|int| Breaking Barriers and Building Futures: Army Ranger Lt. Col. Lisa Jaster on Shattering Stereotypes and Leading With Purpose | Ep 95 - On Your Lead

Episode Transcript
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Lisa Jaster (00:00):
This guy read my book, hadn't spoken to his son
in like five years, because hewas like, as a Vietnam vet, I
know what you guys did in Iraq,like how the hell do you have
PTSD?
You're just trying to, you know, scrape money off the
government and you were just amechanic.
What he didn't realize is heread the book and was like you

(00:23):
know, I bet there's somethingmore to my son's story than I
realize.
Maybe I should ask thequestions because again, he
looked at my book when he had itin his hand and he was like no
chick could do what I did.
That was the first thing thatwent through his head.
He was automatically livingonly in his own world.
He read my book and suddenly helived in my world and he's like
Lisa's stories are the exactsame stories as mine were when I

(00:46):
went through Ranger school inthe late 60s Same swamps, same
mountains, same obstacle courses.
So he calls his son.
They start talking.
He sends me a note.
I bawled like a baby, I won'tlie.
He sends me a note.
He's like my son was a mechanicin Afghanistan and part of his
job was trying to piece vehiclestogether to make operating

(01:08):
vehicles because so many weregetting hit by IEDs.
Well, when he was working onthose vehicles, it wasn't just
broken parts, it was also brokenbody parts that were stuck in
engines.
So at PTSD from pulling feetand you know, like gruesome
things.

Thad David (01:27):
My name is Thad David.
I'm a former Marine recon scoutsniper with two deployments to
Iraq.
As a civilian, I've nowfacilitated hundreds of personal
and professional developmenttrainings across the country,
and it struck me recently thatthe same things that help
civilians will also helpveterans succeed in their new
roles as well.
Join me as we define civiliansuccess principles to inspire

(01:48):
veteran victories.
Welcome to another episode.
I'm here today with LieutenantColonel Lisa Jaster.
How are you doing, lisa?

Good.
How are you today, Matt?

Thad David (01:58):
I'm doing excellent.
Thank you so much for jumpingon.
It's really an honor to haveyou on the show.

I'm glad to be here .

Thad David (02:05):
Well, for anybody that doesn't know, you are one
of the first of three that groupof three women to graduate from
Ranger School and I'm veryexcited to jump in and just talk
about that.
That's an incredible thing.
You really paved the way forsome really amazing things.

Thank you.

Thad David (02:21):
Yeah, well, and if you could, what sparked how long
have you been in the military?
I know you're still in now, butwhat sparked you to join the
military?

Oh, wow.
So I'm old, I'm 46 years old,and I was in sixth, seventh
grade, I guess, when the firstGulf War happened, right?
So Operation Desert Storm,desert Shield, and I'm watching
TV 10, almost 11, I guess, andthere are these soldiers on TV

(02:51):
and no matter what yourpolitical beliefs are the way
the world was in the 90s, yourearly 90s, you're watching TV
and these are our Americanheroes going there and helping
in the Middle East.
That's the way it was portrayed.
What you believe, that's adifferent story.
But I'm talking about the eyesof a middle schooler, right, and

(03:14):
I had seen movies and I'd seena bunch of things.
But here were real people,people that weeks earlier were
at home with their spouses andtheir kids and their families
celebrating, doing normal peoplethings, and now they're
overseas and they're doingsomething that was asked of them
that they never, ever, expectedto be doing, and so

(03:36):
conversations in our householdand in our community I'm from a
very small town in Wisconsin,it's Plymouth, wisconsin and our
community starts talking aboutthese heroes and I thought, wow,
some kids want to be moviestars, some kids want to be
actresses, actresses, whatever.
Those people pretend to be, thepeople we're watching on TV

(03:57):
right now.
So this realization came to methat if I wanted to be a real
hero, granted all into GI Joe atthe time.
Gi Jane was also into He-Manand Thunder Cats.
So judge me as you see fit, butthis is that time of my life
and I'm like these are the realAmerican heroes, these are the
true people that are doing thestuff that figurines are made

(04:21):
out of.
So at that point in time, someof it was happenstance, but my
paternal grandmother lived inMassachusetts and she had walked
by Harvard and they were havinga book sale and she bought this
book for me that was 99 cents,called In the Men's House, by
Carol Barkalaw.
She was one of the first womento graduate from West Point and

(04:43):
she had sent me the book and itcame.
You know, right after I came tothis realization that these
people on TV were heroes.
And so I'm reading this bookand I read very.
I love reading.
But I read through a book oncemight take notes and I never
look at it again.
It's just the way I am.
And I read In the Men's Houseseveral times.
And then my father was a WestPoint grad as well.

(05:06):
My mother, my entire familyextremely patriotic, my
grandparents.
Actually, their entire livingroom was decorated in red, white
and blue to include a handmadequilt Like this is not.
This is kind of blood is thecolor of the flag in my family.
So it just made sense to me,starting in seventh grade.
I'm going to go to West Point,I'm going to be an Army officer

(05:29):
and I'm going to join themilitary and I'm going to serve
my nation for a lifetime,whether that's five years in the
military and then volunteeringin the PTA, or it's 25 years in
the military and working thepolls every four years.
But it was kind of set into myhead in seventh grade that this
is what I needed to do and itbecame this drastic calling for

(05:51):
me, which I know is really weird.
But between now and the end ofthis discussion you'll realize
I'm like many of us.
I'm an extreme personality andI think most people are.
They're just extreme aboutdifferent things.
Everybody finds their littleniche.
I found mine in seventh gradeand I still haven't given it up,
I guess.

Thad David (06:13):
What do you mean by that with extreme personalities?
That most people are Just indifferent ways?

Well, I think most people are Like if you have a
fitness enthusiast, you don'twork out for a year.
You work out for 20 years whenyou see people flexing in the
gym.
And I love this right Because,again, I'm 46.
So I'm on the crest of myphysical prowess.
But academically andeducationally I'm just starting
to hit my stride.

(06:38):
So I'm a lot more observantwhen I'm in a fitness community
than I was once upon a time.
So you look around the gym andyou look at somebody who's
posing and you know that you cansee the progression.
Women are the best because theycome in with these soccer
basketball shorts the first yearand then all of a sudden
they're wearing booty shorts andnext thing you know they've got

(06:58):
these little like and you knowwhat I'm talking about.
They're the same way.
They go from these baggy shortsand baggy t-shirts to then
they're wearing the muscleshirts and they just kind of
walk towards the mirrors andthey look at themselves and I
love watching that.
That used to be a sign ofarrogance for me, but now it's
like.
You know, when you work out andyou start seeing, fitness is a

(07:20):
super easy example.
It's true in academics, it'strue in any extracurricular,
it's true in sports, it's truein literature, if you study
history, whatever it is.
But in that first year you'rejust scratching the surface and
when you see those people, usingmy example of the gym, who have
changed their clothes, who arenow bringing their, their

(07:43):
shakers with them everywherethey go, like those people have
adopted this extreme sense ofbelonging.
It's a community, it's anenvironment, it's part of who
they are.
You don't get great musclesthat you can flex in a year.
You get those over 10 years ofworking hard and you know being

(08:04):
smart at Christmas and all allof these other things add into
the lifestyle and we all havethat kind of extreme personality
.
But mine is super obvious andI'm willing to talk about it and
and I think about it when Iwatch my son's trying to learn
to juggle it for years, right,and he just hasn't been able to
figure it out.
Well, now he's 15.

(08:25):
And there isn't a roundanything in our house, whether
it's Christmas ornaments aswe're decorating, whether it's
oranges, whether it is my newstress balls that I have or
lacrosse balls that are in thegym, he is juggling everything
and that's his little extremepath that he's just following

(08:46):
and you know he might give it upat some point in time.
I assume he will.
I don't.
I don't know many people whomake a career out of juggling,
but you know we all like get ourhearts set on something and
kind of follow that path.
So mine was very, very early.
I just I wish it was altruistic.
Like I wish my service wasaltruistic because it made me

(09:06):
feel good.
But it really is selfish.
Like I like the way I feel whenI'm in uniform.
I like the way I feel when I'min leadership roles.
I like the way I feel when I'ma subordinate leader and I have
no positional power and I haveto see the right path and
negotiate.

(09:26):
And I don't want to say coerceI'm sure there's a more
intellectual word for it but Ikind of coerce my boss into
agreeing with me so that he isthe decision maker, can can push
the needle the same way that Ithink it should go.
Like I love that, I find thatvery rewarding and it's not
service to the nation, altruism,it's kind of service to me,

(09:48):
altruism.

Thad David (09:49):
Interesting.
Well, I love that you broughtthe extreme personalities
because it's something that it'sa conversation I have with my
wife often that I just go all in, like when I do something it's
we're all in with it, and Ialways thought it was a me thing
so, selfishly, I was lookingfor how can I apply this to
everybody else and have it.
Have it not be me, but it makesa lot of sense the way that you
bring it up.

(10:09):
You mentioned you love being asubordinate leader and that you
love to be able to tell us somemore about that.
What does that mean to you andhow does that show up?

Man, I don't know that I thought about it that
deeply ahead of time.
But think about the family unit.
I would definitely say you know, my husband is the head of our
family right now.
For a long time I was primaryincome and he was starting his
own business and I took someleadership roles in the family,
but right now he's primaryincome as I've gone out and gone

(10:44):
as a independent.
With regards to leadershipdevelopment, some of the other
things I did when I published mybook this year, he definitely
has a leadership role in thefamily and if you're married or
if you're in any sort ofrelationship, you and your
partner lead together, butoftentimes you switch who's kind

(11:06):
of the primary and so, likeright now in our family, he's
primary in a lot of things, butit's my job to kind of gently
nudge him, almost like beingpart of a committee, and so the
family unit is one example, andit's one I enjoy bringing up,
because people make a lot ofassumptions about me being
because I did break a glassceiling and I am very active in

(11:30):
certain communities that I don'trespect the fact that you know,
or that my husband might besubordinate to me, which is
really not the case.
So outside of that family unit.
Another example would be I amcurrently as a reservist on
joint staff.
I'm not in charge of anyone oranything, but the work I do can

(11:52):
impact a lot of people.
So I have supervisors,obviously, who are the ones who
dictate what will be done withinour group, but sometimes in a
positive way, and sometimes Idon't impact their decision
making.
But I do enjoy the idea ofcreating a good argument, having

(12:16):
discussion points, doing theresearch, sometimes changing my
own mind in the process of it.
I'll use another militaryexample.
Oftentimes and I know you'vebeen out for a while, but and I
hope you've never been involvedin any military investigations
but no, it could be very simpleright, somebody loses the

(12:37):
getting a vehicle accident.
Right, you're, you're in themilitary.
You get in an accident with amilitary vehicle.
There's always an investigation.
Is the person responsible?
Did they do something wrong?
Did the leadership set them upfor success or failure?
As the investigator, it's notyour job to be the leader, to be
the decision maker, but it isyour job to collect all the data

(13:00):
and make sure the rightdecisions are made.
And there has been, there hasnever been a time, whether it's
in an investigation or lookingat a political dictate that
impacts our military.
Because, again, joint staff,the job we do is staffing.

(13:22):
We decide who goes where andwhen there hasn't been a
decision made where I haven'tpeeled the onion and found oh
wait, a second here my firstassumption was at least
microcosmically wrong, likethere was at least something
wrong with my initialassumptions.
So I like the idea of doing theresearch to have the discussion

(13:45):
points and then be able to feedthat to the important decision
makers and it's a support role,but it's really it's almost more
influential sometimes thanbeing the actual decision maker.

Thad David (13:59):
Hmm, and it's intriguing to and I had no idea
we were even going to mentionthis, but it is intriguing to me
because I feel like a lot ofveterans that get out of the
military can sometimes feel kindof stuck in this listening to a
civilian, and I wonder whatlessons they can take from just
being that supportive leader, asyou talked about that, that you
can still be a leader and youcan still help to shift the

(14:23):
perspective of the organizationthat you're in if you look at it
through that lens.
And so I think it's interestingthat you brought that out.

What ranked for you when you got out.

Thad David (14:31):
I was an E4, I was a corporal and then I got
promoted to, I got actuallySergeant right when I got out I
got I actually have it righthere randomly.

Well, okay, perfect , because I was going to talk
about the E4 Mafia you want totalk about subordinate
leadership, talk about the E4Mafia and I assume most of your
listeners are military but forthose who aren't, think about
individual contributors thathave two to three years, usually
under their relative experience, but they're not so experienced

(15:01):
that anyone's putting them in ahigh level role.
But we know damn well, they'rekind of like the seventh graders
at middle school, like theeighth graders are walking
around as the big kids on campus.
Am I wrong?

Thad David (15:13):
No, 100%.
I love it.
That's great.

But the seventh graders like they decide which
games are cool with what we'redoing.
Do we dress up for Red Ribbonweek or is it not cool, right?
That's that's kind of theseventh graders role.
That's the E4 Mafia.
They really make all of thedecisions in a unit.
And if, if you're in aleadership billet like when I'm

(15:35):
actually assigned as a platoonleader, a company commander,
even a battalion commander ifyou're not talking to the E4
Mafia, you have no idea what'sgoing on.
And that concept can be broughtinto the business world, because
we oftentimes go into thebusiness world and we're like oh
, I've got five years ofmilitary experience, I've been
leading this whole time, I'vebeen doing all of these things I

(15:58):
went to combat, and thatdoesn't translate into corporate
America.
What does translate is exactlythat, that servant leadership,
that indirect management ofdecision making, the.
Hey, I was talking to people atthe water cooler and I know you
think this initiative is reallygreat.
But here are some of the pointsthat you might not have thought

(16:21):
of.
And in the military we'd referto that as red teaming.
You know, you've got your.
You've got your blue good guyicons over here and your red bad
guy icons over here.
What is the bad guy is going todo and how should the blue guys
react?
Right, that's red teaming.
Again.
Terminology doesn't make anysense in corporate America, but
you can say using your E4 Mafia,using your water cooler

(16:44):
conversations hey, listen, thisis a great idea, but the
community that I'm a part ofsees these potential flaws.
How would you like to managethat?
And that's a great way tocommunicate up and also
influence the decision makingprocess.

Thad David (17:01):
And I want to point out that, just to make sure
people heard that too, because Ilove how you just asked a
question there and it's such a Ithink a lot of people don't
grasp the power of a really goodquestion versus a statement.
When you said how would youlike to manage here, versus
telling them what to do, becauseI was thinking about it.
You know anybody listening here, if we're just following this
thread a little bit further, ifsomebody's listening to it

(17:22):
thinking, you know what?
I've got this civilian bossthat I don't know what to do?
I don't know they don't listen,they're not respecting me.
What would you say they're like?
How should they?
How should they make thatapproach?
If they're looking to do that,what's the best way to approach
them with that advice or withthose thoughts?

Yeah, you know, in the military because we're so
direct and it's not as muchtoday.
The military has definitelychanged since I was commissioned
in 2000,.
But it used to be fairlydictatorial and there was a hey
soldier, if you're going to cometo me with a problem, come to
me with your solution.
We don't necessarily do thatanymore, but the concept is

(18:04):
still there.
But instead of presenting in acorporate environment hey boss,
the Coca Cola, okay, we're goingto use Coca Cola as an example.
I travel all the time the newCoke machines that they came out
.
They came out with the symbol.
It looked absolutely phallic,it looked absolutely terrible
from a distance and I know thatthere was some E4 mafia type

(18:28):
that saw that at print press andgiggled but had the fear of God
in them that they couldn't goup to corporate and be like this
is dumb, people are going tohate it.
I, of course, never saidanything, but I saw it in the
airport for like less than amonth and then all of the Coke
machines were changed.
You can Google if you want moreinformation than that.

(18:48):
But just, I like took picturesof it.
I was like this is crazy.
Who didn't say something?
But that's one of those timeswhere, okay, you're afraid your
boss isn't going to listen toyou.
You know you can bring value.
How do you?
The question you asked that washow do you address that with
your supervisors?
You come into them and you'vegot the solutions in your head,
but you talk your leadership onto making their own conclusions

(19:11):
which may not align with yours,and you have to be okay with
that.
But if you know where apotential end state is let's say
Coca Cola needs to change theirmarketing plan you know they
need to change it.
You have an idea of what wouldbe again, just a slight switch
of what they were already doing.

(19:31):
That would look better.
Well, they're not going to comeup with whatever solution
you're going to come up with,but you can start asking them
questions to guide that way.
And again, it's the questionsand not the push.
Hey boss, I took a look at whatyou're planning on presenting.
I think it's really great, butwhen my wife looked at it she
was like, ooh, that kind ofmakes me think of this, which
isn't really what you want toassociate with Coca Cola.

(19:54):
And so I was thinking maybe wecould wargame it, maybe we could
red team it.
What are your thoughts?
Have you had anybody?
Look at this?
You know, the biggest thing iswhen you're asking those
questions.
It's important, especially incorporate supervisors when
you're former military, becausethey assume we're aggressive.

(20:16):
Military are assumed to beaggressive.
Most of us are not.
We know what roles we play inthe military, but when we get
into corporate America, ourintonations can sound aggressive
because we're used to talkingto alphas.
So you need to come out withsaying the same things, but
saying it in a way where you'renot undermining the authority of

(20:37):
your supervisor.
And I use my family as an excusea lot.
Hey, boss, I ran this past myhusband and he brought up some
really good points.
Hey, my kids took a look atthis and they started thinking
it was funny.
And I don't think that's onbrand.
And it's a really easy way tomake the situation a little less

(21:00):
intense, because my companycommand was in South Korea and
one of the things I learned withthe culture there at the time
again, this was almost 20 yearsago now.
Okay, I really am old I have abreak in service, by the way so
I did a lot of stuff.
This was 2005 through 2007.

(21:22):
And I had to deal with theculture and a married man with
children is hierarchically orsocially higher in the hierarchy
Right.
I was an unmarried woman withno children, but I was a company
commander who was supervisingthese civilian men, and so I had

(21:42):
to figure out ways to allowthem to say no without saying no
.
I had to help them say hey, Ican't do this without making
them say I'm unable to dosomething because that would be
considered emasculating.
So instead of saying hey, fad,can you get this done by the end

(22:03):
of the day, I would say hey,fad, if this was really
important and I needed you toget it done by the end of the
day, what would you have to skip?
And you know it's a lengthyprocess and it's exhausting, but
it's relationship wise.
It definitely helps.
It also makes you someone thatyour supervisor becomes more

(22:25):
comfortable bouncing ideas off.

Thad David (22:28):
I love how you tie that in, give an example and I
really appreciate the all of theexamples you gave in it with
the family and the kids was agreat one as well, because it's
not you saying, hey, this is adumb idea.
You're saying, hey, this,somebody saw this and I wasn't
sure what to think.
What do you think about theirthoughts here, and you're kind

(22:49):
of just the neutral messengerand playing that really in a
very tactful way.
And I think that I know for me,having some tact was not always
something that I had right awayand just from the direct nature
of what it was.
I know, for me, my experiencevery direct.
But I love how you tie that inand just bring it up, because I

(23:10):
think a lot of veterans dostruggle with stepping into
civilian roles and they aregoing to start in a usually in a
lower hierarchy position andthat they're going to have to
lead from the bottom.

Yeah, and I will tell you my number one lesson
learned when I exited themilitary into corporate America
is it's important to ask peoplehow their day is in the military
.
You just kind of come in andyou're like, hey, we got PT and
but you spend so much timetogether, you wait until you're
sitting for lunch or your carpooling or you're in the motor

(23:45):
pool doing motor stables to asksomebody how their day is going,
because you don't have time.
First thing in the morning wasjust hey, we're at PT, we salute
the flag, we go for a run,you're sweaty.
Hey, do you need a ride to thechow hall?
You're good and it's all verystructured.
And then we in the military doour social later on.
And in corporate America youreally need to warm up first,

(24:06):
and so, for for veterans who arenew to the transition, I highly
recommend starting every daywith hey, how are you, how was
your night?

Thad David (24:15):
So why is that?
And I completely agree, and Ijust want to ask why.
Why is that important?

Because there isn't the bond.
Like as soon as you mentionedfirst recon that I was like, oh,
my husband was in fourth recon,he did this, he did his platoon
command here, his companycommand here, he did his
battalion.
Like I had all of these thingsthat I already connected and
associated you with and I willforever remember what unit you
served in in an instant.

(24:41):
We don't have that with ourcivilian counterparts unless we
went to the same college.
But even then it's not the same, because you, hey, where were
you stationed?
And if you say, hey, I wasstationed at Schofield Barracks,
I'd be like, oh, do youremember the old Burger King?
Yeah, that burned down.
And automatically, again,there's a connection you don't

(25:03):
have that with with yourcivilian counterparts, so you
have to build it every day.

Thad David (25:08):
Well, and I I think even more.
I think about how daunting itcould be to be a civilian,
Because that's something I do apoor job of is realizing kind of
my past military background,because I don't.
I just look at it as like, Yep,that's what I just did,
whatever I had to do.
But when I talk to civiliansabout it, or people like co
workers, they're like, oh,that's really amazing what you
did.
I'm like what do you?
That's just what.

(25:28):
But I would imagine it could bedaunting to kind of break the
ice, and so if you're the onethat initiates it, not only does
it need to happen, but you'reprobably going to have to be the
one that initiates it, given aveteran's military background.

Yeah, and something else is as vets were super
comfortable and in theuncomfortable.
Whether you've deployed, youserved only in a garrison
environment, but think aboutgoing to basic training and
having.
You still remember your drillsergeant's name I know you do,
everybody does Like and youremember his face.
You remember the smell of hisbreath.

(26:02):
Like you remember your firstbunkmate.
You remember the first time youwere with people who weren't
like, minded, and the onlyconnection you had was service
to the nation.
Like you have all of thisuncomfortable initiation, you
have a very uncomfortableinitiation into the military and

(26:23):
a lot of people in corporateAmerica.
They've gone throughuncomfortable, but it's like the
first day of school orsomething that isn't as bringing
in as many dynamicpersonalities, dynamic cultures
you know.
Think about especially peoplewho have served in the last 20,
25 years.
We've had to learn about MiddleEastern cultures we'd have to

(26:43):
learn about.
We all had to learn Arabicphrases and some learned Pashtun
and some learned Dari and youknow it's it's things that have
just been thrust at you thatmade you uncomfortable.
And and we're comfortable Ourcounterparts might not be
comfortable.
The first time your company isworking with a foreign entity.

(27:05):
You're like, oh, okay.
But your civilian counterpartsmight be like Okay, well, what
are the man?
They get nervous.
It's difficult if they haven'texperienced everything that we
have, and so if we can help themin the help, make the
uncomfortable comfortable forthem, they'll be much more
willing to bring us into thefold in the future.

Thad David (27:27):
Yeah, I can definitely appreciate that.
And one thing that struck me,though, too, because I
definitely think that we'recomfortable being very
uncomfortable in the militarysetting, and it seems like some
veterans get out and they're not, so they it's the uncomfortable
scenario of having thatconversation, yet they tend to
avoid that uncomfortable pushinto it.
And so I definitely agree verycomfortable being uncomfortable

(27:51):
in certain situations, and yetit seems like sometimes they
just don't lean into thoseconversations as much.
But it should be something Ithink everybody should do, just
because it's where they havebeen doing.

When I think to to veteran tires is a protected
class, just like so.
I work, stem.
I'm a civil engineer.
That's my background.
So being a woman in civilengineering and in the STEM
world as a protected class ifyou're disabled, if you're of
your BIPOC or of minority statusin certain communities, those

(28:27):
are tracked statuses.
Being a veteran is a trackedstatus and a lot of the
companies I work with in myleadership development role they
don't even know how manyveterans they have because the
veterans are afraid to bring itup.
And the reason why is theveterans who have been very
forward about being vats are theones who talk about combat.

(28:47):
And I did this and you mustrespect.
So those of us who might nothave spent 20 years in, or maybe
maybe we weren't in the battleof Fallujah, maybe maybe we were
a postal worker, maybe we werea cook or maybe we we saw some
stuff and we just never, ever,ever want to talk about it and
never want anybody to ask.

(29:07):
We need to bring our veteranstatus forward as well, because
that will help people realizethat the military is a community
, it is a complete.
We have childcare centers andwe have hospitals and we have
nurses and we have postalworkers and we have the guy who
flips burgers, and we have allthose people and they're all in

(29:29):
uniform.
So the military isn't thatdifferent than than the civilian
world.
It's just condensed andcompressed.

Thad David (29:40):
I completely forgot.
I just remembered this.
But my first realizing when Ichecked into Camp Pendleton,
persarikhan.
I remember showing up there andlike this is, now that you're
at your unit, it's kind of likea nine to five job and, like you
know, seven to seven to five,whatever time you show up.
But it was one thing thatstruck me and caught me off
guard and I and just hearing yousay that I was like you know

(30:02):
what?
I definitely didn't realize whatit was like to be in the
military.
Yeah, we would go to the fields, but if we weren't in the field
it was very much a day to dayjob and a lot of people don't
realize it.
So it's a great thing to bringup.
Oh, thank you for entertainingme down this path, because it
just seemed like something thatwould be be beneficial for

(30:22):
people to take away, because youcan still be a leader when you
get out and you just have toshift your mindset about how
you're going to help, help,guide people, as if I think
about all of my great leadersthat I've had in my life that's
who helped me get to where I'mat and that's an opportunity for
veterans that if you're thereand you're feeling like you're
the best of the best whereyou're at and nobody's listening
to you.
What support can you offer upto them?

(30:43):
And I think you offered a bunchof insight into that.
So thank you.

And I do think in society as a whole and I'm just
going to dovetail onto thisbecause it's a, it's a passion
point for me is we were talkingabout it before we went live,
but there are topics out therethat are really hard to discuss
and with veterans beinguncomfortable or being
comfortable in the uncomfortable, I have friends from damn near

(31:10):
every demographic I have.
You know the guy who comes overand my kids call him Uncle, but
he has a face tattoo and I willtell you, in Bolverdy, texas,
face tattoos are really notsomething you're going to see
around here.
So when he drives up and wantsto watch the kids at their
sporting events, everybody turnstheir head.

(31:31):
But but he's just a buddy.
So because of that livedexperience, because of our
shared experience in themilitary, we are able to speak
to people about potentiallycontroversial topics not all of
us, not all of us, but some ofus because we have experienced

(31:53):
those controversial groups andwith, in society, race relations
right now, you know that'sthat's a hot topic.
Well, I can't think of a singleunit I served in where there
weren't seven colors of peopleand seven shades of those
couples colors as well.
So you know, I don't thinkanything of it.

(32:15):
And so my daughter had oneblack girl on her volleyball
team and she's like, oh, so andso, and she's talking about this
girl.
And I said the black girl, andshe's like, mom, you can't call
her black.
I'm like, oh my God, she knowsshe's black.
I know she's black.
Hey, why don't we as acommunity help people remember
that it's just as okay for me tocall you a man as it is for you
to call me a redhead Like, andso if my skin color is different

(32:38):
or any of these otheridentifiers are different, if
you do it in a respectful andpolite way, we, as former
military who have lived in thesesmall communities that are
smashed together, we could helpsociety remember what it's like
to have open and honestconversations.

Thad David (32:57):
Yeah, I remember checking into my first I
actually did an episode about ita while back, but checking into
my unit and just you just getcrammed into this group of
individuals and and all of asudden you've got some lifelong
friends from all over very, verydifferent backgrounds, from all
over the country and and it's,it's a pretty cool thing.

It is definitely.

Thad David (33:21):
And so you mentioned earlier and this is a good, you
mentioned a book that thatsomebody had given to you that
inspired you to join themilitary, and I really want to
track that down because you'venow you're you're an inspiration
to so many.
You know you mentioned herspearheading first woman to
graduate West Point.
Did you know that you weregoing to go and become one of

(33:43):
the first women to graduate fromRanger school at that point in
time?
Is that?

so it was not even something I could have thought
about.
There was no way that Rangerschool was even even on my to do
list because it was close towomen infantry and armor close
to women.
And then an engineer andengineers were one of the few
branches that were considered atleast partially combat arms to

(34:15):
women could be in it, but itwasn't 100% combat arms like
field artillery, and fieldartillery had just opened back
up to women after being closeddown.
It was open in the 80s, closedand then opened again in 2000.
So you know, women weren't evenallowed to be in the types of
units that Ranger school wouldbe applicable to.

(34:35):
So I never, I never thoughtabout it.
But as as the discussions wereoccurring in the Pentagon about
opening Ranger school to women,I started pondering.
I'm like well, this is, this isa leadership course and my
peers have all attended and I,as an engineer who, like it or

(34:55):
not, I was a major, so feelgreat officer.
I was heading towards battalioncommand was my next major role.
My, my Lieutenant colonels thatI was competing with all had
Sapper school or Ranger schoolor one of these accolades on
their resume to prove that theywere good leaders.
I just had, you know, formerbosses saying, yeah, she's good

(35:21):
and and and so it put me at adisadvantage with regards to
resume and so I never thoughtabout it.
The first 15 years of my careerI never thought it was even a
possibility.
But when the opportunity openedfor me, I did have to get
goaded into it.
But once, once I accepted thechallenge to go to Ranger school

(35:45):
, I thought, well, you know if,if I don't get hurt I'll, I'll
definitely make it throughbecause this is something that
it's in my wheelhouse.
I am around peg and around holein Ranger school, you know,
obviously physically differentthan my peers.
I was also 37 when I went,which the average age is 23.

(36:05):
So I was older and female.
So I definitely didn't fit themodel, but I definitely.
I was also very comfortable inthat environment.

Thad David (36:16):
What do you?
What do you mean by you had toget voted into it.
What was that like?

I didn't want to go to Ranger school.
When when, when the opportunitycame out, my star, major star,
major, robbie Payne, was likehey, major Dastro, this is
definitely something you need togo to.
I replied to him and said Ilike room service, like I I've
done hard things.
I've been to Afghanistan in2001, went to Iraq in 2002.
I'm sorry, afghanistan 2002,iraq, 2003.

(36:45):
I've done this stuff.
I've gotten out of the military.
I'm reservists.
Now I work for oil and gas.
I've done hitches offshore,like I don't have to prove
anything anymore.
So you know, in my head I was,I was kind of done.
You know, schools like Rangerschool, airborne school, those

(37:05):
are young persons games.
You know you can do that whenyou can recover, not when you're
in your late 30s and you know,tylenol becomes your best friend
and you get sore from sleepingthe wrong way.
I'm past that and and it was myhusband and star, major Payne
who kind of said no, you knowpeople, people will believe that

(37:28):
women can do it at 2324,.
You know, crossfit hasdemonstrated to the world that
there's a lot of power hidden ina lot of women out there.
But some of that old age andtreachery needs to come forth as
well, like it can't just beyouth and skill we need to show.
This really is a leadershipcourse and grit and gut do

(37:51):
matter and that, and honestly,with women, a lot of us
physically mature significantlylater than men.
You know, men are hitting theirprime and their their early 20s
.
Women in their 30s they're juststarting to hit full stride
with regards to physicality andI can't give exact numbers

(38:12):
because that's not my, my world,but I know that at 37 I was a
lot more fit than I was at 27 or17.

Thad David (38:23):
And so they had to really convince you in it.
And I mean that it'sinteresting, because I would
have thought you would havejumped at the opportunity.
But what you're saying, I meanit makes a ton of sense.
What was it like going toRanger school?

You know in retrospect, and I know you can't
necessarily firsthand Do youhave kids?

Thad David (38:44):
that I do.

Okay, so maybe secondhand you can understand
this.
Like, being pregnant isterrible, having a child is
terrible.
Now that I have a 15 and 11year old, it was absolutely
magical that whole time in mylife.
So my viewpoint of Rangerschool might be distorted in the
fact that I know it washorrible at the time, that I
have these great memories ofbonding and learning and

(39:09):
teaching and being a real a partof a team.
But in all honesty, you know,having the opportunity to go, I
have a Lieutenant now a major,because it's been so long, it's
been eight years from theMexican army who was in my class
and he happened to meet agirlfriend of mine a couple

(39:30):
weeks ago in Mexico City andhe's telling her these stories
about how I smiled throughoutall of Ranger school and it's
something he always gives me ahard time about.
He's like who goes to Rangerschool, shaves their head, has
rashes all over their body, bugbites all over their body,
sunburn and smiles and and Ireally did feel the whole time I

(39:50):
was there I get to be here Likeit really was amazing for me to
think that those same mountainsin Delanaga my father walked in
1968, and I never, ever thoughtI would have the opportunity.
And you know, sometimes, when wewere hiking through the woods
or we were rowing our rubberboats, I thought, oh God, I want

(40:11):
to bring my kids back here.
Did you see that sunrise?
And these poor young soldiersand young officers that are all
in their 20s are like what iswrong with you?
Did you see the sunrise?
It's glorious.
God meant us to be here.
My God, you're messed up in thehead, yeah.

(40:31):
So what was it like to make ashort story long?
What was it like?
It was surreal.
I never thought I would havethe opportunity and and the best
part about it was because Ihave a really, really good
support system.
I talked about my husband.
That talked about my kids,because I had a good support
system.
When my husband put me in a cabfor me to go to the airport, to
go to Ranger school, his lastwords to me were Lisa and mom

(40:56):
have to stay at home.
I'm putting major jester inthis cab.
So I was relieved of all of thestresses and those tendrils
drawing me back home, that otherpeople, that other people have
to hang on to because maybe theydon't trust their spouse or
maybe they don't have somebodywho's going to take care of
their household while they'regone.

Thad David (41:18):
It's a big.
I mean you mentioned just withI have a three year old and a
five year old.
I travel for a living and goingfor three days, you know it
feels like a lot, so I can'teven imagine going for that
length of time.
You said you shaved your head.
Oh yeah, so what is that?
Something everybody in Rangerschool just shaved heads.

Yes, yes.
So, for Ranger school.
It's very similar to basictraining and they've they've
changed the standard for women.
In basic training women do nothave to cut their hair anymore.
Cadet basic training we had toback in the 90s, but again
that's changed.
But at Ranger school everysoldier or attendee has to cut

(41:57):
their hair to the minimumallowable length.
So when I went for men that wasa shaved head, for women that
was one quarter inch of hair.
Any less hair for a woman wasconsidered trendy at the time.
They have since, in the lasteight years since I attended,
allowed women to shave theirhead because it made us stick

(42:18):
out, yeah, and that's for nogood reason.
So now everybody justcompletely bicks their head.

Thad David (42:27):
Wow, yes and so, and so you're there obviously a
smile on your face.
I've heard some just absolutelyatrocious stories.
Ranger school is absolutely nojoke.
I actually one of my buddiesthat I first met at first recon.
He had, six months prior,completed Ranger school and he
was still just the most petite,tiny little thing and just

(42:51):
looking at the, he said it wasone of the toughest things he's
ever done.
So I mean it's, it's got to be,just had to be a surreal
experience.
What was the most impactfulmoment, aside from the sun rises
and the beautiful experience?
What was the just the craziestthing that happened to you in
Ranger school?

I think it was watching each individual that
came with preconceived notionsabout women changing.
Because I went as a field gradeofficer, I had had two company
commands, I had two platoons, Ialready had two deployments.
I had two years stationoverseas, I'd been in a special
access program, so in a specialArmy program for for a couple of

(43:33):
years and I'd worked incorporate America.
So I have this, this breath ofexperience, and you think at
that point in your life or inyour career, not much is going
to surprise me.
You know, I've seen, I've seenthe guy who goes overseas,
marries the girl that's in thecountry illegally and can't get
her home, and now he can't gethome and he loses his security

(43:54):
clearance but he's got to stayin country.
Like I've seen all and I'm like, okay, what is the military
going to throw at me that couldpossibly surprise me at Ranger
school.
And it was watching these youngindividual contributors that
weren't yet in leadershippositions, so young lieutenants
who haven't taken their firstinfantry platoon yet, e for

(44:15):
mafia types that haven't yetgotten their, their stripes.
They're either not a corporalyet or they're not me.
Five young e fives and e sixeswho are just becoming squad
leaders and they're in thatinteresting transition point and
they're thrown into thisenvironment where there's a
political experiment to bringwomen into Ranger school.

(44:36):
I personally, as Lisa Jaster,was invading the mystical bro
bond and I was going to ruineverything that men did, like I
was invading masculinity.
And and I'm okay with peoplethinking that, I'm 100% okay
with people thinking thatbecause what nobody realized is

(44:59):
I wasn't trying to changecamouflage into pink bossy oak.
I wasn't coming in and bringingscented body sprays.
I was coming in to do the samething that every one of them was
doing, and that's to perfect mytrade craft.
And you know, no matter who youare, whether you're that postal

(45:21):
worker or you're an infantrymanor you're a navy seal, the
military's job is to close withand destroy the enemy, and
that's what we're practicing atRanger school.
So, going back to the questionof what was the biggest kind of
event there was watching thisyoung e four change his mind,

(45:41):
not just about working with me,but willing to look at each
female soldier and go wait asecond here.
If the women aren't carryingtheir weight, maybe it's because
their commander isn't makingthem.
Maybe it's because their squadleader is letting them get away.
Get away with that maybe it'sif somebody said, hey, because

(46:04):
of the way you look, you don'thave to load duffel bags in the
back of this truck.
Who wouldn't sit on thesidelines and and go be a coffee
runner?
You know, if you're gonna letme be lazy as an E4, as an E3,
as an E6, I'm gonna be lazy.
So when, when they saw me, theythought, wait a second here.
Some of our gender issues in themilitary are leadership issues,

(46:26):
and so I got to see thattransition, one at a time, as
people accepted me as their peeryou know, because rank was
stripped away, they accepted meas a peer, run and chainsaws and
doing everything that they weredoing.
And then they said, okay, well,when I go back to my units, I'm
gonna, when I go back to myunit, I'm gonna hold all

(46:46):
soldiers to the same standard.
I'm gonna judge you based onmerit, because it wasn't just
balancing out their thoughtsabout women, it was also the
nerdy guy wearing glasses wait aminute.
Where can he add value?
What about the, the really tallguy?
We don't have to only have himlifting the heavy stuff, okay,
well, how can I leverage all theassets in my unit and not just

(47:09):
those that are like-minded andlook like me, so watching that
transition for these young,younger guys was was really a
life-altering experience for mewas there a specific moment
where you could see that shift?

(47:30):
there there was, of course therewas a couple of big moments.
But one of the guys and it's myhusband's least favorite story
from the book, but it's one ofthe guys like, he keeps talking
to me and and we're, we'recoming out of a swamp crossing.
So the ranger instructor toldus all to change our uniforms.
Like Jaster, go go hide in thewoods, because, god forbid, you

(47:50):
know, we don't want girls withboys.
So I'm hiding in the woods.
And one of my ranger buddies waslike Jaster, I need to tell you
something.
And so I run over there and I'm, you know, barefoot, wearing my
t-shirt, my pants and just likecarrying all my gear.
And he starts telling me thesestories.
And once I finally interrupthim, I'm able to say, hey, dude,

(48:11):
do you know you're naked.
And he kind of looked at me andit doesn't, it doesn't click
with him.
So he just keeps talking.
I mean, he keeps talking, andfinally, like everybody's
getting really freaked outbecause we're like, okay, this
is a, this is a school.
You know, somebody's gonna,somebody's gonna say something,
somebody's gonna write theircongressman.
Next thing, you know, we're allgonna be in trouble.

(48:32):
So we finally get the guy tostop talking and I'm like, and I
just walk away like we're justall gonna pretend this didn't
happen, that a naked dude didn'tcall me, the only female
remaining at ranger school, overto talk to him, and and so I
walk away and and he was like oh, dude, I'm so sorry, I I forgot

(48:54):
you were a chick.
And it was kind of one of thosemoments where nothing, nothing
came in the way of the fact thathe wanted to share this story
with his battle buddy, that's it.
That's all that was in his head.
And and that was one of thosereally big moments where I
realized my value was so muchmore of whether than whether or

(49:17):
not I graduated ranger school.
My value was that guy was an E5.
I think he was E5 promotable,and he was going to lead
soldiers and he was only gonnajudge him on their merit forever
.
That moment proved it to me.

Thad David (49:32):
So that's really that's an incredible story, and
I can see why your husband theone of his least favorite
stories was there, anything youknow, because obviously that's
the pivotal moment.
That's you can see why there'sso much value inside of that.
What were some things that youthink big moments that led up to

(49:57):
that?
That level of just this is mybattle buddy, because I would
imagine day one probably wasn'tthat way, and so what were some
things that that took place thatgot to that point?

you know, when I was in the pre-ranger course,
all the women had to graduatefrom a pre-ranger.
It's not mandatory for men butit was because, you know, they
didn't want to send womenunprepared.
So we went to this pre-rangercourse and it was really
interesting because there was aguy, specialist Johnson, and he,
he really hated that we werethere like he felt strongly that

(50:32):
women you know, women andchildren first let's protect the
, the future of our society,which, again, I'm not mad at
that argument.
But then he got pulled into aleadership role later on in the
two-week course and he was likeJaster, I'm, I'm platoon leader,
you're my platoon sergeant, andI'm like but women don't belong

(50:53):
here.
He's like I know you're gonnaget stuff done and and so it was
those little, those small winsthat resulted in hey, you're
just a battle buddy.
I'll share a foxhole with youduring Ranger school for anyone
who doesn't know and I I'm notsure how familiar you are with
it.
You, of course, can get kickedout for failing something

(51:14):
physically.
You can fail tactics.
If you do a safety violation,you can get kicked out.
Of course, if you get injured,you can get kicked out or
recycled, turned back.
But you could be perfected,everything and then get voted
off the island.
We do peers at the end of eachof the three phases and everyone
in your squad ranks everyoneelse in your squad, one through

(51:36):
14 or however many you have.
And then at the bottom of thesheet of paper that you're
filling out is the question Iwould share a foxhole with this
soldier, yes or no?
And the amount of people whosaid to me verbally or checked
off or ranked me high in thepeers, but the amount of people

(51:58):
who said I would share a foxholewith Lisa.
That again was one of thosethings that showed me that
people were slowly coming alongand because that was completely
blind if people can be nice toyour face and then screw with
your career in the backbackground, which is what we
more commonly see.
But in the military and you andI have already kind of alluded

(52:21):
to it we have this weird form ofcommunication.
We're a little blunt, we.
We kind of don't necessarilyappreciate societal standards
with regards to communication.
So in the military you don'talways know if somebody likes
you because they're mean to youif they dislike you and they're
really mean to you if they likeyou, and so people were being
not always real nice to me.

(52:42):
And then to get this kind ofblind survey where everyone said
, hey, I'd share a foxhole withLisa was was definitely one of
those pivotal points for me aswell.

Thad David (52:52):
I can see that as being just a very meaningful
because they could have veryeasily, just because it's
anonymous, very easily justbashed it and and so that means
you were really doing someincredible things, that they
noticed and and reallyappreciate it.

So and I think part of the part of what helped is I
didn't try to deny myfemininity.
I wasn't very good atcommunicating with the other
women but while while there Istarted off and I wanted to be
just one of the guys and myearly years of my military
career and working constructionand oil and gas, I really just

(53:28):
wanted to fit in.
But I I did find, after Irecycled and kind of was banging
my head against the wall of howam I going to move forward in
this course, that it was okay tobe a mom and a wife and be be a
woman and to kind of hold on tothat instead of pushing that

(53:48):
portion down.
And there was a couple ofevents that happened where I was
able to help these again 20, 25year old guys who hadn't
deployed yet, who hadn't livedin the field for weeks and weeks
on end.
You know they'd done theirFTX's of their unit, which is
usually about a week, sometimestwo weeks, but they hadn't been
in the field back to back toback, with no showers, no food

(54:11):
trucks coming in, no hot coffeein the morning.
This was a new experience.
So I was able to give them somelife lessons as somebody who's a
mom and a hunter and you knowsay silly things that, as a
parent, you know they say, hey,check your kids diaper.
Like, look at poop, I'm ahunter, you look at poop.
And so when somebody said, hey,something's going on with me,

(54:32):
I'm like, hey, did you check?
Like, are you hydrated, are you, are you eating enough?
And start talking about thingsthat are uncomfortable topics.
But as a mom or a parent, itwas well.

Thad David (54:44):
If you're not checking this, you're you're
missing some of the some of theobvious signs of your health do
you think a lot of your I meanbecause you had been through,
been to Afghanistan, been toIraq do you think a lot of that
played a big role and andthey're being able to be more
open to accept you coming inbecause you brought that much

(55:05):
more experience?

I think so because when I had a young, we call them
bat boys.
They're the guys that are inRanger Battalion and for them
Ranger School is reallyimportant.
So for Army infantrylieutenants, if you don't
graduate from Ranger School,your career definitely has a
shelf life.
For bat boys guys in the RangerBattalion, if you don't

(55:29):
graduate from Ranger School, youyou have to go to conventional
Army, you get kicked out of theRanger Battalion.
So it's really important tothem and Ranger Battalion is
culturally a very, very tightorganization.
So the last thing in the worldyou want to do is be kicked out
of your family.
So it was really important forthem to be successful at Ranger

(55:50):
School.
And I had one of these young batboys and he was 19 at the time
and he was like, hey, jaster,you know, ranger School just
isn't for everyone, like we.
We all know you're, you're old,you're a major, you haven't
walked around the woods in awhile, you don't know small unit
tactics.
And I'm like, yeah, but youcould teach me.
And it came to a point wherehe's really good at walking

(56:13):
around in the woods, you know atthe ready position, checking
his, you know 360 degrees,really really good at all the
normal tactics stuff.
But he had no idea how to leadthat squad or get other people
motivated, because he never hadto do it.
So I got to go back to him andbe like, hey, bat boy, you know,

(56:33):
not everybody's made to be aleader come here.
And so I got to leverage myexperience of, you know, getting
people to do stuff they don'twant to do and which, yes, in
Afghanistan you definitely were.
We're having to get people todo hey, let's go on a convoy.
Yes, there there were IEDs onthat route yesterday, but we're
saying it's green today, let'sgo and and yeah, so I do believe

(56:58):
having that experience did helpto some degree well, it was
even.

Thad David (57:03):
I mean nowadays it's such a where, as it used to be,
less common because everybodyhad most people when I was in
had were either deploying orwere going overseas at some
point, whereas, as I talked topeople that are just getting out
now that it's a more of ararity.

You know, you don't see a lot of people that have
deployed which has just beeninteresting to unpack, so I
could imagine it paid some bigdividends for you yeah, yeah,
especially the guys who wereyounger and hadn't had the
experience to go across the pondyet and and they had in their
mind that, like, go inAfghanistan is this glorious
experience, and we could easilysay, hey, you know, we're not

(57:41):
combat ops anymore and in 2015,you're gonna be handing out more
water bottles than bulletsright.

Thad David (57:49):
So what is one thing that you wish everybody would
ask you that nobody asked?
I know you get a ton ofquestions and they're probably a
lot of the same ones, butwhat's one that you wish
everybody would ask you, orpeople that would ask you that
they don't ask you?

let's see, I'm not sure, I'm not sure because you
know, there's, there's, youstumped me.
Ranger school is an interestingenvironment in the fact that it

(58:25):
is often assumed that it's aschool like it's a training
environment, but it truly is atesting environment.
So I think I think you justasked kind of the question that
I would want more people to askis what was it testing?
Not because people want to know, hey, what did you learn?
Would you learn about yourself?
Would you learn about otherpeople?

(58:47):
And I think a better questionis what experience was tested
while you were in Ranger School?
And because one of the mainthings I learned, which was
something I had known fromworking in corporate America not
the military, but working incorporate America.

(59:07):
But I had to relearn in RangerSchool because I'd never seen
that in the military.
So as an officer, I havepositional power.
I have automatic authoritybased on the rank.
I wear on my uniform everysingle day.
At Ranger School that wasstripped from me and so that was
the first time.

(59:27):
Ranger School was the firsttime in the military where I had
to lead as a subordinate leader, where I had to go and be
influential without being ableto leverage any position rank.
I had no status.
I wasn't part of the E-formmafia.
I wasn't the trusted innercircle.
I had nothing.
I wasn't from any of the unitsthat any of the other guys were

(59:49):
from.
I was reservist, so Iautomatically was disrespected
because I wasn't a full timesoldier anymore.
So what was tested in me was myability to communicate with
others in a way that they couldhear me, and it was something I
learned in corporate America,and I don't think I could have
been as good at Ranger Schoolhad I not worked at Shell and

(01:00:14):
learned those lessons of speakto be heard.
Speak to be heard.
Your audience has a say inwhether or not they can hear
your message.

Thad David (01:00:26):
What do you mean by speak to be heard?

Lisa Jaster (01:00:31):
The stories I'm going to tell youth at are not
the stories I'm going to tell mykids, which aren't the stories
I'm going to tell my husband,because they're not going to
have the same impact.
And when I tell the same story,let's say I'm talking about the
guy accepting me for the firsttime and realizing that in his
mind I was just one of the guysright, the version that my

(01:00:53):
husband needs to hear.
If I start talking about anaked dude, my husband's going
to hear naked dude and he'sgoing to focus on naked dude.
So I'm going to talk about thescenario around the situation.
I'm going to tell the storydifferently so that my husband
won't get stuck on the nakeddude and he won't, because he's
an amazing man.
But when I'm telling the storyto you, I want the impact and I

(01:01:15):
want the impact in a shortamount of time.
And I don't know who yourlisteners are Like.
I can't see their faces.
So I have to tell a storythat's going to hit and they can
hear it with their ears.
So if you're not military, I'mgoing to tell you the same story
a little differently.
If I'm talking about a 240, I'mgoing to talk about a 27 pound

(01:01:37):
weapon.
If I'm talking to you who'sformer military, about a 240,
I'm going to say a 240 and keeptalking.
And so I change my stories, Ichange my vernacular based on
the audience.
In Ranger school specifically,if I'm leading a group of
engineer soldiers, I knowexactly how to communicate with

(01:01:57):
them.
But when you're at Rangerschool, your squad, let's say,
it's 14 Bubba's.
You got 14 Bubba's that haveall different backgrounds, all
different ages, all differentexperiences.
The number one thing you haveto do if you want to pass as a
leader is figure out how tocommunicate with all of them as

(01:02:18):
succinctly and quickly aspossible so you can execute the
mission and move on.
And that's different for the E4mechanic that came from Hawaii
versus the E3 Ranger bat versusthe E6 that was a black hat at
Airborne school.
Black hat means he was aninstructor at the Airborne

(01:02:38):
school, so he's really, reallygood in the school environment.
He's maybe not been in thefield for a while.
The E3 that's in Ranger bat inthe field a ton.
He knows field stuff.
So I can blur it out,everything I need him to do.
But when I start talking to himabout leadership I've got to
expand more.
That's changed the story, sothe audience can hear you.

We had touched on it earlier and I'm happy now that
we followed that thread to startout with and I was unexpected
because that to me ties rightback into any veterans getting
out that might feel like they'restruggling Are you speaking to
be heard?
Because we say that it'sdifferent when you get out, but
to your story, right there, itis exactly the same.

(01:03:23):
You still have to change yourlanguage to speak to be heard in
the civilian world when you getout.
So it's a great takeaway andit's high end that I appreciate
you sharing.

I think a great example of that, going back to
your transitioning military, islooking at resumes.
So I look at a lot of resumesand one of the things I see a
lot is people who have militaryleadership roles, especially our
squad leaders, and above talkabout managing the health,
morale and welfare those termshealth, morale and welfare of 12

(01:03:54):
Marines.
That means absolutely nothingin corporate world.
In the military it's like wow,you know, you checked on their
family.
You made sure that they weregetting paid.
You made sure that their truckwasn't getting repowed.
When you deployed, you madesure their stuff was packed up.
When they PCS, you made surethat they had a church to go to

(01:04:14):
if they wanted to.
If they came in and they weredepressed, you put somebody on
suicide watch, like you were incharge of the health, morale and
welfare of 12 Bubba's that youdidn't know the day before you
got that job.
How do we communicate that toour corporate bosses?
Because saying hey, I'm a squadleader of 12 people means

(01:04:35):
absolutely nothing.
But when you say I was intergrIntegrally, say that word
integrally.
I was really involved, Dang it.
I thought I was doing well.
I was really involved in thepersonal and professional life
of 12 individuals, from wakingup to making you know, from

(01:05:01):
teaching them their combatskillset to ensuring they had a
good place to sleep at night.
Like that means something toyour corporate peers.
Health, morale and welfaremeans nothing.
So speak to be heard.

Well, it's a great.
It's a great example, because Istruggled for a long time, even
putting anything military downon a resume.
It's like why would this matter?
How would this apply toanything?
And being able to switch thelanguage is a powerful thing.

I think now that I'm a reservist I didn't.
When I was active duty I lookeddown on reservists.
You know they were part-timers,they weren't committed, right.
But as a reservist now Irealize, god, being a reservist
is so hard because I've got tobalance my day life, my day job,
my work when I'm at drill andmy military.
And I still have to.

(01:05:56):
Yesterday I had my militarydental appointment and it was at
, you know, 8.30 in the morning,in the middle of a business
meeting.
So I had to rearrange myschedule.
But one of the things I'venoticed with my reserve soldiers
is they don't know how to crossthose two bridges.
How do you put your reservistsinto your resume and how do you

(01:06:16):
put your civilian job into yourreserve resume?
And so I had a reserve engineerand he was a team leader, he
was a corporal and he's likeyeah, I'm a deliveryman for
Amazon.
My civilian career doesn't haveany positive impact on my
military career.
And I'm like, really, youunderstand weather patterns,

(01:06:39):
logistics, effective traveltimes, you understand ways to
approach houses, because Godknows who's got the big dog.
I live in the country, in Texas, right, like you are not just
walking up to my front door, Ipromise you and all these things
I was talking about, and he'slike, oh yeah, well, I just do
that automatically Like, yes,bring that to your military

(01:07:02):
world.
And so the truth, or the same,is true in both directions.
Sometimes military doesn't knowhow to speak to civilian, and a
lot of times the civilian don'tknow how to communicate the
value that their civilianexperience also brings to the
table.

I think and a lot of stuff that I talk about in my
day-to-day job is kind ofwhatever we focus on, kind of
the story we tell ourselves, welive into it, and the moment we
say, well, this doesn't apply,then our minds shut down, they
don't see anything that'spossible.
And I love how you help peoplekind of get over that or you
helped in that example kind ofsee the other side of it.

What do you do in your day job?

Well, I'm a it's a public speaker.
Professional development I do abunch of three-day training so
I jump up in front of largegroups and I facilitate personal
professional development.

Oh OK.

Yeah, so a large group facilitator would be the
best way to put it.

Yeah, there's no easy way to say that, right.

There's not A lot of people.
I think assume that it'sprobably the biggest surprise
when I open up a room.
So I just got back, you knowthis week's training.
I got back and probably thebiggest surprise is people think
it's a PowerPoint kind of thingand I don't have one slide deck
.
It's a very interactive, veryengaging, lots of questions,
which I think kind of that wasone thing that sparked the

(01:08:24):
podcast was doing interviewsbecause, well, I ask questions
all day Anyway.

So when I'd ask more questions here, so I could
bring all those qualities into amilitary resume and a heartbeat
.

But in that's it's amazing that you can and I think
tying it in that, like how doessomebody that's a veteran find
a I don't want to say you,because obviously you're not
going to help everybodylistening, I wouldn't imagine
but where would they find you orsomeone like you as a resource
to help with that?

Yeah.
So talent war group is actuallyone of the companies I work
with and they do.
Now.
We work with executive levels,with placement.
But if you're not at theexecutive level, if you're a
veteran, there are quite a feworganizations in Ryan Norton
he's out of Florida, he's one ofour lead recruiters.

(01:09:15):
He's definitely one of thosepeople that reviews resumes
people like me do.
But reaching out and LinkedIn,there's quite a few people who
are trying to help the veterancommunity become more active in
the rest of our community,because what called us to serve
in the military doesn't thatthat call, that nagging in the

(01:09:37):
back of our head doesn't stopjust because we get out of
uniform.
We're still called to serve.
So a lot of the militaryveterans become unhappy in their
career because they feel likethey're not serving.
They feel like they're notbringing a higher level of
purpose into their corporatejobs and a lot of them aren't

(01:09:59):
doing that because they don'tknow how to advertise that they
have that ability or that desireand so you know, maybe it's
reach out to me via LinkedIn andif I can't help there's
somebody else who can.
Maybe that that's something youcan do and you have lots.
We all have lots of connectionsI can throw names out or
coordinate, or even if somebodyI've had people on my posts

(01:10:22):
comment and say, yeah, well, Iwas just a wife, woman, how does
that add value to the community?
Oh my God, let's talk aboutyour observation skills, let's
talk about your ability to reada room, let's talk about
everything that an infantrymanlearns to do and just remove the
weapon from the conversationand we can write your resume in

(01:10:42):
10 minutes.
So you know, reach out.
Linkedin is a great resourcefor finding those types of
people.

Hmm, I appreciate you sharing that and I wanted to
ask you also you had mentionedyour book, or you mentioned the
book.
For anybody that might not beaware, tell us about the book.

Yes.
So I wrote a book.
It's called Delete theAdjective a Soldiers Adventures
in Ranger School, and delete theadjective.
The concept is yes, I'm middleage, yes, I'm a mom I mean I
think at 46, I'm more thanmiddle age now, but I'm not sure
.
Yes, I'm a woman.
But all of those adjectivesshouldn't matter when you're

(01:11:22):
deciding whether or not you'rewilling to share a foxhole with
me.
And some of those adjectives domatter at different times, but
too often we let our adjectivesdefine us and we don't allow
them to describe us.
So I say all that because thatsounds really, really snooty and
intellectual.

(01:11:42):
That's the purpose behind thebook, but really it's 240 pages
of Lisa's stories from RangerSchool, and so the underlying
message is you won't read thebook and be like, oh wow, this
chick, this.
Like.
You'll read the story and go oh, this resilient person pushed
through, wait a second.

(01:12:04):
I went to Ranger School.
I had one dad he's a Vietnamvet and his son came back from
Iraq and had PTSD Won't mentionany names or any other details.
This guy read my book, hadn'tspoken to his son in like five
years because he was like, as aVietnam vet, I know what you

(01:12:26):
guys did in Iraq.
Like how the hell do you havePTSD?
You're just trying to, you know, scrape money off the
government and you were just amechanic.
What he didn't realize is heread the book and was like you
know.
I bet there's something more tomy son's story than I realize.
Maybe I should ask thequestions because again, he

(01:12:48):
looked at my book when he had itin his hand he was like no
chick could do what I did.
That was the first thing thatwent through his head.
He was automatically livingonly in his own world.
He read my book and suddenly helived in my world and he's like
Lisa's stories are the exactsame stories as mine were when I
went through Ranger school inthe late 60s Same swamps, same
mountains, same obstacle courses.

(01:13:10):
So he calls his son.
They start talking.
He sends me a note.
I bawled like a baby, I won'tlie.
He sends me a note.
He's like my son was a mechanicin Afghanistan and part of his
job was trying to piece vehiclestogether to make operating
vehicles, because so many werewere getting hit by IEDs.
Well, when he was working onthose vehicles, it wasn't just

(01:13:34):
broken parts, it was also brokenbody parts that were stuck in
engines.
So he had PTSD from pullingfeet and you know like gruesome
things and I don't want totrigger anyone who might be
listening.
But this dad and the sonreconnected because they saw,
because he saw this story wasn'ta middle age woman mother story

(01:13:56):
, it was a soldier's story andhe realized he hadn't figured
out his son's story.
So I say all that and none ofthat is telling you anything
about the book.
But the idea behind the book isto that you might have a really
strong wife who's already outthere and you know every day
you're like damn, she's tough aswoodpecker lips.

(01:14:17):
Or you might have this amazing,great, spirited wife who never
shows you when she's crippled byanxiety and you never see what
she's overcoming and you justassume life is easier for her
and you as the man are taking on.
All this is a way to showpeople who haven't met that

(01:14:41):
strong woman that there's womenout there that like doing things
that men do or that like toovercome adversity or just like
walking around in the woods andcan smile at a beautiful 5 am
sunrise.

I love it.
And when you definitelydescribed my wife there, just
because you brought her up,she's a very, very strong, very
strong woman she's.
She's pretty incredible.
I really appreciate how youwere able to help him through
that opening up to hear yourstory, which helped him to
realize that he wasn't hearingthe story of his son, which was

(01:15:17):
a game changer.
Yeah, I mean that right.
There's just that one.
I'm sure there's a thousandother examples of how it's
impacted people's lives, butjust that one has to make it
worth having written the bookright there.

I mean, that's worth every minute, yeah that's
amazing.

And so delete the adjective, delete the adjective.

It can be bought on Barnes and Noble, amazon.
My websites delete theadjectivecom.
Trying to keep it simple, Iswear to God it's not an English
book.
There's no grammar checks atthe end of each chapter.
I have gotten a little pushbackon that, but the concept really
is like I've got a lot offriends.
They're not gay friends,straight friends, white friends,
black friends, military friends, they're just friends.

(01:16:00):
So that's really where deletethe adjective came from.

So what you said?
There's no grammar checks atthe end of it.
Yeah, what do you mean by that?

Oh, because I've been told more than a few times
delete the adjective.
Sounds like it's an English litbook Like it should be read for
AP English or something.

Yeah, it's an interesting name and it makes
sense after you described it,because I was like I wonder what
that name was, and it makesperfect sense and clearly that
message is being received by thepeople that are reading it.
So I'm excited to check it outand I will link it wherever you
say to in the bio of this sothat that anybody and anyone
listening can go check it out.

I do read the audio , the audible, myself.
So because I am military, Ihate listening to military books
not written by the authorsbecause the mispronunciations of
names, weapons systems,acronyms.
If I hear DFAC one more timeinstead of DFAC, I'm probably

(01:16:59):
going to like completely lose mycool.
But yes, I do read the bookmyself.
It's only like a four and ahalf hour listen for those of us
who travel a lot and don't havetime for paperbacks.

Well, I'm going to.
Definitely that's where Iusually grab books on audible,
so I'm going to make that happen.

Awesome.

So you are doing a ton of things?
Yes, you're doing.
I mean, it's unreal, it'sunbelievable, all the things
that you're juggling in yourlife and just big picture, high
level.
How do you manage to keep itall together?
Because I think a lot of peoplestruggle to juggle one or two
things and you have a wide rangeof things going on.

(01:17:39):
How do you, how do you do it?

I'm going to answer your question with a question.
What do you think when I saywork life balance?

What do I think of?
Uh-huh?
What do you mean just inparticular?
Like, what is that?

Just general.

I think for me.
I think people mean it's like athere's a dividing line of like
workstops, home life balance orhome hits there and having
about like juggling be able tojump that line.
That's what it makes me thinkof.

Yeah, and I say there's no such thing.
Okay, so there's no such thingas work and life Like there used
to be right.
And I, when I joined the adultworld in 2000, when I was
commissioned in 2000, I leftwork and cell phones were just
becoming a thing and it took 15minutes to write a text because
you had to press two, threetimes to get C Like or maybe it

(01:18:33):
was one you press three times toget the letter C oh T, nine
texting I remember.
Yes.
So you left work and, unless itwas an emergency, nobody called
you.
When you wrote up an award, youstarted with a piece of paper
and a pen and you wrote it up,and then you had the admin type
it up and you prayed that whenit printed, the words fit in the
right boxes.
And so back then you left workand you went to life.

(01:18:57):
But now I've got a handheldcomputer.
I've got I personally have fiveemails from the businesses that
I'm associated with, plus mymilitary, and so five emails are
on this.
And then I need a cat card tolog in.
I'm never away from work.
So what I've chosen to do is tosay, if I'm never away from

(01:19:19):
work, I'm never away from life.
So what that means is today myson has has to volunteer for a
wrestling meet.
I'm going to go volunteerduring work hours and be at the
same wrestling meet that he's at, so I could be there with him.
But that means when I come homeat night, I've got stuff to do.
So how do I balance things?

(01:19:40):
I look at what's really mostimportant to me and I keep a
list.
My bathroom mirror has markeron it that says so.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu I've beentraining off and on for 10 years
.
I I get worse every day.
I think I'm just terrible.
I really am.
I'm terrible at it, but Iabsolutely love the challenge.
So on my mirror it says earn myblack belt.

(01:20:03):
Now it might be five years, itmight be 10 years, but someday
I'm going to get my black belt.
That's written on my mirrorbecause it's important to me.
But before black belt is bepresent.
So if I'm going to be home andI'm going to be with my family,
I'm going to put this down.
If I'm going to go for a bikeride or a run, I'm going to see

(01:20:25):
if I can bring my kids in on it.
If my husband's going to gowork out at two o'clock in the
afternoon because he owns hisown business and when his
clients he needs to be availablewhen his clients need him.
At two o'clock in the afternoonhis clients never seem to need
him, so he goes into the gym,all right?
Well, I'm going to go work outat the same time as my husband
does and that's how I get mywork life balance, so that he

(01:20:46):
and I get some time together.
So to answer the question of howdo you juggle so many things?
You figure out what makes youhappy and you prioritize and get
rid of the stupid stuff.
Like there's a lot of stupidstuff that we all do because we
think that that other mom andI'll use mom's as an example on
Pinterest is better than us.

(01:21:06):
Guess what I hate cooking.
My kids can either make theirown darn lunches or they can
purchase them at school.
That is 30 minutes of mymorning.
That is not worth my time.
The extra groceries I order mygroceries it is not worth my
time.
Now I'm going to buy the sameamount of groceries and I think

(01:21:26):
it's a $4 fee to go pick them up.
Back up to the grocery store,pop my trunk and some
16-year-old kid puts them in mytrunk For $4, I can make that
happen.
And so get rid of the stupidstuff.
I actually just wrote anarticle about it this week.
I do sub-stack articles and Isaid live your life like an
editor and that's really how youget around that work life

(01:21:49):
balance.
Get rid of the stupid stuff.
Make the stuff you're keepingthe highest quality possible and
if something is really, reallygood, don't mess with it.
Don't mess with it.
Friday night's pizza nightdon't try to make spaghetti,
just make Friday night, pizzanight and be happy because it's
perfect.
Everybody's happy, so that's.

(01:22:10):
I don't know if that answersyour question directly or
indirectly, or even gets closeto it.

I think it's a great just to the inside.
I love talking to highperformers and people that are
doing just about a ton of thingsand I think that that
prioritization of time, whatyou're letting into your time,
what you're not letting intoyour time and just how you
juggle it is just something I'mfascinated with with this

(01:22:36):
podcast.
But just in general, justwatching people like where they
spend their time, what they dowith their time, and it's
because that's the one equalizer.
We all have the same amount oftime and yet some people tend to
do a ton of stuff and otherpeople feel like they have no
time, but the reality is we allhave the same quote unquote we
have the same time.

(01:22:56):
I mean, that's the equalizer.

Yeah, yeah, I think about it as like when I start a
new goal, and so I'm.
This is a shameless plug.
In September, I'm doing a 700mile bike ride.
That I got suckered into onceagain.
We're doing it over six days inWisconsin.
It's to raise money for camphometown heroes.
It's a camp for fallen, thechildren of fallen soldiers and

(01:23:21):
first responders, lawenforcement, et cetera, and it's
a camp to teach them lifeskills.
It's in Wisconsin.
Like I said, it's a six daybike ride.
We're traveling 700 miles.
We're raising funds for that.
How I got this added onto myplate, I have no idea, once
again, not to say anything aboutmy husband, but he's like what
the hell is wrong with you woman?

(01:23:42):
So how do I, how do I, you know, add that into my life?
And I think the easiest exampleof how you add these things
that are important to you intoyour life is we've all gone on a
diet at some point in time,like you could be the most fit
man in the world or you could bereally slender, and you're like
hey, I'm going to put on 20pounds of muscle this year or

(01:24:06):
I'm going to lose 10 pounds offat.
Everybody has that goal at somepoint in their life.
Well, your very first step isyou walk in the pantry and you
throw away everything thatdoesn't fit with your goals and
you go to the grocery store andget everything you think you're
going to eat, which of course,you never.
Are right, you're never goingto cook that squash Like it's
just going to live there untilit dies, but you know you think

(01:24:29):
you do.
That's your first step.
So when you set a new goal, likeadding training for a 700 mile
bike ride, what did I empty outof my pantry to make room for
the hours of training?
And what I added to my pantryis I got something that I could
put in front of my bike trainerso I can check emails while

(01:24:50):
sitting on my bike, so I canmake that productive.
So how do you do that?
Again, think about it like whenyou go on a diet how are you
changing your life so that youcan meet your dietary goals?
The same is true with all ofyour well, with all of your
other adventures andspecifically staying away from
my business goals, just because,like, I don't want to plug my

(01:25:10):
business too much, but you know,make X number of dollars a year
, publish this many articles dothis.
Many book signings, like all ofthose things, are written on my
mirror and I check them off.
My daughter was sweet enough totry to clean my mirror the
other day and she wiped them offand we almost had a little
argument about it.

Well, and feel free to plug your business at any
time, because I mean anythingyou want to.
I mean because, like I told youearlier, this is really about
you and I think your story has.
I've gotten a ton of value fromit.
So I know anybody listening isgoing to have received a just a
lot of value as well.
But anything you plug is as byall means.
I love your analogy of thepantry, though I've never
considered that or heard itdescribed in that way.

(01:25:51):
Because in our life, like whatis the goal?
And I would say maybe wehaven't identified the goal like
what is your goal, what is thething you want in your life?
Because before you startemptying the pantry, like
actually set out a clear goal,put a goal in front of yourself.
Then we can empty the pantryand say, well, what's the thing

(01:26:12):
in my life that's eating up alot of time?
I always tell people that theytell me that they don't have
enough time, like, all right,well, if you're open, let's go
look at your screen time on yourphone right now and see where
you're spending that, because tome that's the junk food in the
pantry.
Like if you don't have time,what you know 10 hours on social
media a day is you got sometime.

(01:26:35):
You got some time, you're justusing it elsewhere.

Yeah Well, a great example is my kids.
We listen to audiobooks now, sowe had listened to the same
songs on the playlist for solong and I know your kids are
young but we started it with,like, the Harry Potter series
and we listened to a book.
And then we'll watch it on TVand we'll have this analysis of
the Hollywood versus the JKRollins version, and what's the

(01:26:58):
difference is what was won andwhat was lost by the screen
adaptation.
And suddenly my kids were likeoh, mom, you made us do a lesson
in academics, didn't you?
Like I did and you liked it.

You enjoyed it.

Yes.
We just listened to the animalfarm and the same thing you know
.
Hey, do you guys know what wasgoing on, like you know, war two
, what was going on with Germanyand what was going on with
Churchill at this time?
And they're like we justthought it was a cool book.

Wow, and that's great that you do that.
And with three and five, haveyou seen those Tony boxes that
are out?

No.

So it's a I don't have.
I just got them a new stationfor, but it's a cube.
It's a cushiony cube and it'sgot these little figurines.
I'm looking around because I'msure there's one somewhere, but
there's these little figurinesthat you can buy for music,
books, short stories.
There's a my son has a bunch ofwith sharks, dinosaurs,
national geographic stuff, butit's a magnetic.

(01:28:02):
It almost works just like anold school CD player that when
you put this you can pick atrack from it.
But it's a magnetic thing andyou put it on top of this box
and it's a, it's a cushionyspeaker and you put it on there
and it's got these two littleears and it'll play.
So the kids have some autonomyand they can pick whatever they
want to listen to.
Yeah, but we just get them abunch of educational stuff and
that's their, their thing, thatthey get.

(01:28:23):
And every now and again yeah Idon't know all the times, but it
a lot of times we'll see themlike where, where are the kids?
You know, it's one of those.
It's riot, quiet to quiet to besomething bad's happening right
now and we'll look over andthey'll have their little
headphones and listen into theirlittle Tony box, and so it's
not quite at the audible ofanimal farm yet for the three
and five year olds.

Yeah, again, 11 to 15 is a little different.

Yeah, no, no.
But but I can appreciate whereyou're coming from with with
diving into those lessons andreally I'm sure that's going to
pay pay some huge dividendslater on.

And that all goes back to how do you fit so much
into a day?
Is those car rides, or thattime when, hey, daddy needs to
or mommy needs to cook dinner,and I want the child, the
children, to do something morethan watch cartoons, you know?
And how can you add value toeach of those smaller minutes of
your day?

Yeah Well, thank you so much for for jumping on.
I do have I have one morequestion that I want to ask you,
but first I want what's thebest way for people to get in
touch with you If they want tojust obviously get in your book?
I'm going to link that below.
Okay, where, where can peoplefind you?
How can they reach out?
How can they follow you?

Yeah, so I am.
I love social media.
I think it's great.
I get in debates and argumentsall the time.
Absolutely enjoy it.
So I'm on Instagram, as Lisa ageasked her all one word, If you
want to talk professional stuff.
Linkedin again, it's just LisaJaster.
My main name is in parenthesesfor the people who knew me

(01:29:52):
professionally beforehand, andthat's Pepelinsky.
Don't expect anyone to rememberthat.
And then, both on Twitter andon Facebook, I have delete the
adjectives pages.
So if you look up delete theadjective, they come up there.
Of course, my website is deletethe adjectivecom and you can
sign up for a newsletter where Iwill send out like the new sub

(01:30:13):
stack articles I write.
They're mostly leadership based, but a lot of them are like
next in a couple weeks.
I've got one coming out whereI'm.
I'm doing an analysis of aquote from the mockingjay.
Just, people don't show up theway you want them to.
Is is a quote that hit me whenI was rewatching the movie with
my kids, so I'm going to do abig analysis of that.

(01:30:35):
I'm I'm in final edits and soevery week I'm trying to post
stuff on sub stack that makepeople think, to include myself.
And I say, if you have peoplethat want to reach out via
social media, I lovecontroversial opinions because
who I was 10 years ago it is notthe same as who I was 20 years
ago.
I am a different woman now.

(01:30:57):
I have changed my beliefs, Ihave been persuaded through
academic arguments and I want tocontinue to grow because, you
know, I'm no longer going to bethe best version of myself
physically, but I definitelywant to be the best version of
myself academically andspiritually.
And I still want, I still thinkI'm going to PR my deadlift one

(01:31:18):
of these days.

I'm working on it.

So I'm not, I'm not done physically.

I, I don't think anybody could say that you're
done.
I mean, you're you justcommitted to a 700 mile bike
ride?
So you're, yeah, you're gettingafter it.
So, and I'll be sure to grabsome of those links as well and
include them in the bio tohopefully give somebody a quick,
a quick reference to it.
You know you talked aboutearlier and just one final piece
and I don't know if you'vepieced it together, but just as

(01:31:46):
you shared your story ofeverything that you've done, of
how you got in the military, wetalked about just the diversity
in the military and youmentioned the, just the seven
different shades of skin color,and you know it didn't matter
what you were and that you're agreat advocate for it in the
civilian world.
And then you started sharingyour story about you and Ranger

(01:32:09):
school and how everybody kind ofyou, I don't want to say won
everybody over, but you showedthem like you wore that piece.
I mean it was.
It was cool to see that you hadbrought up how the military is,
this diverse group and oncethey do it.
But have you, have you thoughtabout how that was you Like?
You were the start, you werethe initial point of women being

(01:32:30):
accepted in Ranger school.
And just the same way that weall get thrown into a unit and
we become accepting of eachother, have you?
Have you considered?

that at all.
I think I think of it as I'mreally.
I'm going to steal this quotefrom one of the the first
females in an armor unit and shesaid we were on a, on a panel
together, and she goes I'm justa dude that smells better with
longer hair and so I've alwayskind of looked at myself like
that.
So I don't only think of myselfunless, unless I have to look

(01:33:01):
at myself through somebodyelse's eyes as breaking barriers
, because I've always lived inthat world.
West point was almost 90% malewhen I went I worked
construction and oil and gas asa project manager.
I I worked as a combat engineerin the army where we had a
handful of women.
Like I've just lived in thispredominantly male world that I

(01:33:23):
never really thought of myselfas anything other than just one
of the guys which is why I lovethe term guys, because I think
of it as gender neutral Um, sono, no, I haven't thought of it
that way.
And I'm going to try not to,because part of it too, is I I'm
not done.
There's so much more work Ihave to do, and and I would hate

(01:33:46):
to sit back on my laurels andfeel like I've succeeded.

Yeah, well, and I and I don't think of it as a
success thing and what you'resaying makes sense, I love the
humility in it and I love theattitude of there's work to be
done still, and it was aninteresting thing to to think
about because I I know for mejust having I share an example
of, like my, my first team, youknow, we had, I do from not a

(01:34:11):
great spaces in LA we had a guyfrom Texas who one of my best
friends to this day, but wewanted to just, yeah, we were
just bashing heads and justpeople from all over every
different background you couldimagine, and we all, we all
loved how we gel together.
Yeah, and then I love how youknow this one controversial
political topic of bringing ainserting a woman into the, this

(01:34:33):
traditionally men's environment, and it's cool to see how that
does the same thing it gelstogether.

Yeah.

And and we're all, we're all one and it's, it's
pretty cool.

Military is great for that.

It really is Well.
Lisa, thank you so much for forjoining, for jumping in.
I know you, you prioritize yourtime and I'm grateful that you
you chose to give some up inhere.

Thanks, Thad.
This was a really funconversation.
I appreciate it.

I really appreciate it, thank you.

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|int| Breaking Barriers and Building Futures: Army Ranger Lt. Col. Lisa Jaster on Shattering Stereotypes and Leading With Purpose | Ep 95

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}|int| Breaking Barriers and Building Futures: Army Ranger Lt. Col. Lisa Jaster on Shattering Stereotypes and Leading With Purpose | Ep 95