman year. I
enlisted, yeah. And I went tobasic training that summer.

Sam Alaimo (07:24):
Did did a lot of other guys do that or were you
kind of

Otis McGregor (07:27):
an anomaly? Pretty much an anomaly. I had
two upperclassmen and they werethe ones that kind of singled me
out and were my mentors growingup. They were juniors when I was
a freshman. And Chris Blakas andKenny Crawford, still stay in
touch with them.
And they were the ones, hey, wegot this this National Guard

(07:50):
unit, know, weekend a month, twoweeks a year, you can make some
extra beer money and there'sthis whole Montgomery GI bill
thing and all this sort of stuffand get some extra money for for
school and and guess what, youget to learn about being in the
army. I was like, cool. I'mgoing to the army anyways, might
as well start now. So yeah, thatwas how I got got into it. It's

(08:12):
not like I I saw a commercialand said, oh, I should

Sam Alaimo (08:16):
do this. You enlisted. Did you have special
forces in your mind's eye as agoal or did that just come about
after your your days ridingaround in tanks?

Otis McGregor (08:25):
Yeah. When I was a tanker I realized I didn't
want to be a tanker. I did notlike the idea of driving around
in a steel coffin. I could notwait to get my feet on the
ground, that was why I went toLursu because yes, I all I ever
wanted to do, my four years at Aand M was to be commissioned as

(08:45):
an infantry officer and go tothe Ranger Regiment. It's all I
ever wanted to do.
The army saw different, said weneed engineers not infantry
guys. And I happened to have apiece of paper that says
engineer on it, unfortunately.At least that's the way I always
joke about it is unfortunately,I have this piece of paper. So
the army made me an engineer andall I could think of was well,

(09:08):
how do I get into the RangerRegiment? And as I as I started
down my path, you know, aftergetting commissioned as an
engineer and learning more aboutthings in the army, I I'd heard
we had a a master sergeant at atthe school in the ROTC who was a
Green Beret.
And so I'd known, I'd heard ofit, didn't know a whole lot.

(09:29):
Started reading some books aboutit. And when I got commissioned
as an engineer, it kind ofsealed my path because I said,
then I'm going Green Beret. I'mnot. I had I had kinda had
visions of it, go to theregiment, you know, spend some
time in the regiment and then goGreen Beret.
But when I didn't get to go tothe regiment, said, you know
what, raise my hand, go be aGreen Beret. And that's that's

(09:52):
what did it, you know, becausejust wanted to be challenged,
pushed, be part of the best.

Sam Alaimo (09:59):
What what year, what what time frame were you talking
about here?

Otis McGregor (10:02):
Well I graduated from college in '87. And I I
went to Alaska for four years,left Alaska well while in
Alaska, I that's where I raisedmy hand to be a Green Beret.
Left there in '92 and got gotawarded my Green Beret in '94.

Sam Alaimo (10:21):
I'm trying to think timelines. So this was around
the Mogadishu timeframe, didthat inspire you, influence you
at all?

Otis McGregor (10:27):
No. No, hardly knew anything about it. You
gotta remember information atthat time you read it, it was
dropped off at your frontdoorstep. So you know, yeah I
read like I said, I read a lotof books about special ops in
Vietnam and that was really thegist of it. Damn, I'm trying to
think, when what year was Moog?

Sam Alaimo (10:47):
Was that '90? Ninety '1 or '92,

Otis McGregor (10:50):
I think. Yeah. Ninety one, '90 '2. So I was
yeah, I was already on the path.I'd already filled out the
paperwork and and then selectedto to go to selection at that
point.
Gulf War one happened while wewere in Alaska, which I always
laugh about when I think aboutit because pretty much

(11:12):
everybody, I was in the sixthInfantry Infantry Division, I I
was in the sixth EngineerBattalion. Pretty much everybody
in the division was putting in aforty one eighty seven. For
those of you who don't know,that's that's a general army,
still exists, army document torequest something different. And
everybody was putting in fortyone eighty seven's to be

(11:34):
reassigned to the units thatwere going to the war. And our
our division commander publisheda order letter or whatever the
hell to write, you know,memorandum that said, anybody
that submits a 04/1987 fortransfer will receive an article

(11:57):
15, which is non judicialpunishment.
The you you call them the navymask, captain's mask. Then we
were told we were going to docritical infrastructure
protection, which was one of theroles of sixth Infantry
Division, at least back then.Which is the oil, all the oil
wells and the pipelines and thepumping stations and all that

(12:20):
stuff. And the company thatowned it at the time, I don't
remember who it was now, I wannasay Alaska, basically said,
yeah, no thanks. So we're weprotected the snow around
Fairbanks from Saddam Husseinand I will say he did not get
one single snowflake during thatwar.

(12:44):
So we were highly successful.

Rob Huberty (12:46):
So even at this time though, the I'm, you know,
from pop culture in anunextraordinary way, did John
Wayne or Sylvester Stallone haveany influence? Rambo or that?
Because that came out beforeboth of it, you know.

Otis McGregor (12:59):
Yeah. Oh hell yeah. I mean, Green Beret, John
Wayne's movie, The Green Beret.Yeah. I mean, I gotta say my
homage to him.
I got a Green Beret statue thatis John Wayne, you know, right
right there on my shelf. Andthen of course, you know, first
blood. Yeah. We're all wantingto jump off a cliff and bounce

(13:22):
through a tree and then sew ourarm back up with, you know, the
canvas muscle shirt that we madeourself.

Rob Huberty (13:30):
He he could eat things that would make a billy
goat puke. I don't know why butthat works.

Otis McGregor (13:34):
Yeah. That was a classic and I'm sure, not that I
I remember saying, you know,watching that. You know, I've
got some friends, Greenberryfriends that'll tell you, yeah,
man, dad dad showed me thatmovie and I was I was hooked.
I'm thinking, yeah, maybe I sawit. I mean, of course I've
watched it.
At this point in life, I've seenit a bunch, both of them. But
was that a critical piece? Idon't I don't remember. I think

(13:57):
it was probably more the booksthat I read, you know, about the
like those operations that wentinto Laos. Those guys that did
that stuff, know, the a teamoperations that out in camps
alone and unafraid, that wasjust some bad ass shit, man.
I mean, what those boys did inVietnam, know, a 12 man team, 10

(14:20):
man team, plop middle of jungle,That was some was some SF shit
right there. We did a little bitof it in Afghanistan, but it was
our our risk tolerance isn'thigh enough to do that kind of
shit anymore.

Rob Huberty (14:33):
Those guys are cool. I'd you know, I read a lot
of those books as well and wasinspired by them, know, along
with pop culture in in in yourday. I don't remember what year
Red Dawn came out, but for somereason as a kid.

Otis McGregor (14:44):
You know truthfully, that probably
influenced me more. Theunconventional warfare aspect of
Red Dawn. Yeah, that's that'sclassic, especially now that I
live in Colorado because, youknow, I got a safe house up in
the mountains. Anybody that thatknows a thing or two should have
a safe house up in themountains.

Sam Alaimo (15:02):
When you look back from what you know now, you you
didn't want the you didn't wantWest Point because it was hyper
regimented. Are you glad youended up with SF and not the
Rangers given the personalitydistinction between the two?

Otis McGregor (15:14):
Oh hell yeah. You know, I will never admit it
publicly that the army knew whatit was doing, making me an
engineer. But the experience Igained as a engineer lieutenant,
I mean because I got to do somepretty cool stuff. My my
platoon, the platoon I had for alittle over a year, was the

(15:38):
equipment platoon for the entirelight infantry division. So I
had several million, I don'tremember what the count is
nowadays, you know, $10.15,$20,000,000 worth of heavy
equipment in a light infantrydivision, you know, from
bulldozers to backhoes to bucketloaders, dump trucks.
And I mean, every guy in myplatoon drove a piece of

(16:02):
equipment. I mean, there wasthere was no, you know, backups
or any it was, you know, PrivateSmith owned that bulldozer. That
was his bulldozer and the thestuff that we got to do up in
the tundra, in the in the frozentundra was amazing because you
know, exercises for us asengineers were were a month

(16:27):
long. But the actual FTX wasusually like four or five days,
maybe seven at the very most.Because we'd go out and set up,
move the snow to open up theroads.
Then the log guys would come,set up all the log stuff and
we're still clearing roads,firing positions, and all this
stuff. And then they the themaneuver elements would come out

(16:49):
and they'd get set up and thenthey do the force on force
exercise. And then they'd leaveand then the logistics would
leave and then we'd leave. Andso when when we went to the
field, was you know, we had anexercise I was in Alaska for
four years and we had anexercise every January that the
the week after New Year's wedeployed. And so the experience

(17:11):
that I got in cold weather,leadership, I mean harsh harsh
living conditions andenvironment.
Yeah. I mean I've lived in someshitholes but the conditions
were never as harsh as they werethat those four years in Alaska,
you know, 40 below for ten days,seventy below. I mean, you name

(17:32):
the the extremisms and you know,it's just a thing.

Sam Alaimo (17:36):
Yeah. What was the most striking aspect of Special
Forces selection? Were youshocked by anything? Did
anything give you a particularlyhard time? Walk us through that.

Otis McGregor (17:46):
I'm trying to think selection. See, I I had
this weird and I still doattitude of, alright, I'll just
do the best I can. And selectionwas that. I I believe I'm a good
team player and a decent leader.And when I went into selection,
you know, it was it's a justanother gut check.

(18:09):
And you know, growing up playingsports, spending a lot I grew up
as a boy scout, eagle scout. Imean hell, I was doing as a boy
scout to jump back. We did achicken survival weekend.
Another one of those things thatain't happening anymore. You and
a buddy were given a livechicken, you got a sleeping bag

(18:30):
each and a peach can.
Why we always said peach can,but peach can empty that you
could put anything in thatwasn't food. Tools, matches,
aluminum foil and a livechicken. They dropped us off
Friday night, hand us a map andsaid, be here Sunday morning for
pancakes. 12 years old doingthat shit. I mean, that I I

(18:51):
started young and so when I whenI went through selection, yeah,
it was hard.
No, not downplaying the youknow, the effort of of the
suckfest that selection is, youknow, the lack of sleep. It fed
you good. It it and just thephysical effort and some button,
some mental, but just thephysical effort and you know,

(19:14):
working with people. I I don'tremember, know, yeah, Sandman,
what was, and all that, and Ican't remember the names of the
other events that you would thatwe would do. It was just a thing
to me.
It was like, alright, this iswhat I gotta do to get to be
what I wanna be. And that's theway I did it. You know, I can
think of, you know, there was ain the cue course, when I went

(19:37):
through, the officers were theonly ones that did this this
event called Troy Trek. And TroyTrek was a three to four day
land nav in the Uwari Forest.And you had you didn't know how
many points you were getting.
You couldn't use roads of coursebecause it's land navigation and

(19:59):
the instructors were looking foryou. And I loved that freaking
event. I just was like, cool.I'm in the woods by myself. I
gotta go from here to there.
That's cool, man. What's next?And you know, shoot we lost like
half our class in that in thatevent that all got recycled

(20:19):
because they just they screwedup. You know, so those sort of
things, yeah, I remember thembut I don't I honestly don't
remember like, oh man, I don'tknow if I'm gonna get there. I
was stressed.
Of course I was worried aboutdoing it because you don't know
what the answer is, right? Imean, you don't know what the
answer is, how can you, youknow, unless you're just one of
them arrogant, cocky assholes,you you don't know, right? So

(20:42):
you just have to give it yourbest and that was that was kind
of the way I looked at it. Nowif I if I had ended up with my
buddies in that recycle pool,you know, the recycle truck
driving down the road, yeah,that would have fucking sucked,
man. Sorry about the cussing,but there's there's no doubt my
attitude would probably bedifferent about what Troy Trek
was.
But for me, was like, I was,Peter Rabbit, don't throw me in

(21:08):
the briar patch.

Sam Alaimo (21:08):
That's the way I was. Given the timeline we're
talking about here, where wereyou when nine eleven happened?

Otis McGregor (21:14):
I was here at tenth group at Fort Carson. I
was the battalion s three. I hadabout a month or so ago prior to
that, did a change in command ofmy company. And I was now the
battalion s three when ithappened and I I can remember
the urge, the desire to dosomething. I think that was the

(21:40):
most frustrating thing, justgive us something to do.
Give us something to do. I mean,packing, unpacking, training,
guessing that well, we need toget arranged to do this or we
need to get vehicles to do thisor we should go, you know, rock
in the mountains or we had noclue what to do. We just were

(22:01):
doing something. And I'll alwaysremember getting phone calls
from our our brothers in fifthgroup asking us about what kind
of mountain gear and coldweather gear and all this sort
of stuff they should have to gointo the mountains of
Afghanistan and we're justsitting there going, I mean, we
didn't get the call, you know.That's for once for once, the

(22:26):
military, the the special opscommunity actually had something
happen and stuck with theregional the regional expertise
of the groups.
So I thought, know, irony inhindsight, know, 20 later,
twenty four, almost twenty fouryears later, how ironic that was

(22:47):
that that's the one time becausewe had just finished years of
doing Bosnia and Kosovo, know, Ihad deployed my company to
Kosovo and had some unbelievableoperations and things going on
there that we did, which were atthe time, know, we've know, goes

(23:07):
around comes around because wewere the fleshy tip of the spear
for Bosnia and Kosovo and allthe other groups were back
going, man, tenth group'sgetting do all the cool guy
stuff. Well then nine elevenhappened and we get to sit here
at Fort Carson and watch it onTV.

Sam Alaimo (23:23):
So I wanna get into post nine eleven, but how was
that tour and what kind ofaction do you guys see?

Otis McGregor (23:29):
For for which one, I'm

Sam Alaimo (23:29):
sorry. Kosovo.

Otis McGregor (23:31):
Oh, I went there twice. So I went right when we I
went as a information operationsofficer. That's a dark period of
my career. The deploymentwasn't, but the job and the
organization I was in was. So Iwent there the first time right
right when we set everything up,basically rolled in with the,
you know, invasion unit,whatever the hell we were

(23:53):
called.
And then I went back with mycompany, my special forces
company, Charlie Company twoten, and had an unbelievable
time. I was I was commanding atask force that nowadays at
least a colonel or a one starwould be in charge of. I had my

(24:13):
six ODAs. I had an ODA from thefirst battalion in Stuttgart. I
had a platoon of SEALs and aranger, the ranger regimental
recon and a squad of Seabees allattached to my company with me

(24:34):
in charge.
And we had a great relationshipwith the ground commander,
Colonel Close, brigade commanderin Big Red One. And he trusted
us a % to do the right thing andmy guys would give me a brief. I
would accept or deny the missionoperation depending on what was

(24:58):
going on and how, what they wererequesting to do. And I would
tell Colonel Close, this is whatwe're going to do. And he says,
Roger that, tell me if you needanything.
And then I'd send the slidedeck, this is back in you know,
the old days when a two twomegabyte slide deck, you know,
took two hours to get through anemail. I'd send the slide deck

(25:20):
for approval up to my boss atSocure, General Fuller, who's
still a good personal friend ofmine and he say he called me up
and said, what do you think ofus? I said, well here's some
risks, sir. He said, you got it?I said, Roger that, sir.
He said, okay. Execute. And wedid. Jeez, I don't know how many
different missions. We did reccemissions and in into the border,

(25:43):
into Serbia and things like thatand and some other classified
stuff that you know, pre nineeleven was the fleshy end of the
spear.
And yeah, so I always joke thatyou know, it goes around comes
around. So when nine elevenhappened and then the fifth
group got the call, well theyfigured, well, tenth group, you
got your turn.

Sam Alaimo (26:04):
What did your so you retired two thousand nine, nine
eleven, two thousand one. Howdid that period in between go?
How many times you you deploy?Where did you get to go? How
kinetic was it?

Otis McGregor (26:13):
Yeah. Remember at that point, I was a senior
senior guy. So, you know, as aspecial forces company
commander, you're a major in ofour. When I left group and went
to Spacecom and then Northcom,space and when I was at Spacecom
is when the Desert Storm twohappened, the invasion part. And

(26:33):
I got to watch that on somehighly classified videos on a
stupid exercise in Korea.
Then I went over to Sakur andwhen I got to Sakur, because my
bosses at NORTHCOM and SpaceCOMwouldn't let me deploy. So when
I got to Sakur, the first thingI did, I went into my boss, I
was in the J 5 shop. Went to myboss in the J 5 Shop who was an

(26:58):
air force colonel. And he'slike, yeah, sure man, but you
really gotta check with a three.And I was like, easy money.
Because the three, a good friendof mine, Mark Rosengard, we were
a tenth group together. So Iwent in, told him, say, hey, I
gotta get in the box, dude. I'mnot I'm not gonna get out of the
army with a war going on andnever having been there. So got

(27:20):
down there, got to do somepretty cool stuff working both
sides of the fence with unit andand Belod and the special forces
task force there in Belod. Doingsome some good, I mean all staff
stuff.
Know, I I I tell people thatyeah, I was deployed but the
stuff I was doing, you know,while I wasn't sleeping in my

(27:43):
bed at home and I workedeighteen, twenty hours a day and
had a really good gym, right.And a decent shower, but other
than that I was I was doingstaff shit the whole time. And
then I went back again, I don'tknow, a handful of months, I got
a phone call. When you get a aphone call in Germany at about

(28:05):
08:00 at night with a DC number,you know, you answer it and
you're like, okay, what's this?And you know, families all
around, it's like, go to the goto the closet and talk and you
know, a general was puttingtogether a team to go to Baghdad
and wanted me to be part of thatteam.

(28:27):
And I always remember saying,well, can I say no? The the guy,
the staff officer I was talkingto, he's like, no. He's like,
well then why didn't you justsend me freaking orders, dude?
Why are we making a big dealabout this? Let's just just send
me orders and I'll frickin' packmy stuff and we'll go.
So I went back back down to Iraqand helped stand up. Our our our
job was to stand up the IraqiNational Counterterrorism Force.

(28:50):
But would would you have saidno? No. Yeah.
I just wanted to know if I couldhave, you know. You got do I get
an option? Right? I mean, yougotta you gotta ask that
question. Right?
But no, of course not. Wouldn'thave said no. I was still
chomping at the bit. I mean,like I did for any other thing
that ever happened in my career.It's like, send me

Rob Huberty (29:11):
Always chasing the war.

Otis McGregor (29:12):
Oh man, running to the sound of gunfire, right?
Yeah. That was that was a reallycool mission because we the the
the genesis of it was a cocktailnapkin. Much very much similar
to when I came what was going onat the same time that I deployed
to Iraq was we were standing upthe NATO Special Operations

(29:37):
Force. That's when AdmiralMcRaven was my boss.
And that literally started witha cocktail napkin of what if
we'd look like this sort ofthing and that's where the NATO
Special Operations, nowheadquarters started. And when I

(29:57):
came back from Iraq, that's whatI went into was that which meant
I got to go to Afghanistan acouple of times to bring the
tribes together. That was thatwas the way we looked at it
because we had we had a handfulof NATO guys, a handful of black
ops, a handful of white ops, andour goal was to get everybody

(30:19):
doing working together as a as ateam. So, yeah, that was a that
was a pretty cool mission. I Irefer to that so, you know, one
of the special forces missionsother than direct action and
unconventional warfare isforeign internal defense.
And foreign internal defense isdeveloping a host nation's
capability to protectthemselves. And when I was at

(30:39):
NATO SOF, I referred to that asas doing my foreign internal
defense at the doctorate levelbecause I was in the three shop
and I traveled around like arock star with the admiral going
to ministers of defense and youknow, commanders of special
operations around the thecontinent that, you know, after

(31:02):
having done some you know, onthe ground low lower lower level
but you know, as a captain andup at the national level, that
was some pretty cool stuff toget to do that.

Sam Alaimo (31:15):
I wanna get into what you're doing now because it
sounds awesome. But before wewrap up the military, what was,
let's say, the worst experienceyou had during your career and
what was the absolute bestexperience you had?

Otis McGregor (31:26):
Worst was probably my own doing because I
still reflect on and I use thisas a as a leadership lesson. I
had an NCO, you know, when I wasa platoon leader, the army was
transitioning from a thing theyhad, you know, spec five, spec
six. They weren't hard stripedbecause the army said you're

(31:47):
you're a damn good bulldozeroperator, but you're not a
leader. Well, when I first cameon active duty, they were just
getting rid of that. And in theinfamous way of the military,
you know, if you have one day inrank longer than the guy next to
you, you're in charge.
And I had a guy who was one ofmy section sergeants that should

(32:11):
have just kept the he shouldn'thave ever had the the rockers,
should have just been a specsix. Damn good equipment
operator but not a leader. I hadno desire to lead. And I fired I
publicly berated him and firedhim in front of the platoon at
National Training Center out inCalifornia. And to this day, it
was a great it's it's a greatleadership lesson but I regret

(32:34):
it.
And for me, twenty five years,that's the worst thing. %. Best
best was I was a team leaderwith a handpicked team. Team
sergeant and I, Bill Cole,handpicked this team and we were
ten months into being a team. Werecently finished a six month

(32:57):
deployment to Bosnia and we cameback, we were a mountain team
and we got a JCET joint combinedexercise training, I think is
what JCET stands for.
Basically it's go train or trainwith or at some other country
and we got to spend a month inSwitzerland, just my team, with

(33:18):
two Swiss army Bergfuhrers asour guides. And skiing, alpine
training, avalanche training,goes went south, did rock
climbing and just the most thatone that one and then some stuff
I got to do in Norway. Thosetwo, unbelievable.

Rob Huberty (33:41):
Crack deals.

Otis McGregor (33:43):
Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you or I were if we
were to say, hey, let's go toSwitzerland and do this, easy 50
each. Easy.

Rob Huberty (33:52):
Every now and again you have a lucid moment in the
military and you're like, theyare paying me to do x. Like
whatever that is, and I thinkeverybody in the military has
felt good about something andbad about something. You know,
if you're pushing a broom orwhatever, you're doing fire
watch, like, my god, this isterrible. But every now and
again you're staying at a fivestar hotel somewhere and you're

(34:14):
like, how am I here?

Otis McGregor (34:16):
Yep. Oh, yeah. Well, when I was doing the NATO
soft thing, had this vividimage. We we had dropped into
we're flown into, not droppedinto, flown into Athens. Greece
and I'd never been to Greecebefore.
And did all our meetings. Wewere only there for a night. And
I remember it was a five starhotel. Get up to my room which
was way up. I opened the windowsand there's the Acropolis.

(34:39):
I mean, all lit I was like, howam I here? You know? Probably a,
you know, thousand dollar anight room or, you know,
especially with a view likethat. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
There's some I I had I had lotsof those pretty cool moments. We
could spend another hour metelling you some of the cool
places and things I got to do inthose situations.

Sam Alaimo (35:01):
So career wrapped up. We talk a lot about the
transition here. A lot of our,you know, a lot of our company,
a lot of the people we knowpivoted from the military to the
business world as you did. Didyou think your transition after
twenty years was difficult? Ifso, how?
And then do you have any majorlessons learned you'd share with
people going through it now?

Otis McGregor (35:22):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Transition wasn't hard. It was
finding what I wanted to do thatwas hard because I didn't know.
I I thought I thought get out,get a job.
Work for a company like LockheedMartin. Dad dad worked for
Lockheed for a number of years.He was I remember telling him I
got a job at Lockheed and he wasexcited for me. That job lasted

(35:45):
ten months and I'll with you.And by the way, for the last
five years, seven years, I havebeen coaching guys getting out.
That's one of my givebacks toour veteran tribe, so I've gone
through this many times. One ofthe best lessons that you could

(36:06):
learn and I got told this by twoof my former NCOs that I'm that
I hired into NORTHCOM as GSguys. And those two lessons when
you take the uniform off are youcan quit and you can say no. You
can quit your job anytime.There's no such thing as a two
week notice.
If you don't like it, walk yourass out. Wave to everybody and
say, see y'all later and walkout. That's it. Because you know

(36:30):
what? The sheriff ain't comingto arrest you for being AWOL.
You're done. Walk out. There'sno requirement. Don't stay in a
job that sucks. That's numberone.
Number two, you get to say nobecause there's no such thing as
a lawful order. There's no suchthing as UCMJ. And if your boss
says, hey Rob, I need you to goto this conference next week and

(36:51):
your daughter's having abirthday party or you know what,
you're just sick and tired oftraveling and say no. Hey boss,
don't want to do that. Itdoesn't fit in with me.
Guess what? The worst he can dois fire you.

Rob Huberty (37:03):
There's a lot packed in with what you're
saying that I'd see as acommonality that we do and that
we've struggled with. So some ofit is be careful for what you
wish because you're in it andyou're in the job that you think
that you do that pays the moneythat you think that you deserve
and the prestige that you thinkyou require. And at some given

(37:24):
point, it's like the, you know,the the frog in the pot of water
and it gets hotter and hotterand hotter and you don't realize
that you're in boiling water.And at some point you say, I'm
supposed to be happy and I amabsolutely not happy. So that is
very real and when you've gonefrom from a world where you
could be removed from yourposition, you could be shamed,
but you're still gonna apaycheck in general.

(37:45):
I mean, unless you, you know, dosomething illegal almost. Like
for mid level performance, youknow, if you're an elite person,
you only perform high instead ofunbelievably high. Like, you
know, there's no repercussions.But in this world, if you're
doing a job that doesn't alignwith you and you're unhappy, you
probably should do somethingelse and maybe for less money,

(38:07):
maybe for more money. That isvery difficult for veterans to
understand particularly likewhen they're recently at that
first two year block, four yearblock out.

Otis McGregor (38:16):
Well I worked for five different companies in
seven years. The first sevenyears post retirement. And every
one of them, right down to thevery last one, I said to myself
and I said to my hiring managerslash my my manager boss, this
is what I'm gonna do for thenext twenty, twenty five years
until I retire, retire. Thenevery one of them at the ninety

(38:37):
day mark, things just started tothe the sexy was gone, the
frustrations grew, you know, thethe twenty five minute commute
which was, no, that's not bad.Turn to, god, gotta freaking
drive twenty five minutes to getthere.
Jeez, you know, and everythingjust started. That's why, you
know, I I tell everybody if Ihadn't learned those two

(39:00):
lessons, quitting and saying no,I would be a mouth breather
working at Northcom right now.Plus in between each of those
jobs when I'd quit, I'd consultback to companies doing the
exact same damn thing I wasdoing before. That's how much of
a glutton for punishment I was.

Rob Huberty (39:16):
How do you know when to quit?

Otis McGregor (39:17):
When you can't take it anymore. You know,
they're everybody's different.It's it's when you hit that
point of I don't like this. Imean I had a job in the army,
that that job I kind of alludedto when I when I went to Kosovo,
thank God. That's probably whatkept me in the army, is because
I deployed.
If I had stayed in that in thatorganization, I would have I

(39:40):
would have resigned. I I it wasawful, you know. Because one of
the things I tell guys isthere's no such thing as a work
life balance, it's all life.There's no work you, home you.
And if you believe that, you'reyou're lying to yourself.
Because that job in DC that Ihad, I saw it. I was so

(40:00):
frustrated in that role and inthat organization, how
dysfunctional it was that itcarried over to the home life.
And made it tough on my wife andkids. Tougher than being
deployed. It was like, why areyou still home because this
sucks.
Let's get out of this. And andand truthfully that that was
miss Suzanne, my wife's advicewas, well why don't you see if

(40:24):
you can get back to tenth group?We can go back to Colorado and
see if you still like the armythen. That's that's what saved
kept me, saved me. Yeah.
Saved saved my career because Iwould have gotten out. Was I
jokingly say, if the internetwas then what it is now, I
probably would have hit send ona resignation paperwork online

(40:48):
because yeah, it was so when I Ihad that feeling already and
when I got got out and I startedworking for various companies,
and and each one of thosecompanies, it wouldn't, you
know, it was it was definitelythe it it wasn't them, it was me
sort of thing, know, in thebreakup. Because I didn't know
what I wanted. I didn't know whoI wanted to be, didn't know what
I wanted to do. And when youstruggle with that, the missing

(41:12):
piece is your fulfillment.
Know, money in the bank accountdoes not fulfill you. It's never
full enough. If you are chasingthe dollar, you'll never be
happy. So you have to find someway of being fulfilled.
Something that that pulls you.
Something that other than yourloyalty because they ain't loyal

(41:32):
back. Believe me, I don't carehow good that person that person
how much of a friend you thinkthat guy is. I got laid off,
treated like I was gonna stealfrom the company by a guy that I
considered my friend that hesaid was we were friends. He he
admits now he screwed that up.But you know what, that's what
happens, it's business.
But that business, when you sayit's business, it's still your

(41:54):
life. You you have to know andthis is one of the things I help
guys understand is is what'simportant to you. What are your
values? And your values mustmust align with the organization
that you are working for. Ifthey do not align, you will
never be happy there.
And that's what when I reflectback to the culture or the

(42:16):
groups and the companies I workfor and the departments in those
larger companies, that's whatthe problem was. It wasn't the
mission because you know, when Ifirst got out working for
Lockheed, we were doing specialops stuff. You know, putting
kind of contracts to help the,you know, still help the
regiment if you will. But theorganization was I I didn't it I
didn't fit in because of myvalues did not align with the

(42:39):
organization's values. And untilyou understand that and truly
have an understanding of of whoyou are, you're never gonna be
happy, man.

Rob Huberty (42:49):
It's just So here's an interesting question. When
you go I I think that peoplethink that they know themselves
in the military and I think theystruggle when they they come
out. So you mentor people. Thisis something that I've noticed
about both myself and, you know,hundreds of people that I've
talked to over the years. I didbusiness school first.
I worked at a big company. Iworked at Amazon before I did

(43:11):
this job. And I didn't know whatI liked when I got out of the
military, which sounds like aweird thing, which is to say I
didn't know myself in the sameway. I knew how to pursue
something. I knew how to likeput the blinders on and go
pursue excellence or what Iviewed to be excellence.
I knew how to do that. And Iknew that like I was somehow
satisfied if I could be the bestor whatever. You know, the chips

(43:33):
fell where they did, you know,what I was able to do or not
able to do. Right? And then youcome out and what do you want to
do?
Like, I don't know. So my advicetypically to people is you have
to try things and then figureout what you do and do that. So
basically make an effort, seesomething, choose what you did
or didn't like, move on to thenext thing. You went through

(43:55):
that, you've iterated, youtalked through people. What
advice do you give them aboutlearning who they are and making
sure that that alignment isproper?
That their values are the samevalues, not the mission but the
values. How do how do you helppeople identify that so that's
advice for other people?

Otis McGregor (44:10):
Yeah. Well, you gotta understand what your
values are, you know. Like fortribe and purpose, you know, our
values are integrity, serviceand continuous learning and
simple, right? And anybody Iwork with as a client, they have

(44:33):
to have those similar values.Not the same, that's why I say
values need to be aligned.
So you have to define it and youhave to write it down so it's
real. Saying these are my valuesin your head is bullshit. You
gotta write this stuff down,man, make it real. That's that's
one. I'll share with you anexercise that I run all my
clients, not just military guys,but all my clients through that

(44:57):
I think is is so importantbecause you gotta know what
right looks like for you.
And the way I do it, I call itthe ideal day. And the ideal day
is a actual date on thecalendar. So we're recording
this on the 03/13/2025. Theideal day I want you to think

(45:17):
about and plan for is five yearsfrom today, thirteen March
twenty thirty. It's a mark onthe calendar.
That's a PCS and a half away forthose of you in the military.
It's not that far. And whatyou're going to do is you're
going to put the most detailedtraining schedule together from
what time do you wake up, how doyou wake up, Do you wake up to

(45:39):
an alarm? Do you wake up beforethe alarm? Leave the alarm ball?
All these sort of things. Whenyou get out of bed, do you take
a piss? Do you brush your teeth?Do you go outside and have a
cigarette? What are you doingfirst?
You run through the entire daywhat's ideal. And let me let me
describe how ideal feels. Idealfeels like that boulevard that
you just you just despise havingto drive down, but for whatever

(46:02):
reason the highway is closed orwhatever. And you got to go the
whole length of this boulevardwith all the stoplights and all
the traffic, school zones andeverything you name it. The
ideal day feels like this.
As you come up to that firstlight and you're letting your
foot off the gas to put it onthe brake, right as you start to
let it off, the light turnsgreen. Then you come to the next
light, same thing, light turnsgreen. Light turns green, you go

(46:25):
the whole length of thisboulevard without one single red
light. You're just flowing.That's what the ideal day feels
like.
And so it's something thatdoesn't happen every day,
happens if you're you're good,put the work in. Probably
happens once a month, maybe acouple times a quarter. That's
not an everyday thing, it's aspecial day. So if you're a

(46:47):
runner, when you get up in themorning. If you run-in the
morning, what do you do?
Do you run on a treadmill inyour home gym? Do you go to a
gym and run on a treadmill? Doyou run outside? What's it like
outside? Is it warm, cold?
You run on a golf course, trail,street, neighborhood, suburb,
dirt road? All these sort ofthings we start to shape. We're
not even talking about what wedo in our quote, you know, air

(47:09):
quote nine to five shop, workpayment. And oh by the way,
here's a couple other littlethings about the ideal day. It
must be a day that ends in Y andyou plan it realistically
unrestricted.
Because you can do it, you canbe a multi millionaire in five
years if you put your mind toit. There's no doubt. I have no
doubt you can do that. So youstart to put these things

(47:32):
together and we're going tocreate this crystal clear
detailed image. Because when wehave this image that we create
in our head, our subconsciousstarts to look for ways to
fulfill it.
Think of it, I call this the redtruck syndrome. I never saw a
red pickup truck until the day Idecided I wanted to buy a red f
one fifty. Now that I decided tobuy I wanted to buy a red f one
fifty, guess what I see at everyfreaking intersection. Three of

(47:54):
them in the Walmart parking lot,five in the Home Depot parking
lot. And I'm thinking to myself,where did they all come from?
Man, did I miss the saleyesterday or what? They were
there all along but it wasunimportant information. So the
subconscious filter in my mindcollecting data non stop said
red trucks were not important.But as soon as I said I wanted a
red pickup truck, guess what? Mysubconscious mind changed the

(48:17):
filter to start to identifyindicators.
When you put the work in and Imean it's work to do it right
and detail out the ideal day foryou, you know what right looks
like. And you can put together aplan to have that and that's a
powerful place to be. We shouldall do that. Miss Suzanne and I,
we do a form of that every yeartogether. But guys that I'm

(48:41):
teaching this to, what I alwaystell them is, hey, figure it
start figuring it out foryourself and then teach your
wife.
And have her go to her corner ofthe table or the house or
whatever and come up with hersand y'all come back together and
come together with your idealday for the two of you. Because
you'd be surprised. And andunlike most and I'll just share

(49:02):
this because I've been around awhile. Been married thirty,
almost thirty eight years now.Women don't like to do that.
Guys, we're like, oh yeah. Hereit is. This is what I want to
do. Women are like, oh well youknow, I'm kind of happy with no.
Honey, I need you.
I need you to do this. I needyou to really think about this
and put that together. It's apowerful place to be, man.

Sam Alaimo (49:23):
Some teamwork right there. You touched briefly on
the principles of tribe andpurpose. What you just talked
about rolls into it, but morespecifically, how does your
military experience help thosewho are not in the military
through your work at tribe andpurpose? Kinda give an overview
of that.

Otis McGregor (49:37):
Well, and I and I do this with the guys that I'm
working with, soon to beveterans. The knowledge that you
gain in the military is all theknowledge you need to be
successful in business. The onlything you got to figure out is
how to run a checkbook for thebusiness because all those
special ops guys, you know,spent our spent our entire
career with a blank check.Planning is planning is the most

(49:59):
important piece that I've gainedfrom my military time. I've
taught a master's degree programcalled Planning and Program
Development.
They had no program instructionwhen they hired me. Sent me a
book, I was like, I startedreading the book and I'm like,
you know what that is? That'sthe military decision making
process. I took the militarydecision making process, created

(50:20):
an entire POI for this master'slevel course, translated into
civilian speak. Did the samething when I used to teach
project management.
Project management is nothingmore than a military decision
making process, five paragraphfield order. Mission analysis,
what's critical, what's what'swhat are the constraints, all
these sort of things. That's howyou get you set yourself up for

(50:41):
success. The key to it is is theexecution. Put the plan together
so that your team is on the samesheet of music and then lead
them.
You also learn that in themilitary. You were given, taught
leadership throughout yourcareer. That's nobody else gets
that. One of the things we do atTribe and Purpose is we teach

(51:02):
leadership to executives becausenobody does that. There's a
couple of, you know, Fortune onehundreds that do some leadership
training, but it's it's like ahighly selective thing.
So it's not like I get promotedfrom junior manager to manager
and I'm gonna go to the managerleadership school like we did in

(51:22):
the military. Gotta figure itout on your own. So that right
there leading leading peoplethrough execution, normal
operations, and crisisoperations is a skill set that
every military guy brings to thetable. Planning and leading.
Those two things.

Sam Alaimo (51:40):
Awesome. Gonna wrap it up with a lightning round.
You're still getting after it. Alot of lessons learned. What are
a couple things you do to primeyourself in the morning to crush
the day?

Otis McGregor (51:50):
PT. I wake up, I don't wake up to an alarm. I've
got wake up early disease, getup around four or 04:15.

Sam Alaimo (51:58):
What time do you go to bed?

Otis McGregor (51:59):
09:30, ten. Okay. Nice. Yeah. So six plus hours.
I know I'm supposed to begetting seven. Believe me, do
all the reading on that stuffand go crap. But I ain't figured
that. I ain't cracked that codeyet. Go downstairs and right now
I'm still in recovery from my mymost recent back surgery.
So I do do about twenty minuteson the bike, do some stretching.

(52:23):
And then I come back up here tothe office, get a cup of coffee,
do my devotional, check myschedule for the day, validate
that, do my gratitude list, andthen I grab a book and get about
twenty, thirty minutes ofreading in before I go shower
and come back in here after Ishower, do a meditation and then

(52:47):
have breakfast with miss Suzanneand then start helping people
have better lives and moresuccess in their life.

Sam Alaimo (52:54):
What does the, I'm curious because Sam Havelock who
introduced us has a similarroutine. What does your
meditation and gratitudepractice look like?

Otis McGregor (53:01):
Meditation is simple. I use the Calm app. Been
using it for years. Big fan ofit. Super simple.
There's a I know there's a wholebunch of other ones out there.
Find the one that works for you.When I started to it, before I
started meditation I thought itwas this woo woo thing. And for
those of you who have that samebelief, I'll I'll tell you what
you're doing in meditation.Yeah, there's some other

(53:23):
benefits.
I won't get into those but herehere's the real benefit for
operator alpha types, ismeditation is training your mind
to focus. It's PT for your mind.That's the way I look at it. So
it helps me focus in. And thenmy gratitude, I use a desktop,

(53:43):
it it made a book, you know,journal thing where I have my
schedule and part of that is youknow, at the top of the pages,
I'm thankful for.
So I write my three I'm thankfulfor each morning. Awesome. Yeah.

Sam Alaimo (53:56):
Books. What are a couple books that have changed
your life? You got a wall behindyou.

Otis McGregor (54:00):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
I'm a big stoic. I I usestoicism in my weekly
newsletters and I I tend to readit a couple of times, parts and
pieces of various stoicism acouple of times a week.
The next one is A Book of FiveRings by Miyamata Masoshi.
Highly highly recommended. It isa tactics book if you are

(54:24):
struggling. I give it to all myrugby coaching friends. It is
the secret to success for rugby,I truly believe when you
understand the five rings.
And then the last one is a verybusiness one and it's called On
Selling by Mark McCullough. Whenwe're in the military, don't

(54:45):
realize we're selling. Andeverybody has this salesman or
you know, this slick back usedcar salesman you know, outside
the gate, right? That's that'swheeling and dealing with that
that young sailor soldier whojust got the bonus. You're
selling everything man.
If you can't, if you wereselling your mission, you were
selling your ability to succeedon your team. And when you get

(55:07):
out, if you can't sell, yourbusiness is not going to be
successful. Or the business thatyou were working for is not
going to be successful. Oryou're going to get laid off or
fired because the boss is goingto look at you, what have you
done? Because you're not sellingyourself.
You're not selling what yourcapabilities are and what you
can do. You have to sell. Andthat book on selling, I read it

(55:27):
shoot like a year or two after Iretired and it was it was eye
opening for me because I didn'tunderstand all that.

Sam Alaimo (55:35):
How can people follow you and your work?

Otis McGregor (55:37):
I'm on LinkedIn, that's the best way to get to me
directly. Otis McGregor, dad isdoctor, so don't be confused.
You can also go to our website,10xyourteam.net. That is our
landing page where we have ourprograms. You can also follow us
and we'd love it if yousubscribe to our YouTube

(55:59):
channel, that's where ourpodcast is, 10x Your Team with
Cam and Otis.
Like I was telling you guys inthe Green Room, we've been doing
it for almost six years now, 400plus episodes and and love it
and the amount of informationfrom our guests could fill
volumes, bookshelves. And thenthat's also where you can get

(56:21):
Whiskey Words. My favorite pieceof content, my philosophy,
thoughts on various things andI'm out back sometimes with a
fire, sometimes not. But prettymuch with a glass of whiskey and
a cigar in my hand. So that'sthat's 10xyourteam.net and

(56:43):
10xyourteam on YouTube.
Rock and roll.

Sam Alaimo (56:46):
You got anything else you want to add?

Otis McGregor (56:48):
Hey, I appreciate all the opportunity to share.
And you know what, if you aregetting out, if you're still on
active duty or or or even if youhave gotten out, the the
resources out there are immense.I work with the Commit
Foundation and the HonorFoundation. Both of those don't
cost you a thing but your time,which is your most precious

(57:10):
asset. But it's what they'reboth well worth it.
Highly highly recommend both ofthose programs for different
needs. So if you're curiousabout those, contact me and I'll
you the the once over of whatthose programs provide you.
Because they will help youfigure out what your next

(57:33):
adventure in life will be whenyou take the uniform off.

Sam Alaimo (57:36):
Otis genuinely appreciate your time.

Otis McGregor (57:38):
Thay has been great guys. Thank you.

Sam Alaimo (57:41):
That's it for this episode. If you wanna check out
more from the podcast, head to0Eyes.com/NoBell where you can
see show notes, read more aboutour guests, and suggest guests
or topics of your own. Untilnext time, stay in the fight,
don't ring the bell.