#113 Isaac Lee - From Cockpit to Corporate: A Marine's Leadership Journey - Tales of Leadership

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I would say the number one thing that he always
emphasized to me, with a starnext to it, was what he called
mental toughness.
You know, he was like you needto be physically tough, you've
got to work hard, you've got tobe a great teammate, but to him,
the differentiator was alwaysmental toughness.
Right, how do you respond underpressure?
How do you bounce back inadverse conditions or situations

(00:21):
?
How do you deal with failure?
And we spent a lot of timetalking about that specifically.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
And.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I think that was extremely beneficial to me later
as a combat aviator.
To have, you know, been talkingabout these things and learning
about them since I was a kidwas extremely beneficial, and I
give him a lot of credit forunderstanding that and focusing
on it extremely beneficial and Igive him a lot of credit for
understanding that and focusingon it.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
You're listening to the Tales of Leadership podcast.
This podcast is for leaders atany phase on their leadership
journey to become a morepurposeful and accountable
leader what I like to call a pal.
Join me on our journey togethertowards transformational
leadership.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
All right team.
Welcome back to the Tales ofLeadership podcast.
I am your host, josh McMillian,and I am on a journey to be the
best leader that I possibly can, and I plan to do that by
bringing on what I like to callpals purposeful, accountable
leaders on who lead withintention, integrity and impact
and then continue my ownself-study of my leadership
habits through journaling and myexperiences to share with you

(01:29):
on this platform so you can be abetter leader, and my why it's
important to go over.
Every time I've seen the costof poor leadership, how it can
destroy morale, break trust and,in worst case, lead to a loss
of life, including suicide.
That's why I've committed mylife to helping others lead with
purpose and through Tales ofLeadership, I share real stories
of actual insights on how toovercome adversity and be the

(01:53):
kind of leader people rememberfor the right reasons.
So before we start, just acouple quick reminders of free
resources so you can go to mylink tree slash Tales of
Leadership.
Every single one of my socialmedia is listed there to include
all of my additional websites,how you can get a hold of me,
all of those things.
You can also go to McMillianleadership coaching slash tales

(02:16):
of leadership.
And in there, with thisspecific episode and every other
one that I've filmed, there'llbe an accompany blog post that
distills down the key facts.
So maybe you don't have time tolisten to this whole one hour
episode and you just want to goread an article really quick.
Well, all the key points arethere for you and it's a hundred
percent free.
And finally, make sure you stayto the very end.

(02:37):
We'll do a quick AAR and I'llprovide you the top three
takeaways from this episode, buttime for today's guest.
Isaac Lee, a native of Lubbock,texas, is a graduate of the
Texas Tech University and aretired Marine Corps officer and
aviator.
Over his two decades of service, isaac completed seven overseas

(02:58):
deployments, including fourcombat tours in the Middle East.
He served as the commandingofficer of an operational CH-53
Echo Squadron before retiring in2017.
Now residing in San Diego,california, isaac works as an
operations executive anddedicates his free time to

(03:18):
volunteering for fellow veteransand enjoying time with family,
which he very much deserves.
He's a fan of baseball andfootball, and Isaac is also,
most importantly, the author ofHanger, for his first book that
he wrote, and before we start, Iread this book.
I absolutely love it because itcomes from all the right places
.
He's not just trying to sell abook, he's trying to help

(03:41):
friends and he wrote it in avery authentic manner and I
cannot recommend it enough.
Hanger Four it's a phenomenalbook.
Without further ado, let'sbring on Isaac.
Isaac.
Welcome to the Tales ofLeadership podcast, brother.
How are you doing?

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Good, thank you.
Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, public apologies.
Sorry, it's taken me so long toget you on the show, so I know
you reached out and me, being afull-time Army officer, mission
always comes first.
This is something I'mpassionate about, but I'm glad
to actually get you on the showand do it during a normal time
so you don't have to film itlike 7 o'clock at night.
Yeah, of course, no problem.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
No problem.
So I always like starting offwith a couple preload of
questions, because it just setsa barometer for the podcast and
really tell me a lot about, likewho you are, and the first one
is always the same, because Ithink it's important, because
I'm trying to distill the factsof all the leadership wisdom
that the guests have on, and youcoming from a combat arms

(04:42):
background, as an aviator in theMarine Corps, over seven combat
deployments I'm very curioushow do you define leadership in
your terms?

Speaker 1 (04:53):
To me, leadership is really just putting people that
you're responsible for in aposition to be successful, and
try to keep it that simple andreally make that the focus and
constantly remind yourself, as aleader, that that's really, at
the end of the day, the job.
Right.
If I'm effective, I'm puttingthem in a position to be
successful.
I can't necessarily do it forthem from that point forward,

(05:16):
but it's my responsibility togive them the opportunity and
set the conditions, and sothat's really the way I
approached it the entire time Iwas in the military and you know
, after transitioning in thebusiness world as well.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, no, I think that that's a beautiful way of
defining it.
Is that leadership really?
At the end of the day, itdoesn't matter what I do, it's
the legacy that I leave and theimpact.
And that's really through thepeople.
And if we empower our people tomake a difference, that's how
we actually grow as individualsand organizations.
So kind of jump into startingoff in your leadership journey.

(05:51):
So I know sports was a big partof your upbringing, growing up
in Texas.
And now you're like inCalifornia.
I think, starting there, wheredid your leadership journey
start?

Speaker 1 (06:03):
That really is where it started and the interesting
thing is hindsight's 20-20,.
But I didn't totally realize howmuch I'd learned, frankly, as a
child, until much later in life.
So I was fortunate to grow up ina house where my dad was a high
school football and a baseballcoach.
My mom was a teacher, baseballcoach, my mom was a teacher.

(06:27):
So I literally spent all of mytime on the dusty ball fields of
West Texas and hanging out atthe high school watching my dad
basically do his job.
So I was just immersed inwatching mainly him, you know,
lead these groups of youngpeople all the time and I didn't
realize what I was learning orseeing or observing until much
later, you know, as a fairlyyoung officer in the Marine

(06:48):
Corps, I finally, like the lightbulb went on one day and I was
like, oh, I understand this.
This is the same thing I waslooking at, you know, when I was
not even 10 years old back inLubbock, texas, and once I made
that connection I realized thatreally was the foundation and I
and I also realized it reallygave me I would call it a head

(07:09):
start as an officer in theMarine Corps, because I already
understood quite a bit of thingsthat I was going to need to
understand to be successfulthere too.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
With that too, like just thinking back.
So that's awesome that you hadlike a mentor in your father,
because I think at a young ageespecially men too, because we
all have a little bit ofcraziness, especially those who
choose to join the militaryHaving a role model that models
the kind of behaviors that needto be implemented in the world.

(07:39):
What were some of like thecharacteristics or values that
your dad had that kind of setyou apart?

Speaker 1 (07:46):
I would say the number one thing that he always
emphasized to me, with a starnext to it was what he called
mental toughness.
You know, he was like you needto be physically tough, you've
got to work hard, you've got tobe a great teammate, but to him,
the differentiator was alwaysmental toughness.
Right, how do you respond underpressure?
How do you bounce back inadverse conditions or situations

(08:08):
?
How do you deal with failure?
And we spent a lot of timetalking about that specifically
and I think that was extremelybeneficial to me later as a
combat aviator.
To have, you know, been talkingabout these things and learning
about them since I was a kidwas extremely beneficial, and I
give him a lot of credit forunderstanding that and focusing

(08:30):
on it.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, and I think that's a great place to kind of
dig into is that I I've had tounderstand this and build upon
it like throughout my career.
Is that failure is not final,it's not fatal in a way, is that
it?
And when I went and got mymaster's degree in systems
engineering, it really helped me, like, think through failure is

(08:52):
hey, in engineering they don'tcall it failure, they call it
iterative development.
They understand something failsand then they fix that thing
and then they release a newproduct or a new service and
they continue to iterate andmake it better.
And I didn't have that early onin my career.
But how did your dad like whenyou were really young, how did
he help instill that to whereit's just stuck with you?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
It was.
He was just very opportunisticsituationally, so sometimes it
was something that I had done orexperienced in a little league
game, and sometimes it was, youknow, me helping him break down
film and him stopping and saying, hey, I called the wrong
defense right here.
This is what happened.
I should have seen this.
And so next time I'll be surewhen I see you know that motion

(09:35):
that I'm going to do X Y, z tocounter it.
So he was always just very openand honest about pointing out
mistakes and then talkingthrough.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
How do we learn?

Speaker 1 (09:44):
from them, so we can be better next time.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, and I know sports very important to your
upbringing but also to likegoing through your book.
You use mastering thefundamentals, right, what?
What does what does that meanto you?
Like mastering the basics orthe fundamentals?

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Well, to me it really goes back to this philosophy
and I will die on this hill thatin a leadership position,
especially one of the pieces ofart to it is taking something
complicated and making it simpleenough for the team to execute.
So I'm always looking ateverything from an angle of how
do I distill this down tototally just what is the main

(10:24):
thing?
Because if we can get the mainthing right, all the details
have a funny way of workingthemselves out.
So by doing that, it justsimplifies the problem for
everybody.
We used to do the same thingwhen I was an instructor at the
weapons and tactics school andwe would literally tell the
students you know, the art inthese tactics is taking
something very complicated andmaking it simple enough for your

(10:46):
squadron back home to goexecute in combat, because you
know your dash four, dash fiveair crew is not going to be rock
stars most likely, and theyhave to be able to execute your
plan too.
And just maintaining that basicphilosophy throughout has been
extremely helpful to me and it'sreally carried over into the
business world.
As a chief operating officer ofa company, I do the same thing

(11:07):
every day for 500 people.
How do we make this simpleenough for them to go execute?
Well, and that's my.
Really it annoys my peers inthe company, I'm sure, as we're
sitting in the conference room,but I'm always the one that's
like too complicated, too manywords, they're not going to be
able to do it.
We got to make it simple, butyou know distilling it down,
like that really helps, I think.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, so I.
I resonate deeply with that.
Being an infantry guy is I.
My model in life is kiss, Keepit simple.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yeah, that's that's been my go-to and if I can keep
that regardless of likecommunicating to civilians now
in the acquisition core or whenI was doing mission planning for
ground maneuver and talking toprivates, how can I communicate
clearly enough to you that youcan take what I've given you and
then go, operate within theleft and right limits and be

(12:02):
successful to get to that endstate and hit the key tasks
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (12:05):
If I could do that.
I crushed it yeah absolutely,and it can be really challenging
to do that, I think, especiallythe more senior you get in,
whatever organization you're in,because I think most human
beings their natural tendency isthey want to display how
intelligent they are, what agreat idea they have, but
they're not thinking about howthat ripples down and out to the

(12:27):
organization.
So whoever's going to have toactually execute the thing and
that's something I think youhave to learn through some
observation- and the military isa great training ground for
that right, because if you makethat mistake it's going to go
sideways and it's going to blowback on you.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
So you kind of learn?

Speaker 1 (12:44):
the hard way, sometimes like, hey, we've got
to keep this simple enough to goactually do it.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, I that reminds me of like a quick story when I
was going through the Navalpostgraduate school.
That was really my firstintroduction into the like
sister services of the MarineCorps and the Navy and I had to
do, while I was getting my ILEaccreditation for major, I had
to go do a naval planning.
So you got this army dude andI'm trying to figure out how to

(13:10):
like maneuver.
I do a Harry Potter.
I'm like we're magically on thebeach.
Here is my ground maneuver plan.
It's super awesome, let's talkabout that.
And then the instructor is likehey, don't baffle me with your
BS.
And that just stuck with me atthat moment of like.
Sometimes, like all the words,things like doesn't really
matter, like what are the keyfacts?
Let's just get after it.
Keep it as simple as possible.
So transitioning, you know,from your young childhood,

(13:34):
growing up before having yourrole model being a father, your
father being like a key rolemodel, what those you well,
honest, it really that tied backto sports too.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
So I stopped playing sports when I graduated from
high school because, you know, Iwas a good student.
I knew I wasn't quite a goodenough athlete to ever say get
paid for it.
Right, Maybe I'd end up being acoach or something if I pursued
, you know, college athletics.
But I certainly wasn't going togo pro, and I knew that and I
also just had this kind ofdesire it was really difficult

(14:07):
for me to explain at the time togo have some kind of an
adventure, go experiencesomething interesting in life.
And so I was going to college,honestly, just because I thought
I was supposed to, not becauseI really wanted to join it but I
was seeking a path and the moreI thought about it, the more I
decided, or the more I just cameto the conclusion of the

(14:28):
military would be a very goodfit for me and I might find the
part of sports that I wasmissing, which is really the
teammates, the camaraderie, thecontributing to something bigger
than yourself.
And so I slowly came to theconclusion that it might be a
good fit.
And then trying the aviationroute was really kind of a whim

(14:49):
and just thinking frankly over aconversation with my father who
at the time looked at me like Iwas insane and just got up and
walked back into the house,which we still laugh about to

(15:10):
this day.
But in that moment I was likeyou know what I'm doing this,
like I just decided I was doingit and then started to pursue it
and thankfully ended up being agreat fit.
I would definitely do it allover again in a heartbeat.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, no, like reading through your book.
It's funny how manysimilarities like we share and I
think everyone who serves andgoes on a combat deployments and
has a family.
They share the same storiesroughly, but that God bless you
right For joining the MarineCorps and then doing all those
deployments.
How many, how many Marines andsoldiers lives did you save
because of what you've done.

(15:44):
So you definitely chose theright path and I thank you for
everything you've done.
We'll get into those stories,but it's pretty incredible what
you did.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, so, kind of continuing on that theme, you
decide to make that transition,to go be an officer.
Go Quantico, virginia, which islike 20 minutes down the road
from where I'm at right now atFort Belvoir.
What was that like now being avery rigid organization that has
very solid core values that aresteeped in history, and then

(16:16):
being put into that type ofsituation as a young man?

Speaker 1 (16:21):
I really enjoyed it, to be honest with you.
I mean it was mildly terrifying.
I was very out of my comfortzone, like everybody else, and
you know, you have these momentswhere you're like oh man, am I
way too far out of my skis bybeing here?
But I settled in pretty quickand, even though it was a
slightly more extreme versionthan what I was used to in terms
of discipline and beingregimented, it felt familiar and

(16:43):
I was comfortable with that.
It didn't rattle me and I reallyresponded well to it, so very
quickly I came to the conclusionthat I'm in the right place.
This is the right place for meto be, and I think I can be
successful here.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
And I was just a sponge.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
I mean, I consider myself to be a fairly observant
person and I was just observingeverything around me, trying to
keep a low profile.
You know, don't skylineyourself and get your stuff done
.
And that basic strategy for themost part worked.
And then it's, you know, like asnowball rolling downhill.
You have a little success, youget a little more confident, a
little more success, a littlemore confident, and just almost

(17:21):
on a daily basis I feltprogressively more comfortable
with it and progressively moreconvinced that I was doing what
was the best thing for me andthat I was going to enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
So that's one thing that I noticed as a theme
throughout your career startingoff like really in the Marine
Corps of like hey, whichstudents are doing well, right,
and then gravitating towardsthem and then learning from them
and then emulating thosebehaviors and characteristics.
And then, as you transition toand to being an actual aviator

(17:50):
in the Marine Corps unit, youdid the exact same thing.
You gravitated towards thepeople that had influence and
you were a sponge, which I thinkthat's a huge nugget that a lot
of people don't really fullyunderstand when they're going
through their journey or theydecide they want to go be a
Marine or a soldier or whateverhave you.
They think it's an individualjourney, Like hey, it's all me,

(18:11):
it's not.
You got to collectivelyunderstand, hey, you're new to
the team, humble yourself, learnas quickly as possible and find
those people with influence andauthority and then learn from
them, because that's how youshorten the learning curve.
So that was a huge theme thatI've noticed in your journey.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, absolutely, and I did that throughout my entire
career at every level, and Istill do it to this day.
I'm the backside of a militarycareer.
It's been very helpful for meand I've done the most, learning
from literally observing andtalking to others who did it
first and were successful.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, another thing that struck me early on in your
book is that you discussedmajors, right, so Phil Gray.
So I'm here right now.
I've been promoted, I've been amajor for a while.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
Captain was my favorite because they gave me
keys to a Humvee when I was atJROTC and I could just drive
around, do whatever I wanted.
I may or may not have done somemudding in the swamps of
Louisiana, and then just being acompany commander, deploying
and being with troops has justbeen phenomenal.
But I definitely agree with youSomething happens when you get

(19:20):
that field grade status that youget a lobotomy.
So how did you startformulating that opinion?
Because I love that when youget that field grade status,
that you get a lobotomy.
So how did you startformulating that opinion?
Because I love that?
When you mentioned that in yourbook, I was just giggling like
a little girl.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, well, it was really two things.
And going back to beingobservant, so when I was a young
captain in the squadron, therewere four squadrons in our
hangar and the playing field isperfectly level right.
Everyone has the same number ofaircraft, same number of
Marines, same qualifications,same tools, same parts by

(19:50):
everything's the same.
But after a couple ofdeployment cycles, I noticed
that at any given time, onesquadron was awesome, two were
call it mediocre and one wasterrible.
And it didn't take me too longto realize that it was the
scheduled leadership changesthat were the inflection points,
that were causing thosesquadrons to either get better
or worse.
And so I really started payingattention to the field grade
officers in all of the squadrons, from the commanding officers,

(20:12):
lieutenant Colonel, through thehandful of majors who are
department heads, and justpicking out like what's working
and what's not working, and justliterally observing that.
And one of the biggest takeawaysI had was that there were guys
that I'd observed that had beengreat captains and senior
captains that were verysuccessful and everyone you know

(20:34):
respected and they'd done well.
And then they pinned on majorand just turned into a different
human being and my observationwas that they stopped being
themselves and they started justemulating behaviors they had
previously observed from othermajors and not necessarily good
ones and so that really struckwith me like OK, if you stay

(20:54):
around in the Marine Corps longenough to become one of those
guys, don't do that.
Just keep being you.
Don't try to turn intosomething that you're not or
emulate somebody who's not theright person to emulate or feel
obligated to display thesespecific behaviors.
You're the same person.
You just have a different rank.

(21:15):
Just keep treating everyone thesame.
Keep doing the same things andyou'll probably be okay.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
And that was really my approach.
Just knowing your story throughreading your book.
I think you've done that andkudos to you, and I think the
cost that sometimes you have toshare is that you rub people
wrong sometimes like commanders,but it's totally worth it and
you get the love and respect ofeveryone around your team.

(21:41):
I remember being in acquisitionsand I'll just sit in my office
listening to the Viking deathmetal.
I was like, hey, I'm not goingto change who I am just because
I'm an acquisition officer.
Now I'm still Josh.
So I deeply respect and valuethat.
You were authentic through yourwhole approach and hopefully
you're carrying that on in thecivilian world now.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
I actually was just having a conversation yesterday
with someone who works for meand he literally asked me he
goes were you this way when youwere in the Marine Corps?
Were you like way more intenseand yelling at everybody?
And I was like no, I wasexactly the same Same guy, like
I've been the same this wholetime, and he was kind of
surprised by that.
But it was interestingconversation because his
assumption of course was oh, youmust have been way more intense

(22:23):
or crazy or whatever in theMarine Corps and I was like nah,
I mean I was intense in theaircraft but as far as
interacting with people andleading and doing the same stuff
I do now.
No same approach.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
So kind of continuing through your journey you finish
.
So one thing I've learned andI'm assuming it's true in the
Marine Corps is to be a pilot.
It's like a two-year pipeline.
You go do your basic In theMarine Corps.
Everyone's a soldier first,which I absolutely love, or a
Marine first, so you master thebasic fundamentals.
Then you go to your branch ofchoice, which is aviation.

(22:59):
I think that's like anadditional two years.
So the time you show up you'rea senior first lieutenant
captain, which is awesome, butalso too a little bit like nerve
wracking, right, because youshow up you have two years of
schoolhouse experience.
How did you begin to buildtrust?
And then, like, 9-11 happenedright, and then you had to apply

(23:22):
that to beginning doing combatoperations.
How did you make thattransition?

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, so I would say my timing was either perfect or
terrible, depending on yourperspective.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
So I got to the fleet in December of 2000.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
And at that point I'd been in the Marine Corps for
three and a half years.
You know from going to officercandidate school all the way
through flight school and fleetreplacement squadron to learn
the CH-53, which was theaircraft I flew.
So I walked in the hangar atMiramar for the first time three
and a half years in.
And you're starting over atthat point, because on a fleet
squadron you know, as the newestboot lieutenant you're the

(23:57):
lowest of the low and you haveto earn it.
And I really just did the samething I'd done at the last
couple of stops and put my headdown and work my butt off to
make sure I was always preparedfor my fights.
I was doing the best job I couldin my ground job and really
just trying to earn the trustand respect from the other
Marines in the squadron and notjust the other pilots but the

(24:18):
enlisted Marines who flew withus and worked downstairs in
maintenance and just really theterm we used to use is become a
player in the squadron, andthat's all I wanted.
I just wanted to turn intosomeone who was a player in the
squadron, and so I really workedmy butt off to do that.
And then we went on our firstdeployment that summer of 2001.
9-11 happened during thatdeployment.

(24:39):
We were in Okinawa, japan.
And at that point, I was justgetting my first major
qualification as an aircraftcommander meaning I could sign
for the aircraft.
That's like the first big step,but there's another dozen
qualifications and flightleadership designations you can
attain after that and to be,honest with you, I wanted all of
them.
That was like my goal was to getevery qualification you know to

(25:02):
be someone the squadron couldreally lean on.
And so we came home reset,ended up heading out to Iraq a
few months later, but thankfullyat that point I had just enough
experience to be I kind of callit a mid-level guy in the
squadron.
So I got a ton of experience inthat.
First, you know, the initialinvasion of Iraq and then it
really just snowballed fromthere.

(25:23):
You know we went back to backtwo more times after that, but I
was just immersed in literallydoing the job and you know, for
better or worse, I was gettingto do it in a real environment
with real bad guys and all theother things that come with it.
So the learning curve was steep, but it also helped really
accelerate how proficient I wasable to get in a short period of

(25:47):
time.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, that that's one thing, at least from a maneuver
perspective, like I can quicklyget acclimated to what I need
to do on the ground andunderstand that Cause the basic
fundamentals.
There's only seven battledrills, right, and like all my
organic and indirect firesystems, I don't have to
understand how to use all those.
Like your aircraft, I just needto know the right tools, the

(26:09):
right time to layer the effectsto get the desired end states.
But, like as a pilot I lovethrough your journey, you still
didn't master it all yet, like Ithink, maybe like through your
fourth or fifth deployment Ican't remember exactly when, but
when you did that absolutelycrazy mission yeah, get the
160th there, yeah, which I can'twait to talk about.

(26:29):
Like that's when you said youwere at the top of your game,
but like, hey, backwards,planning off that.
That was how.
How long were you in yourmilitary journey at that point?

Speaker 1 (26:38):
I mean, geez, at that point I was 14 years into my
career, yeah, so I'd been flyingfor over a decade and I and I
knew it.
At that point when I flew thatmission, I was like you just
peaked, like that was everythingyou did up to this point was to
prepare you to do that onething.
It's probably all downhill fromhere, but at least you got to
that place, you know.

(26:58):
And at that point, I'd I'd hadevery qualification there is to
have an aircraft for a few yearsat that point Um, nine years, I
guess, technically.
but it was just getting thereand pulling that off was like
okay, yeah, you really got there.
I mean it was indicative of howmuch work and how much time it
takes to really master something.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, the the another thing that we have in common,
and just hearing your stories,uh, it kind of helped me reflect
on mine.
So after your first deploymentyou get back and then you have
your first, first child.
I'm pretty sure in my battalionI was the first person to come
back and have a child.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
It was a, no one knew it, but it was uh yeah so,
having that um, and then, howchallenging, was it right to
continue to go deploy as afather, um, as a husband, and
happen to say like goodbye tothem and I can't, and if I get
it wrong, I'm sorry, but liketrish, tristan, yeah, it was

(28:02):
extremely challenging and for me, I would say, that's really
where I started to become awareof how complex it is to live
this life where, on the one side, you're a warfighter and the
other side, you're trying to bea good husband and father.
And I still think of it as it'slike living on two different
planets simultaneously and youhave to learn to

(28:25):
compartmentalize your emotionsand several other things.
But it was really tough thatfirst time I left to go on
deployment after she was bornand you know, we had kind of an
interesting introduction toparenthood in that, you know, my
wife had gotten sick andTristan was quite premature.
So she was in the NICU for nineweeks and there was a lot of

(28:46):
call it emotional challengesaround that in of itself.
And we'd only finally gottenher home for a few months when I
got recalled off Christmasleave to go get on the ship and
set sail for Iraq.
So that first one, deployingafter she was born, was the
toughest goodbye of all thegoodbyes.
I mean it never gets easy, butI just conditioned myself to be

(29:07):
better about it.
But I'll also tell you thatdeployment was where I decided
I'm never going to say bye atthe squadron again, I'm just
going to get someone to pick meup at home and give me a ride.
It was just easier to do itthere.
And then by the time you get tothe squadron be in character
and ready to go.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yeah, my uh, second deployment.
I did that.
The first deployment.
They I did the whole thingright, like where the families
came out on the parade field,these buses came and picked us
up and then we go straight tothe airfield to fly.
And man, that was hard, um, Ididn't even have a child yet at
that point.
Like I couldn't imagine doingthat again with, like my son and

(29:45):
daughter.
Like I'm a cry baby as it is,so I don't want to cry in front
of my men, right.
So like that's that'schallenging.
And you you mentioned somethingthere, cause I, I understand
that you have to be twodifferent people is like hey,
when you're at home, you're afather, you're a husband, you're
Isaac, right, but when you'redeployed, you're Whiskey.

(30:06):
And how did you do that?
How did you try to separatethose two worlds?
Because you had to be thatperson to save lives.
I did.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
I got very good at compartmentalizing it.
I would say I got so good at itthat it was challenging for me
later in life to try to putthose two things back together
and just be quote unquote normalagain.
But I got very adept at it.
I mean, I think I've talkedabout it in the book too.
It was when I went toAfghanistan in 2011 for a combat

(30:37):
deployment as a major.
I was the detachment officer incharge.
We had two kids at that pointand I remember I was very aware
of everything that was happening.
I'd done it, you know, severaltimes before I understood the
stakes, but I just rememberthinking walking out of the
house.
You know, it's such a bizarrething to walk out of your own
home with your wife and kids andjust know and accept and

(30:57):
acknowledge like I may never seethis place or them ever again.
And by the time I get to thesquadron in about 20 minutes.
I have to be totally okay withthat.
And when the Marines look at me, they need to see nothing.
But hey, we're super confidentand we're ready to go and we're
going to go crush thisdeployment and I used to call it
getting into character.
So 20 minutes or so, to getmyself fully into character.

(31:20):
So when you walk into thehangar, you are the most
confident guy in the room andeveryone else is going to take
their cues off of you.
Right, it's a lot ofresponsibility.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
I been like a.
I took my platoon over my firstdeployment in the middle of
fighting season at Afghanistanand I had my sergeant major on
at the time, my platoon sergeantDerek Kearns, and it's funny
like reflecting on that, but youand I shared that same thing.
Is that like hey, like I callit peacocking, like I'm going
everywhere and I'm trying to bethat guy, unafraid of making

(31:55):
decisions and then being out inthe front, putting myself in
those more tough situationsbecause, like, my life is just
as equal as anyone else on myteam.
But it took me a long time.
You did it way better than Idid, but to separate those two
worlds went all the way throughmy company command time.
Sometimes my wife would remindme that I was not her soldier

(32:17):
and that was challenging.
Honestly, it was very hard forme to separate those two.
So kudos for you to be able tofigure that out to be present.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
It's not a switch.
You can flip per se and once Iwas there it was very difficult
for me to to come back andreally reconnect and be present
in a normal way.
And I wasn't anyone that wouldcome home and be like angry or
act crazy or anything like that.
It was just really hard for meto totally get there on an
emotional level.
I mean I could talk, I couldinteract, I can do things, help
around the house, all the normalstuff, but that connection was

(33:04):
challenging.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Yeah, I noticed that too.
Is that, like, at a certainpoint, like things that my, my,
here's a like a more vulnerablestories Like my grandmother died
, like when I got back from Iraq, and like the whole family's
devastated?
She was like a mother to me, um, and I'm there at the funeral
and I like I'm sad, right, butlike I didn't have the same like
visceral emotional response aseveryone else did around me,

(33:28):
because, like at that point,like hey, I'm comfortable with
death, like I knew that, likewhat I was doing may die.
And my, my wife was like hey,are you, are you okay?
And then I finally got home andyou know, like all the emotions
like hit me.
But I realized, like at thatpoint, like hey, am I crazy or
or has something like happenedwithin me?
And then I realized like hey,I'm definitely suppressing some

(33:50):
stuff because I think I have to,just based on the nature of my
job.
Yeah, of course it definitelyhas an effect and it's a
challenging one to unpack later,for sure.
Yeah, so kind of continuingthrough your book.
You had one quote in there thatI loved and it kind of follows
that keep it simple, stupid.
If you get excited, you getdead.
Could you walk me through thatphrase, man?

Speaker 1 (34:13):
yeah, absolutely.
Um, so really where that thatcomes from is we would talk
about a lot in aviation that andit really goes all the way back
to boyd and the OODA loop.
You know, observe, orient,decide, act.
And the Marine Corps teachesthat to young lieutenants right
out of the gate, with the wholepremise being you know, really
just at the end of the day, makea decision.

(34:34):
You know, don't, don't sit onthis, make a decision.
But in aviation that happens athyperspeed and you just don't

(34:56):
have a lot of time sometimes toreally make a decision on what
you're going to do.
The was and I would say, if youget excited, you get dead
Meaning as soon as you letyourself get emotional in that
situation.
It clouds your thought process,it slows it down, it just
delays you making a decision anddefinitely delays you making a
good decision.

(35:16):
So learning to control youremotions, stay calm, stay cool,
is extremely helpful and, Iwould argue, necessary in that
environment.
Just to maintain that and I'mthat way to this day, to a point
that it frankly annoys people.
Sometimes, you know, I'll be insome situation, even to this
day at work, and people will getextremely stressed out and

(35:36):
someone will look at me and belike, what's wrong with you?
Like how come you're not likemad or upset or stressed out?
I'm like, well, is that goingto help?
Anything Like like, in order tosolve this problem, we're going
to have to make some decisions,and to make good decisions, we
need to be calm and thinkthrough it as quickly as
possible, then decide and thenwe'll take care of it We'll
figure it out.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
I love that kind of framework and that took me a
while again.
Like coming straight out ofranger school going and being a
rifle platoon leader, like Iwould get switched on and once I
was switched on, sometimes Idid not think through problem
sets because I was veryemotional at that time.
But, like, as I continue togain some more wisdom and my

(36:18):
NCOs I gravitate towards, theykind of pushed me into like that
tactical pause space and that'swhat I quickly learned.
And like even during afirefights we would have a
firefight.
I initially you know there'ssomething was going to happen.
You do a recon by fire just tosee like all right, are there
actually people out there thatare trying to like kill us right
now?
And then in those engagements Ifind myself even like slowing

(36:40):
down and it's like almost like aSpider-Man in a way of like all
right, what is in front of meand what are the tools that I
have to quickly neutralize thatthreat.
But there's a science to that,because you have to think
through that problem set quicklyand then you have to act
quickly and I've seen that withlike tier one guys and aviators.

(37:01):
You both share that like hey,they go enter and clear a room.
There's nothing like fancyabout that, it's just a basic
battle drill.
But the speed and frequency ofwhich they do that is
world-class, second to none.
If you're in that room and youhave a weapon, you're a bad guy.
You're going to die in the nextthree seconds, like it's going
to happen.
But they think through all ofthat because of the repetitions

(37:22):
that they go with and that's abeautiful tool, that OODA loop.
I always kind of find myselfgoing back to that.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, and I always felt like, when it's happening,
my perception was things werehappening in slow motion, and
that's when I knew I was exactlyin the right place mentally,
because it felt like youactually had more time than you
did.
Time slows down a little bit,but it's just because you're
seeing and processing everythingclearly, with no emotional bias
that's tilting you in anydirection while you're doing it.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Yeah, that's the craziest thing is like thinking
about like some of the moststressful times in your life
Time actually slowed down, butit's funny when you reflect on
that.
Yeah, absolutely so kind ofcontinuing.
You are very good at acceptingrisk and in managing risk, so
walk me through that mindset.

(38:12):
How did you do that?

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Honestly, I think that's something that I was just
for the most part born with anddidn't totally realize it until
I was in the Marine Corps.
But once I realized it, then alot of other things started to
make sense and, to be totallyhonest with you, it wasn't until
later in my career that I evenstarted to realize it totally.
So I'll give you a very shortversion.

(38:37):
But when I was a captain and Idid three combat deployments to
Iraq in a row essentially threein three years and I started to
acknowledge just to myself earlythat I liked it, like it was
exciting I was, I was enjoyingit and I felt like I might be a
little bit crazy because Ishouldn't be enjoying this.
But as I continued to dodeployment number two,

(38:59):
deployment number three, itbecame more obvious to me that I
really did enjoy it.
I was liking it, I was thrivingin that environment and I was
still kind of struggling withthat Like, is this normal?
Should I be doing this?
And by the time I was on thatthird deployment, a couple of
people that I flew with, acouple other Marines, pointed
out to me like hey, what'swhat's wrong with you?
Like you should have been, youknow, nervous back there me like

(39:21):
, hey, what's what's wrong withyou?
Like you should have been, youknow, nervous back there I was
scared.
Why weren't you scared?
And I didn't think a whole lotof it and I was thinking of it
still in very conventional termslike, well, I have more
experience.
But then later, a few yearslater, my major go to
Afghanistan.
And I became very aware of it onthat deployment, like, hey, I'm
really really enjoying this.
I would probably stay hereforever if they would let me and

(39:43):
just keep flying these crazymissions.
But I was very the logical sideof my brain knew like that's
probably not good, like youmight need to look into this a
little bit.
And so then, a couple yearslater, as I, as I was getting
into command, I just starteddoing my own amateur research
into this.
You know, like what?
What is?
What is risk acceptance, orcall it risk addiction?

(40:05):
Um, and I had a flight surgeon,thankfully, who was working for
me at the time great guy, and hewas pretty senior as a flight
surgeon, which is unusual for asquadron level, but he had a lot
of knowledge about this and heand I had lengthy conversations
about it and I came tounderstand pretty well at that
point that you know, there'sjust this small subset of people

(40:26):
that gravitate towards theseprofessions and in some cases
will thrive in those professions, just because they are so
comfortable with risk, and notonly comfortable with it, they,
they enjoy it.
And once I really understoodthat about myself, it was like
so many things made sense thathadn't made sense before.
Go all the way back to when Iwas a kid and would do something

(40:48):
that was a little outside thebox to get myself hemmed up and
in some trouble with my dad, andat the time you know he'd be
like why did you do that?
And my answer is I don't know.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
But once I understood all this.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
it was like, oh, I know now, Like that was even as
a kid.
Your subconscious was justgravitating towards where's the
line and how close can I get toit before I, like get in trouble
or get burned or whatever it is?
And I realized at that pointthat I'd always had a propensity
for that and it just reallycame out.
And so I was.
I was in a Marine Corps and inan environment where, frankly,

(41:20):
you get rewarded for that and soit's encouraged to a degree and
it really just grew from there.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Yeah, I think it all culminated for you on that one
mission of where you had to gosupport.
I think it was in Afghanistan,right.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yep, yeah, 2011.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
port, I think was it in um it was in afghanistan
right yep yeah, 2011 the 160th.
They they wreck one of their um.
I think it was like a 47variant I believe so, and that's
similar to what you flew.
I'm not familiar with the the53, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
So ch-53 echo similar mission profile assault support
aircraft, large but just alittle bit stronger than a ch-47
.
So once that aircraft went down, a ch-47 can't self-recover, I
mean you can't.
You can't externally lift a 47with another 47, but a 53 can.
So the army reached out to themarine corps for an assist

(42:18):
mission, ended up getting handedto our squadron.
At the time I was theoperations officer.
I just happened to be notflying that night and I was on
what we called the morning shift.
We'd come in around, you know 10o'clock at night, fly all night
till sunrise, and that'susually when all the we call
them, you know the, the namedops and the cool stuff happened.
So we started planning the, themission to go do a tactical

(42:39):
recovery of aircraft andpersonnel, and it just really
snowballed from there and wedidn't even realize initially
that it was a 160th aircraft.
But once we did, then I waslike okay, this is a big deal.
We need to get this right, ifwe're going to do it.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
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That's where I would reallylove to like deep, dive into,
like everything you've done upto that point, like we talked
about it before, like where youpeaked, but you had to

(43:56):
understand your system at such aprecise level and then, when
you were flying it, you evenmentioned that you had an
epiphany, like some of yourcalculations were wrong.
It was like your aircraft couldactually go above peak
performance for a short periodof time.
Like I was reading that, I waslike I, I kudos to you.
I don't know how you did that.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, there's definitely some pilot nerdery in
that story, but it was it wasreally like how do we get the
absolute max out of our machine,out of our aircraft, in order
to execute this mission?
And there were several, severalMarines in our squadron for the
most part, most of the squadronthat had some hand to play in
that.
But it really started with abasic math problem and I ran

(44:35):
across to our maintenancecontrol tent.
He has awesome maintenancecontrol chief in there, jakeake
jake lewis, and I just said, hey, jake, here's the basics.
Do you think you can get 5 000pounds off one of our aircraft?
So I can do this.
And he's like, let me take alook.
Then, like five minutes later,he was back in the office and
he's like, yeah, we can do it,you just have to be comfortable

(44:55):
going with no armor, no guns.
Like he was just giving me thelist of all the stuff he was
going to strip off and I waslike, okay, that makes sense.
Thank you like, let's try it.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
And then we went from there it was.
It was wild that I'm that'spretty impressive like just
being within po aviation.
I've been around aviation for alittle bit combat arms,
understanding some of thosesling load missions that we've
done, and hearing you operate atsuch a high level altitude and
then be successful.
It's funny how good workdoesn't go unpunished.

(45:28):
That then opened up yourorganization to support more of
the SOCOM side of the house.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
It did.
It really snowballed.
We were successful on thatmission, which was awesome.
It was a huge win for thesquadron.
I personally definitely peakedthat day, but it really did open
up the floodgates because atthat point we we earned, if you
will, a reputation in country asbeing a viable option, and the
160th always got more requeststhan they could fill, so we

(45:55):
basically they're called theoverflow, started coming to to
us and so we got to really do alot of really neat and fun
missions throughout the rest ofthat deployment.
It was a wild one, definitelythe wildest I've ever
experienced.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
You know, kind of like thinking through your book
that you wrote too.
I love how you didn't shy awayfrom the language that you used.
In my opinion, when peoplewrite books, they definitely put
a filter on things and I don'tfeel it's like they're true
selves, but like when I firstchapter end, you're cussing as
much as I typically do on a dayand I was like I love this.

(46:30):
So what made what was thatdecision for you to kind of like
stay true, to like who you wereand the men that you led when
you were writing the book?

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Well, you know, deciding to write the book was a
very deliberate decision that Imade over time, but, at the end
of the day, what had happenedis I'd kept a journal the whole
time I was in the Marine Corps,so I had, you know, hundreds of
pages of the stuff I'd writtendown over the years and it was
just sitting there on mycomputer.
You know, I transitioned out in2017 and was really moving

(46:59):
forward, you know, into the nextphase of life, but what
happened was in 2021, I startedreally thinking about it because
I kept hearing more and moreabout guys that were in my peer
group that were having differentissues, challenges.
You know everyone's havingmarriage problems, substance
abuse problems.
Guys were having a hard timegetting jobs, holding jobs, and
I knew what was what was wrong,and so I was trying to just

(47:20):
reach out individually to peopleas a friend, you know, to offer
what advice I could, you know,to try to help.
But I ultimately came to theconclusion that if I wrote this
in a really brutally honest way,just sharing that story, might
be helpful to people.
When I sat down to do it, Icommitted to that to tell this

(47:41):
story in the language of theMarine Corps who is as brutally
accurate as possible.
So the language can't bemassaged and I also stayed true
to this throughout in sharingthe perspective that I had at
the time and place in that story, even if I now know that
perspective was wrong.
So there's certainly a fewpoints in the book where I'm

(48:02):
sharing my perspective onsomething and today Isaac is
looking at it going like, oh myGod, you're so screwed up on
that one, or or you're way outof the box.
You're lucky you didn't gethammered like big time for that.
But I just felt like it wasimportant to to really share
that whole arc so you could see.
You know, how did this persongo from being a young, motivated

(48:24):
Lieutenant to this smart asscaptain he thinks he knows
everything you know, cause he'sbeen to combat a few times to a
major that hates himself, causehe's a major to oh damn, I'm a
seal of the squatter.
Now, like this is crazy, right,like it, take you on that whole
ride with me and then end up onthe at the end where you're like
, okay, all that actuallyhappened, like am I crazy, like

(48:45):
was that real and it was just?

Speaker 3 (48:47):
it was just a wild ride there's, uh, I think, a
good question to follow up with.
That is like how did you getyour nickname whiskey?
Oh yeah, that's, it's in there.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
But uh, at the very end of of OIF one, we had what's
called a beer day on the ship.
Everyone's supposed to get twobeers and it was the day that
President Bush had landed on thecarrier, declared victory and
all that Right.
So it's like we won the warparty.
Little did we know it was juststarting, but everyone had a
couple of beers and you know itwas not uncommon on the ship for

(49:19):
guys to have secret stashes andthey'll start slowly coming out
.
I just happened to be one ofthe fortunate ones me and one of
my roommates who got caughtwith our secret stash which
ultimately led to me getting thecall sign whiskey, which I
never complained about.
Like it's uncommon to get a callsign that isn't just like

(49:39):
horribly, like sounds terribleand make you sound like a total
idiot.
So I was like, hey, if thedumbest thing I did, the marine
corps got me a cool call, so Idon't take it.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
So yeah, they're forward you definitely have a
great call sign.
Hearing some of my peers, someof the call signs they have, I
can't necessarily say uh on thispodcast, yeah, yeah, you, you,
um, it's funny too because itkind of goes back to that level
of uh, you, so you're a westcoast marine yeah, and then east
coast marines of like,accepting risk, being okay with

(50:11):
like, living in the moment,making the best decision
possible, one of yourdeployments before you took
command.
This stuck out to me is thatthis was a hodgepodge command of
like where you didn't think youhad to go deploy leadership's
like hey, um isaac's the rightperson for this.
We need him in there.
You had to take marines fromthe east coast and you had to
put them with marines from thewest coast.

(50:32):
I know a little bit about this.
Just working with organizationsin the past is like it's two
cultures same organization buttwo different cultures.
How did you bring those twotogether for a successful
deployment?

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Yeah, that is it's a great point and I was very
honest about that in the bookfor that reason, because I felt
like it's it's almost like acase study and what happens when
you take these twoorganizations with totally
different cultures and try tomash them together.
So, needless to say, in thevery early stages it was
extremely difficult and the wayit was set up was they brought

(51:09):
the flag, so their commandingofficer, Lieutenant Colonel, was
in charge.
And he's a great guy, but he isdefinitely East Coast Marine and
East Coast culture and I wasthe senior person from the West
Coast at the time as a major wasgoing to be the operations
officer for the combinedsquadron and have just a totally
different person right,different demeanor, different
way of going about things.

(51:30):
And just the stereotypes areoften based on things that are
true.
You know, east Coast Marinesjust tend to be a little more
formal.
West Coast Marines are a littlemore laid back on some things,
but at the end of the day we'reall trying to execute the same
thing, we're all proficient inthe same things.
But it really there was a lotof head-butting right up until
we did that big trap mission,and I really think that that was

(51:53):
the thing that kind of made itall click, because at that point
we did something together thatwas so much bigger than any of
us that then everyone was justalmost like overnight, okay with
each other and then it workedfrom there.
But you could call it sharedadversity, you could call it a
giant success, whatever, butthat one big win that we went

(52:14):
through.
From that point forwardeverything worked well.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Yeah, there was another point, too, that you had
in your book that I resonatedwith is that some of the best
soldiers and the best Marinesdeployed are not necessarily the
best soldiers or Marines in agarrison environment because,
they gravitate towards morerisky behavior.
I'll keep his name out, uh, butone of the best soldiers I've
ever had while deployed, I lovedhim.
Um, he, in my eyes he could dono wrong wrong.

(52:40):
But when we would get back, thedude was so talented.
He was making catapults likelegitimate catapults.
While we were at m4 ranges andm5 ranges, I find this dude in
the woods like what are youdoing?
It's like, oh, I just made thiscatapult.
Like that's badass, but we needto go do this right now.
Um, could you, could you walkme through your experience there
of, uh, how you distinguishthat?

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, well, it was just an observation that I had,
and as I became more senior inthe Marine Corps I was just
probably privy to more of it, soI was seeing more of what was
happening.
You know, once I was a majorand above like, with Marines
getting in trouble, and thecommon thread that I just really
started to pick up on was itwas it was our best Marines that
were the most prone to gettinginto some kind of situation on

(53:22):
the weekend on liberty, you know, and it didn't take me long to
the then it just seemed all of asudden so obvious like, well,
of course the guys that are thebest on the darkest night in
afghanistan are a little moreprone to get into a bar fight on
friday night than the otherguys.
And like, it's not rocketscience, right, and and that
really ties back into that riskdiscussion we were having

(53:43):
earlier.
So those people who are wiredthat way me being one of them
you know, sometimes you'll justsubconsciously gravitate towards
something that's risky, or atleast more so than the average
person, and that's not alwaysgood.
You can get yourself into ascrape here and there, and and
the marine corps, to no fault ofits own, really just came a

(54:04):
little more formal over time asI was growing up in the Marine
Corps.
Like you know, I think, when Iwas a young captain I'd never
even heard the termalcohol-related incident.
By the time I was a major, Iwas hearing it weekly.
So there were more rules, morerestrictions.
We were more concerned, if, ifyou will, about being on the up
and up and behaving and nothaving a reputation for just

(54:25):
being these.
You know wild men that were outterrorizing san diego on the
weekends if we weren't deployedand uh.
So there was just more focus onthat and as it became more
focused and more rules andthings got more stringent, more
marines were getting in trouble,but it was often our best, best
Marines.
But I realized that was the link, and so I actually put that

(54:45):
together and gave it as a classto my Marines when I was a
commanding officer of a squadron.
I was like, hey, let me putthis puzzle together for you so
you can see how this happens andwhy.
And I have Marines to this daythat reach out to me and say I
still remember that class yougave us when we got to Okinawa
so we wouldn't get in trouble.
That was awesome.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
It all made sense after that the guest speaker at
Marshall university pulled measide and say, hey, josh, you're
going to be combat arms, and hedidn't explain the why.
But he's like hey, try not tohave downtime, make sure you're

(55:26):
always training and do stuff.
You'll thank me later.
And I was like at the time Iwas like I want my guys to have
downtime, right, like I wantthem to have that space.
And then I quickly learned thatthey will fill the void with
shenanigans and then you as thecommander have to deal with
those shenanigans.
So that's, that's hilarious,that, uh, you experienced that
like within your journey, sokind of continuing right.

(55:49):
Um, you get to the tail end ofyour, your, your marine corps
journey.
You get to take over a company.
I can't remember the name ofthe company, but I I know the
nickname was the Screw.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
Crew, the Screw Crew.
Yeah, HFH 462.
So technical callsign for thesquadron is the Headie Haulers,
but the unofficial nickname wasScrew Crew, which dates back to
Vietnam era.
On the way home they got stuckin Okinawa for an extended
period of time and supposedlythat's where it came from.
But it was a great squadron tohave the opportunity to take

(56:21):
command of and that was reallythe most rewarding tour I had.
the entire time I'm in theMarine Corps which I'm sure most
people say about 05 Command, orI hope they say about 05
Command and all branches of theservice but truly an honor to
have an opportunity to work withthose Marines in that unit.
It was, it was great.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yeah, that that was, um, I think, a fitting into your
, your journey.
Uh, seven combat deployments,which is pretty incredible.
Like I feel like a baby.
I've only done two, uh luck andtiming, right, like, or bad
luck and timing, whatever you,however, you want to see it, but
one, and like that's where Ikind of want to focus now on

(57:10):
once you made that cognitivedecision to get out what were
some of the challenges that youpersonally faced?

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Yeah, transition is challenging and, honestly, we
talked about it briefly beforethe show started, but I ended
the book there on purpose,because to me I feel like I'm
still in transition to somedegree, even though it's been
eight years, and I don't knowthat I'll ever not feel like
that.

(57:37):
But it's definitely been a, forme, overall, a very good
experience and continues to be agood experience, but also a bit
of a journey, and it's it makesa lot of sense to me why so
many people struggle with it,because it is so different, you
know, and initially I was justfocused on the basics, like,
okay, I need to make a certainamount of money as a living to
make all this work and take careof the family and do all the
things I'm supposed to be doingas a husband and father, and so

(58:00):
I've always been a nerd and youknow someone who's willing to
put in the work, so that lastyear I was in the Marine Corps.
I was just networking like amaniac and looking at what I
wanted to do.
I was just networking like amaniac and looking at what I
wanted to do.
And for me personally, you know,there's some fairly
predetermined paths I could havetaken.
There's a very set path foreven rotary wing aviators to
become airline pilots, obviouslya very clear path to Department

(58:29):
of Defense you know relatedjobs with.
You know pick your DOD relatedcontracting company.
But I had enjoyed theleadership aspect of my military
career so much in the MarineCorps that that's the thing I
felt like I wanted to do in thecivilian world.
And, to be honest, I kind ofhad this huge question to myself
was are the same things I didto be an effective leader in the
military?
Will they work outside the gatewith these regular everyday

(58:52):
people?
And because of that Igravitated towards wanting to
get into the operations lane ofbusiness, which is really people
in process, and so I looked atthat, I started networking that
way and then I came to thisconclusion one day and I tell
people this all the time whenthey reach out to me to talk
about transition One day Irealized I was looking for a

(59:14):
situation, not a job, and assoon as that happened everything
got easier.
And to me the situation wasoperations, preferably director,
above in a small tomedium-sized company that's
trying to grow, preferably.
That has a lot of issues andthe reason I landed on that was
because I felt like in thatspecific scenario, I would be

(59:36):
able to make an immediate impactwith the things I just knew the
leadership piece, the peoplestuff, while learning the
business, and that was.
It was literally just like atheory that I'd come up with,
and I will tell you thateveryone I shared that with told
me I was crazy and it doesn'twork that way.
It wasn't going to work.
But I've always been someonewho's motivated by that exact

(59:58):
thing.
You know, the same thing hadhappened to me years earlier.
When I started to tell peopleI'm going to go on the Marine
Corps and be a pilot, they werelike, yeah, right, you know so.
So it was.
I'd been through this before,but ultimately networked my way
into that and ended up landing afirst job as a chief operating
officer of a small manufacturingcompany that had plants in
three states and a lot ofchallenges and it honestly it

(01:00:21):
worked out the way I thought itmight.
I was able to really make apositive impact on the people
out of the gate.
You know, I did all thehomework I needed to do to learn
the business if, if you will,as quickly as possible, to start
making a good, positive impacton the balance sheet, and it
just all came together andworked.
And so I did that greatlearning experience and then

(01:00:43):
parlayed that into started mylittle consulting company, with
my idea being that I was justgoing to go around and help a
bunch of small companies youknow, do that, do that here in
San Diego.
And then I hadn't been doingthat for very long when I did a
project for a local entrepreneurwho owns a little chain of
retail stores.
Ended up you know, coming backto him with like hey, here's

(01:01:05):
everything I think you should do, and he just flipped it back on
me.
He's like well, great, whydon't you work here and do it?

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
and so I've been working for him for several
years now, yeah, but it's been agreat, a great ride.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
You know, we've we've taken the company more than
twice the size it was when Istarted.
We'll probably double it onemore time.
But my focus to this day is thesame stuff I was doing in the
marine corps.
You know, I've got a team ofabout 500 people in the
organization that roll up to meone way or another.
I tell my Marine Corps friends,like what are you doing?
And I'm like it's kind of likebeing the OPSO, the XO and the

(01:01:38):
AMO all rolled into one job as achief operating officer.
But I really enjoy it and stillto me it's all about the people
.
So, professionally, that piecehas been good.
Professionally, that piece hasbeen good.
I'll also say and share from avery real place that the
smartest thing I did, though,when I was transitioning was, as
I was starting to do all thatthe year before I separated, I

(01:02:00):
also started going to counseling, and I did that.
At the time, I felt like whatwas fine to me, like what I'd
know or come to know, is fine,like it was my normal, but I
just wanted to make sure that Iwasn't going to put myself in a
situation where you know, it allcaught up to me, so to speak, a
few years later.
And then I go off the rails andeveryone's like what happened to

(01:02:21):
that guy?

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
you know, he seemed like he had it together.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
It was it was a very preemptive decision for me, but
you know I continue to do thatto this day, just because I'm
introspective and I likelearning and I've learned a ton
and that has really helped me alot in this next phase of life
and trying to be the bestversion of myself, not only
professionally, but personally.
It's been good, so I'm thankfulthat I did that as well yeah, I

(01:02:46):
think leadership is a journey.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
It always starts with ourselves and then it bleeds
into every other aspect of ourlives and I genuinely believe
that veterans, regardless ofbranch, make a bigger impact
outside of the uniform than theydid in.
You make a lot of goodconnections, but you have those
same connections when you getout.
You can help them just as muchas you could when you get in,

(01:03:09):
but you are making an actualdifference and a change in the
civilian world, and your book, Ithink, is a testament to that.
So this is a great follow-upquestion what's next for you?
When's that next book comingout?

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
That's a great question.
I've got a couple of things inthe hopper as far as writing
another one goes, but I'm stillsort of on the ride for lack of
a better way to put it in thisnext phase of transition.
Uh, so there, there's a fewmore things I want to experience
before I make a final decisionand say go this way and write
another one.

(01:03:42):
You know the the basic idea Ihave is there's a lot of books
out there that are specificallyabout transition and related to
to employment.
Uh, but I like the idea ofwriting something that's more
about transitioning as a humanbeing.
How do you go from this placewhere you're this warfighter guy
that functions this one wayinto being someone who, say, is

(01:04:03):
maybe a little bit more amicableversion of yourself?
that can interface witheverybody on a day-to-day basis
in a way that's hopefullypositive and making a positive
impact on people and thecommunity.
So I'm working through anothercouple of programs on a personal
level that I want to get alittle more info on and get a
little further down the road,and I think I'll really start

(01:04:26):
that in earnest.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Yeah, I'm excited to see the journey man.
Like I, really and I genuinelymean this I loved your book, Um,
cause it helped me reflect onmy journey.
Um, just the way you wrote it.
It's authentic.
I could tell it came from theheart.
Um, it wasn't just about likewriting a book to get your name
out there.
Like you did it from the rightplace to help those that you
served with, and I always findvalue in authenticity.

(01:04:50):
So thanks for just taking thetime and putting all your
collective thoughts over your Idon't know how long you were in
over 20 years.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Yeah, just over 20 years yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Yeah, yeah it's.
It's tough to fit all of thatin a book, but you, you
beautifully executed that.
Um so great job, brother.
Yeah, Thank you very much.
I appreciate that so great job,brother.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Yeah, thank you very much, I appreciate that it's
time for our final show segmentthat I like to call the killer
bees.
These are the same fourquestions that I ask every guest
on the Tales of Leadershippodcast Be brief, be brilliant,
be present and be gone.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Question one what do?

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
you believe separates a good leader from an
extraordinary leader.
I think to expand on somethingI said earlier.
But it's really just learningto be yourself.
And the way I articulate thisto other leaders is you know, no
offense, but it's not about youever.
It's about the team and it'sabout earning their trust and
respect.
And the way you do that, in myopinion, is there's three main

(01:05:53):
things.
You know.
You've got to be at leastsomewhat competent and know what
you're doing.
Um, you've got to demonstratethat you genuinely care about
them.
And then you also have to havesome level of confidence.
No one's going to followanybody who's not confident.
But if you do those thingsright and you do those three
things, three things well, youcan earn that trust and respect.
And it won't happen overnight.

(01:06:14):
It takes time and it reallynever ends like you have to just
keep doing it and be consistentand show up every day and be
that person.
But if you do that in the rightway, it'll really get you back
to you know, go back to highschool with maslow's hierarchy
of needs.
What you're looking at istrying to get to that third
level where you're affectingthem in a positive way and that
love and belonging level of thehierarchy of needs.

(01:06:37):
Because once you do that andthey feel like genuinely cared
for and that they belong, youjust get a whole level, a
different level of output frompeople, and the organization
does better, the individuals dobetter.
So I think that's the mostimportant thing Be yourself and
approach it in that way, and youand the organization should be
successful.

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
Yeah, that's a great answer.
Knocked it out of the park.
Number two what is onerecommendation for a source that
someone can use on theirleadership journey, that they
can use today to be a betterleader?

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
I would say so as someone who has absolutely
learned way more from doing thanfrom reading or studying.
I would really kind of go backto you know the Malcolm Gladwell
outliers book.
You know, practice anything for10,000 hours to become an
expert.
So I would really say, just getout there and do it, you know,
find a way whether you have tovolunteer or coach a little

(01:07:28):
league team or whatever but justbe leading, be responsible for
people, because literallypracticing and doing it every
day is the best way to get goodat it.
You know there's no one way tolead, or there wouldn't be such
a giant section of leadershipbooks at every bookstore on the
planet.
There's a bajillion opinions onhow to go about this.

(01:07:49):
So, you know, take the onesthat resonate the most with you
and then get out there andpractice, and that's something I
think that's very valuable, andthere's ways for anyone to be
able to do that if they justseek those opportunities and
take advantage of them.

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
What was the name of that book?
I'm going to write that down.
I haven't read that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
Yeah, and the whole premise ispractice anything for 10,000
hours to become an expert.
But then there's a bunch ofstories in there.
It's interesting.
Yeah, I love that man.

(01:08:27):
All right.
So third question if you couldgo back in time and give your
younger self a piece of advice,what would it be and why I would
say I should have been a betterfollower.
As a young officer, you know, mynatural tendency was to be a
little too much of a contrarianat times and more often than not
it was coming from a genuineplace, it was a good place and a
lot of times I still think Iwas right.
But I didn't always go aboutthat the best way.

(01:08:47):
Sometimes I was probably alittle more outspoken than I
should have been and probably alittle bit too much of a pain in
the butt.
But the good part about that Iwould say that I learned from is
later in my career I too hadcompany grade officers like that
and I was able to connect andidentify with them.
And then later kind of pull themto the side and be like hey,
man, I used to be you.

(01:09:09):
But here's kind of what Ilearned in doing that.
Here's a slightly better way toapproach it.
So I tried to at least learnfrom that and pay it forward to
them in some way.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
That's awesome.
So the final question where canour listeners find you and add
value to what you're doing rightnow?
Oh, yeah, thank you for that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Well, I'm pretty prevalent on social media.
Obviously.
I have a website that I puttogether for the book that's
IsaacGLeecom.
Also pretty easy to find onInstagram Isaac G Lee Writer.
Facebook is Isaac G Lee, andLinkedIn as well.
I'm the only Isaac Lee, or Ithink I'm the only Isaac Lee in
San Diego on there, so I'mpretty easy to dig up on

(01:09:47):
LinkedIn.
But, yeah, please reach outanytime.
I always love havingconversations with people about
you know whether it's time inthe military or leadership or
the business world.
Now, I enjoy connecting withpeople and anything I can do to
help them, and generally we'lltry to do as well.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
Yeah, I think this has been a great opportunity
just to connect.
Read through your book, I feellike I knew you before you even
came on the show, all thatyou've done for our country in
the past and what you'recontinuing to do.
Just thank you for being what Ilike to call a purposeful,
accountable leader.
Just keep crushing it and Ican't wait for that.
Next chapter, next book.
I'll read it.
We'll do a round two.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
Sounds great.
Thank you so much for having meon and thanks for mentioning
the book and hanger for it.
It's been a great experiencebeing able to share that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Yeah, awesome, brother, have a great day.
Hey, thank you, take care.
All right, team time for ourafter action review.
What are the top threetakeaways that I took from this
episode?
I'm going to try to make thesequicker than I normally do, just
because I don't want you tohave to listen to an hour and a
half or two hour podcast.

(01:10:54):
The first one is we both sharethis.
How can we translate things thatare overly complicated and
simplify them?
So I always think through thelens of KISS keep it simple,
stupid.
It's a framework.
Take something that's extremelycomplicated and then how can we
distill it down to the basicfacts and then communicate that

(01:11:18):
to anyone, regardless of theireducational background?
This is one thing that alwaysfrustrates me with collegiate
writing.
If you read a scholarly article, man, when I'm reading through
that, I don't retain any of itbecause it's overly complicated
and it's jargon and it'slanguage, which is great if
that's where you come from, butat the end of the day, the real

(01:11:39):
world doesn't operate like that.
If you're a leader, you're apurposeful, accountable leader.
Right, you have to be able toarticulate both orally and in a
written form, because that's atthe essence of what a leader
does.
They communicate the vision.
They help execute the vision.
And if you can't translateoverly complicated things into a

(01:12:01):
simple manner, you're going tostruggle at the aspect.
So just remember that acronym,kiss.
Keep it simple, stupid, andalways try to get down to the
root and communicate that in aclear manner that anyone can
take and then move out.
Number two is gravitate towardspeople of influence and wisdom.
Isaac and I share this.
When I started off in my career, I was blessed with an

(01:12:26):
opportunity to have an amazinginstructor Ibolik opportunity to
have an amazing instructors IBullock.
Some of those instructors werealso in my first operational
command at a four to three, theTomahawks, and I had a group of
phenomenal NCOs and I alwaysgravitated and I continue to
this day to gravitate towardspeople who have influence,

(01:12:48):
authority and respect.
Not because I'm trying to gainthe ladder, I want to quickly
learn, as fast as possible.
So you think about how can youshorten that learning curve, how
can you become a professionalas quickly as possible within an
organization that you're goingto?
Well, the way to do that is toclose the distance and find
those people who have influenceand respect and authority and
just be a sponge, just likeIsaac said, and if you can do

(01:13:12):
that, you'll shorten thatlearning curve and then you'll
be able to make an impact fasterwithin the organization.
And I think none is better thanthe last job I just left.
I had one year to make a bigimpact.
So how do I did that?
I had to go, get out as oftenas possible and pick the brain
of people who were influentialin that space, and I think I did

(01:13:32):
a decent job.
And then the final one is beyourself.
I love this one becauseleadership is all about
authenticity.
Like I said in this show, thereare millions of freaking
leadership books out there.
All of them will tell you thisis the way to lead.
This is the way to lead.

(01:13:53):
Well, here's the secret aboutleadership.
There's not a formula, there'snot a clear example of a way to
lead.
That's because there's a,because there's an art and a
science to it.
All you can do is be yourself.
And I remember transitioningfrom a rifle company command to
an HHC company command and allthe things I wanted to do.

(01:14:15):
And everyone was telling me hey, hhc company command is like
you're basically just herdingcats, you don't need to do all
that.
Well, I didn't listen.
I went in there and I wasmyself.
I embraced FRG, I tried to doall of these things and I think
at the end of the day, that'swhy I was successful and I
continue that and likeregardless if I'm in working
with civilians, I may or may notwear my berserker hat while I'm

(01:14:39):
in my office, and I may or maynot listen to Viking metal or
pirate metal.
And if you don't know what thatis, I just introduced you to a
new genre.
You need to go listen to itbecause it's awesome.
But the key there is just beconsistent in who you are,
because if you're showing up assomeone else that's not
authentic.
Your people will know that andthey'll quickly gravitate away

(01:15:02):
from you because you're notshowing up as an authentic
individual.
And to be a leader you have tobe authentic and he talked about
a couple of C's here.
So be competent.
If you are doing somethingright now maybe you're a young
officer or young NCO or whateverit is go be the professional in
your workspace, like, be thatguy or gal.

(01:15:22):
Have the answers.
Do the self-study.
Take the time to be asproficient as possible in your
craft.
Number two is care.
This is the easiest Like ifyou're a leader.
The number one thing that youshould always do is take care of
the others around you, becauseit's a selfless position.
And then number three, withthat, is confidence.
To be a leader, it does requirea level of charisma, and

(01:15:47):
charisma is infectious.
And if you look at thedefinition that the army has for
leadership, it's purpose,direction and motivation.
Motivation, charisma, inspirepeople.
If you can do all of those and,most importantly, you can be
consistent, you're going toknock it out of the park.
All right, this was aphenomenal episode.
Do me a favor, guys, as always,uh, if you like, uh, the podcast

(01:16:10):
and the content that I put out,it would be hugely helpful if
you do the following four things.
Number one like, subscribe andshare wherever you listen to
this podcast.
Number two leave a review andsend me some feedback.
I love hearing feedback orgetting fan mail from people of
how I can improve or somethingthat actually stuck with you, uh
, you that you're using rightnow, or a topic, potentially,

(01:16:32):
that you would want me to do adeep dive on.
Number three go follow me onsocial media.
You can go on link tree, causeI do other posts outside of just
the normal podcast.
Again, I'm very passionate aboutthis space and you can find me
on any platform.
And number four if you want tobecome a show sponsor because
I'm actively looking for twoshow sponsors or you would like

(01:16:54):
to support the show from a moneystandpoint, you can go to
talesofleadershipbuzzsproutcomand you can support the show
there.
Everything I make, 100% of it,goes back into building a better
podcast and building bettercontent, because I want to help
you guys be the best leader thatyou possibly can, especially in

(01:17:15):
this complex world.
As always, team, my name isJosh McMillian, I am your host
and I'm saying every day is agift.
Don't waste yours.
I'll see you next time you.

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#113 Isaac Lee - From Cockpit to Corporate: A Marine's Leadership Journey

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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;}#113 Isaac Lee - From Cockpit to Corporate: A Marine's Leadership Journey