September 14, 2025 • 39 mins
James R. Lyda served in our Air Force for 30 years and was a Wing Command Chief twice. During his last assignment before retirement he was responsible for 55,000 personnel.
After retirement he founded Guidon Leadership - a full service firm that helps companies develop better leaders, managers and people.
After retirement he founded Guidon Leadership - a full service firm that helps companies develop better leaders, managers and people.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities, and these are their stories. American Warrior
Radio is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, Oh ladies and gentlemen, you're tuned into American Warrior Radio.
This is your host, Ben buler Garcia American Warrior Radio
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(00:46):
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Over the course of my thirty seven year professional career,
I've had the chance to interact with a number of leaders,
many of them great, some not so good. And when
I'm talking leadership, I'm not just referring to their technical expertise,
(01:07):
but I'm also talking about the intangibles. Now I've been
fortunate for twenty eight of those thirty seven years I've
been self employed as an independent contractor. It was much
easier for me to walk away when I encounter talks
of leadership or those who clearly had risen to one
or two levels above their level of competence. I've always
been fascinated by the contrasts and parallels of leadership in
the military versus the private sector, So it's always a
(01:29):
pleasure when I get an opportunity to bounce my theories
by an established expert. Whether you're just getting started in
our military career, or a middle manager looking for that
next promotion, or a business leader trying to figure out
how to get your team to the next plateau, you
can all benefit from the wisdom of our guests today.
Stay tuned. James Arlida spent thirty years three months in
our US Air Force and served as a wing command
chief twice. During those three decades, he had the opportunity
(01:52):
to advise and interact with some of our military senior leadership,
while also taking care of mentoring younger airman. During his
last position before retirement, he was responsible for fifty five
thousand personnel. That'd be a good sized town or a
major corporation. After retiring from the Air Force, he founded
Guide on Leadership, a full service leadership development team to
help companies make better leaders, managers, and people. Among his
(02:14):
clients is McDonald's, the second largest fast food chain in
the world. James R. Lita Jr. Welcome to American Warrior
Radio BBG.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I appreciate you having me home.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, I appreciate you calling me BBG. That was a
big branding campaign, JR. You probably understand that now I
got what the guy to say. JR. I've had the
chance to interact with you, you know, personally face to face.
You don't have that air traffic controller look. I mean,
you look more like a pj R. Security Forces guy.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
You don't.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I mean, I don't know what an air traffic controller
is supposed to look like, but not you.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Man, Well, I mean I kind of think I did
look an air traffic controller. I spent let's say twenty
four to twenty five years as a controller, and man,
I loved ever minute of it. But you know, I
will tell your funniest were the first time that I
ever went to an airport, I got on the airplane
was to go to basic training And when I got
to basic training about three weeks later, they sent us
(03:06):
to a room and we got to pick jobs. And
I got picked to be an air traffic controller. And
I don't even know what one was at the time
I was I was asking the other guys, you know,
on in the flight with me, what is an air
traffic controller? I had no clue what one was. And
you know, twenty five years later, yeah, air traffic control.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
The first time you were ever on an airplane was
when you got on the plane to go to basic
training at what eighteen seventeen, eighteen.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Seventeen years old. This first time I'd ever been to
an airport was to go to basic training.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Holy cow, Jr. I kind of reminds me of the
story I've heard, you know, interviews with with paratroopers during
World War Two, and some of them said that, well,
when they after they got out of the military, you know,
took up a commercial flight, they said, you know, that's
the first time we actually landed into plane because we
used to you know, we used to getting out early.
But so I, Jr. I get a dumb question every show,
(03:55):
So I'm going to start right off the bat with that.
How does a roll of toilet paper become a mask
got man.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
So it's funny that you bring that up. That was,
you know, in the middle of COVID. I don't know
how many of your listeners are even aware, but in
the middle of COVID General Drowley Colonel Droughty at the time.
But General Trowley and I started this little banter on Facebook,
and you know, he started accusing me of bribing people
with toilet paper, because if you remember, toilet paper was
(04:24):
the hottest commodity on the planet during COVID. And somehow
or another, somebody brings me a roll of toilet paper
and from that point forward, for the next three or
four months, we just kept adding to it and dressing
it up, and it ended up in costumes and everything else.
But it all came from one little jab that General
Drowley made to me in the middle of COVID, and
that thing just took on a life of its own.
(04:44):
It ended up with appendages, it had ears. We dressed
it up like Darth Vader at one point, and it
was was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So it was like a mister Potato had but a
roller toilet paper.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, we drew, you know, we drew eyeballs on it,
and we put arms and ears and feet, and it
made appearances in all types of videos. It was found
all over the base. I think there was a there
was another online publication that picked it up, and you know,
they did an article about it. So yeah, this little,
this little roll of total paper took on a lot
of its own.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Do you have any idea of it's still kicking around
the wing?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Actually it is not. Whenever whenever I left service, whenever
I retired, they gave me the role of totlet paper
and I took it with me. So it is in
a box in the closet in the back of my
house at this point. Now Jr.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
As a civilian support in the military. Pretty much my
intilot attire adult life. I've been to gosh, hundreds of
changes of command and when they start the ceremony they
talk about the guide on and the history and the
purpose of the guide on. So when you left the
military and established your company guide on leadership, I suppose
it makes sense that you specifically chose that word right
(05:52):
as part of the company name.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So whenever I first started, I really didn't even have
a name for the company. I was just doing work
and but as this thing started to grow, I figured
I had to put a name to it. And I
sit down and and I put some thought to it.
One of the things I was really proud of in
the military was I was the keeper of the General's
guide on, and that guide on was you know, that's
the thing that we're oute that everyone rallies too. Whenever
(06:16):
we get information, that's what we line up on. Regardless
of where you're at on the field. If you can,
if you can see the guide on, you know where
your commander and where your chief is at. So as
I was going to create a company that focused on leadership,
it only made sense to take the symbol and the
device that led the team and use that as ours
as our as our business name.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And folks, if you like to learn more, you can
visit guide on Leadership dot com. Guide On is spelled
g U, I deal and j R. Y established your
own company versus just hopping into the corporate world when
you retired from the military BBG.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That's a really good question. I really didn't plan to
even hop into the corporate world, or to get a
job for that matter. My wife and I about a
month before I retired, we bought an RV and our
plan was we were gonna we were gonna travel the country.
In fact, our mantra was a thousand miles from nowhere.
Our plan was to just go live in the RV
and be left alone for a while. And you know,
(07:15):
part of the civilian community being a part of my
job as the command chief was to connect with the
civilian community. And I had an honorary command chief at
Davis Monthan, which you don't hear a whole lot about.
But when I got here, the guy was Paul Diaz.
And Paul Dia is a he's a he's a prominent
guy here here in the community, but he's a McDonald's
on our operator. And you know, I really embraced that
(07:35):
that role. So I was bringing Paul out and let
him see everything that we were doing, and you know
how we developed Airman. And as I got ready to retire,
Paul offered me the opportunity. He was like, I don't
I still don't know what a command chief is, but I
want one. And so in fact, it's kind of funny,
you know, he goes, all right, so I'll just add
you to payroll, and I go, oh, no, sir, I'll
never be on payroll. So I had to figure out
how to create my own business and how to get
(07:57):
this thing started, and uh, it just kind of grew
from there. It was never intended to be what it
is today, but fortunate that it grew into what it is.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
So that's how you got into the McDonald's corporation it is.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
That was, Yeah, absolutely, that was. Paul was the guy
who kind of opened the door. And it really wasn't McDonald's.
And you know, I do work with with McDonald's, but
it's really the owner operator and you know, for for
for folks out there that don't quite know how it works,
McDonald's corporate is very different from the owner operator. The
owner operator, uh you know, he has a franchise from McDonald's,
(08:30):
but he's his own businessman, owned businesswoman, and uh, they
are the ones that are actually hiring me to come in.
So it's grassroots folks who want to see their people better. JR.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
I recently had a conversation with the Sergeant major of
the Marine Corps, and I find it really interesting when
he was talking about what makes Marines different and he
talks about how they're you know, they're building this person
as as a you know, he says, every marine is
a weapon system, and but he says, we're also building
good citizens because we want to build a person and
who when they leave the Marine Corps is going to
(09:01):
go out back into their communities and be a good
citizen and be a good resource. And I love the
flat that. Well, when we come back, we want to talk
a little bit about that, because I've also seen on
your website you talk about how your training is building
better moms and dads and sisters and uncles, because better
people will always be better at you know, quote unquote
fill in the blank right where it might be. Okay,
(09:23):
super ladies and gentlemen, there's your host, Ben biler Garcia.
We're very pleased to be talking with James Lota. He's
the founder of Guide on Leadership and a lot of
interesting stuff you're gonna learn here today. Don't forget. You
can find over six hundred podcasts at American Warrior Radio
dot com or whatever your favorite platform is, whether it's
iHeart or Pandora or Spotify, Amazon. We're trying to get
these messages out to as many years as possible, so
(09:44):
please please share that with your comrades. We'll be right back.
(10:12):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Ladies and gentlemen, there's
your host, Ben biler Garcia. We're talking with James are
a lot of James had a thirty year plus what
three months, three days.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Something like that. Yeah, thirty years, thirty years, thirty years
is close enough. You've got to be precise. Details matter.
He's also now out there helping train future leaders. He
over the course of his career he had lots of
experience interacting with leaders and mentoring young people. James, I
kind of teaged before the break that you see your
role as not just training good managers and employees, but
(10:44):
training good moms, dad, sisters and uncles.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Explain to us why that's important.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
That was part of the part of the deal that
I made with that first owner operator, because you know,
the conversation went, look, man, I don't know anything about
Big Max and French Fries. So the deal that we
struggle was, you know, he didn't necessarily want to make
Big Max taste better at France Frise Hotter. What he
wanted was for his people when they left, to be
better when they showed up. You know, I remember having
(11:09):
a conversation many many years ago with a masters sergeant
when I was man, maybe a two stripper. From the
moment that you raise your hand at that map station,
when that hand goes down, from that point forward, you
are leaving the military. One of these days you will
leave the military, you know. I think that holds true
for about any career, any job, any corporation on the planet.
(11:30):
Everybody is leaving. And when they leave, how are they leaving?
Are they leaving better than they were whenever they showed up?
Have they gotten better by being with you, by being
with your company, by being with your organization, And if
you're not making them better, well, I guess maybe there's
a part of you that's failing them. So, you know,
I think whenever we can come in and we can
(11:50):
work on not just you know, making work better, but
making home better, by making life better, by making the
personal life a little bit better, I think that we
end up making better people, and better people make all
of us a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
You know. Gr That's one of the things the parallels
I've seen and interacting both in the in the business
world and the military world. It's the maximum that you know,
even if you have the best, fastest aircraft or you know,
better toys or the hottest French fries. Your main asset,
whether it's military or corporate, are your people, and you
(12:22):
got to take care of those people because they're the
ones that build up and support your organization every single day.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Absolutely, and you know, I think that there's some people
out there that really get that. But I also think
that everyone that you run into is going to say,
people come first, Our people are first. We put our
people first. But I think that there's a handful of
people that really live that. There's a handful of industry
leaders that really live that, that really breathe that I
think for Unfortunately, for a lot of folks, it becomes
(12:49):
a tagline or it becomes a poster on the wall.
But I've been really, really fortunate, and I want to
go back to the comment that you made in the
beginning is that you know, you get to pick and choose,
and you know, for a lot of guys in the military,
we don't get to pick. And I think the great
thing for me is since I've transitioned out of the military,
is that I do get to pick and choose, and
you know, I pick and choose and work for people
who really live that mantra, who really believe that my
(13:11):
people are the most important, And those are the folks
who are really making a difference. And I'm just fortunate
that I get to be a part of that and
to help their people alone.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
A JR. Over the course of my years, I've had
the opportunities I mentioned to work with a number of
great leaders, and a couple examples of those that really
stood out you touched on the Honorary Commander program. One
of the greatest honors of my life as a civilian
was to serve as the honorary commander for General Robin
Ran at that time, a three star who commanded the
twelfth Air Force. And I'll never forget. I was driving
(13:41):
him back from New Mexico anyway, so he noticed I
was cramping up on the drive back, And when we
got back to twelve Air Force headquarters, he was in
his blues, his dress blues, and he got down there
on the concrete in front of the twelfth Air Force
Headquarters and showed me some stretching techniques that he used
to avoid cramping up in the cockpit of an F sixteen.
(14:02):
And I challenge you to find me one private sector
CEO that would do that, you know for a slub
like me. And the other one that really kind of
still makes me chuckle is we're planning for the I
think it was a seventy fifth anniversary of the Doulah
rate and so there's going to be a big ball
and all this stuff. And he allowed me to sit
in on the planning committee. And if people aren't familiar
(14:22):
with that tradition, there's there's a toast Cognac toast that
the surviving Raiders at the time US used to do.
And Jenerand said to the planning committ said, you know,
wouldn't it be cool if we could get enough coognac
for everybody to have a toast? We're talking three four
hundred people. And I said, well, is there a budget
for that? And he said no. Okay, Well, you know,
(14:43):
in my world, in the corporate world, if the CEO
of the president says wouldn't it be nice? Eh, you know,
if it doesn't have a budget, it goes on the
you know, the pile of failed ideas well. Immediately after
that meeting that some of the enlisted of people cornering
me out in the hallway and said, BBG, you got
to you got to get someone that donated a bunch
of cognac, and we did. But what was great about
that was he challenged his staff. He didn't order them
(15:07):
to do it. He challenged them to do it and
allowed them the opportunity to step up and find an
answer to that problem. And for me, that's great leadership.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Well, i'll tell you, I'll share this this little one liner.
I use this a lot whenever I'm teaching classes. Whatever
my boss fonn's interesting off on fascinating. Normally it doesn't.
It doesn't take much of a nudge from the general
for his staff, or for his people, or for his
chief for that matter, to go out and get things
in motion. So yeah, whatever, my boss fond's interesting, if
on fascinating.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I tell you one of the other great leaders I
had the pleasure to work with back when I actually
was on staff, the president, Jack Camper, of that organization.
I started their entry level, you know, assistant vice president.
I was a lobbyist. He let me grow, but he
encouraged me to grow by placing opportunity in front of me.
And you know, literally, Ben, here's a blank whiteboard. You
(15:57):
tell me, as an assistant vice president, how we can
make this organization better. And this guy was very innovative.
I think that served the organization want and frankly, as
far as my personal growth, it served me very well.
But JR. Let me kind of bounce this by you too.
We've got a couple minutes for the next break. But
I've also experienced had enough experience to learn the tougher example.
(16:19):
So not to bag on all of them, but very
often I find that when it's the second generations that
have inherited a business, you know, their family built that business,
and now it's being handed off for the next generation,
and sometimes it's just readily clear that their heart's not
in it, and that can be toxic for that company.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Whenever you're working hard, right, whenever you start with nothing,
you begin with nothing and you start building up from there,
it means more to you, all right. And then a
lot of times we can pass it off to like
the second generation. The second generation sees mom and dad
working really really hard for it, and they respect it
and they appreciate it. But then the third generation, well,
(16:58):
the third generation didn't really see it being built. They
saw the result of it, right, and so they they
can they can respect what's there. But they didn't respect
the blood, the sweat, the tears, the suffering, the sacrifice
that went into it. And I think whenever you can't
connect with that, then it does lose a little bit
of value in it. And you know, my brother had
(17:19):
a I mean, he was I tried not to give
him a whole lot of credit for being smart, but
I mean it was a it was a it was
It was a pretty smart put that that that he gave.
You know, I think that whenever you're in the middle
of it, you really appreciate it more. I think whenever
you you get to watch what's there, you don't quite
(17:40):
appreciate it. We uh, we talk about running a marathon
and we see folks on TV that finish a marathon,
or maybe we show up somewhere and we see somebody
finish a marathon and we clap for them, and you know,
they broke a record, and that's amazing, But do we
really appreciate what happened? Do we really appreciate the years
of training, that getting up at five in the morning,
the running on rainy days and icy streets, and the
(18:01):
meal prepping and all the work that goes into it,
or do we just see somebody crossing a finish line,
and I think that that's really the difference sometimes is
that we just see the finish line. We don't see
the work that goes into it, and it makes you know,
it takes away some of the appreciation in it.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Jeral. When we come back, I want to drill down
a little bit more into some of those critical elements
that I've seen have been successful and that you're out
there preaching hopefully. Leason, gentlemen, your host, Ben Buler Garcia.
We're talking with James Loto from Guide on Leadership. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
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Speaker 2 (19:10):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Lason, gentlemen, this is
your host, Ben Bler Garcia. We're coming to you from
the Sallencer Central Studios. Silencer Central is the largest silencer
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(19:32):
They'll complete all the paperwork and ship right to your
front door, making silence simple. Since two thousand and five,
that Silencercentral dot Com a real privilege to be talking
with James R. Laida today on American Warrior Radio. James
had a thirty year career in the United States Air Force.
Now he goes out there and trains people to be
better leaders and frankly, better citizens, better moms and dads
(19:53):
and uncles and sisters. James, I gave some examples of
some My personal experience is with great leaders, and those
who I've worked with who I found were truly great
had one well lots of characteristics, but one that really
struck me is their ability and desire to develop relationships
(20:16):
with the people on their team, from the you know,
from the fry cook on up to the senior vice
president and there's a I love taking lessons from movies.
There's a John Travolta movie called Phenomenon. I don't know
if you've seen it, but there's a lady that John
Travolta's got, you know, a romantic interest in and she
builds these wicker chairs. Well, he takes them from her
(20:39):
and obstensibly sells them at his garage. Well, it turns
out he was actually buying all these chairs themselves. Nobody
else was interested in that. He didn't tell the woman.
But then when some of the people challenged him about that,
the doctor in the community said, you know the reason
for this, other Fallly says, the reason your marriage is
failing is you've never identified what your wife's chair is.
(21:00):
You know, what's the what's what is in her life
that is her share that you need to identify and
embrace and build up. And I like to use that
example with with good leaders. I've seen where they take
the time to find out what's important to BBG. You
know what, what what are his his uh, what does
he want to build upon? Where does he want to go?
(21:21):
And so I'm building those kind of relationships. I assume
jy are you that's absolutely critical right, and what you teach.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, absolutely, So you know, one of the one of
the core things that we teach is nothing there's no
there's no problem that a relationship can't solve. But I
think of you know a lot of what you're talking about,
And I want to go back to our previous segment.
You you mentioned something and I kind of sketched down
a note. You mentioned that you know, there were folks
that that gave you opportunities, And I've had folks that
have given me opportunities, but I think that there's something
(21:50):
that happens before that opportunity. And this is what the
great leaders see when they when they go to build somebody,
when they're when they become willing to invest in someone,
and it's the self controlling, the self discipline. And you know,
if you've got a lot of young listeners out here,
you've got a lot of people out here that are
trying to find their next step or their next way,
or maybe they just walked into the military. I think
(22:11):
the most valuable thing that we can do day in
and day out is to exercise some self control and
some self disciplined to stay focused on the long term,
to be willing to swim all the way to the wall.
I had a chief tell me that it blot when
I was in Iraq. He was like, James, you know
you're down to the last ten days. He goes, I
need you to swim all the way the wall for me, right,
you got to finish it. You got to finish it
for me. So, you know, show up every day, put
(22:33):
on your boots every day, get a haircut every day,
iron your uniform, show up and work hard every day.
Swim all the way to the wall. Be disciplined and
be focused in what you're doing, and that opens up opportunities.
It creates opportunities for you because other people see that
and they migrate to it. They want it, they want
it on their team, they want to be around you,
they want to be a part of it, and they
(22:53):
want to make opportunities for you. Not everyone will, but
the ones that mitter will, the ones that mitter are
going to seek you out, are going to find you.
But it all comes down to some self discipline, some
self control.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You know, Jared. That makes me think of Also, something
I've heard from a lot of very wise people is
it will touch on this a little bit. I think
you call it, you know, leaving your fate in the
hands of judges. You also, whether you're in the military
or in the business world, you really have to put
yourself in position to be able to take advantage of
(23:24):
those opportunities when they do arise. You can't be surprised.
You know, you've got to have a plan. You've got
to do the work, like you say, you know, put
it in build your resume, whether it's through volunteer ship
or whatever it is, but you know, put yourself in
position to really take advantage of that. James, one of
the my favorite quotes from a novel is from the
(23:45):
novel Doune and it is It says, fear is the
mind killer. And you know, not to get all doctor
phil on you, but I would say the one of
the biggest impediments in my career, and as I've been
building this this radio franchise is fear. And I can't
tell you how often I've got to check myself and
pause and say, Ben, are you in or are you out?
(24:06):
Because you could you do come to places, particularly for
you're an entrepreneur, where you've got you know, you've got
to commit and you use an example, you know what
did Julius Caesar, her Iron Cortez, and sons Sue all
have in common.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Burn the boats, burn the boats, right, take away escape. Right,
you've got to go forward. You've got to move forward.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Burn the boats and so so for people who don't
know that story, I thought it was my familiar where
that was ann Quartez when he landed, you know, his
his troops were a little bit apprehensive.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Oh they were terrified. They weren't apprehensive, they were terrified.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Well, so he burned the ships and so you know,
they'd crossed the ocean, they'd landed, and he's like, okay,
there's no going back, there's only going forward.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah, burn the boats. Julius Caesar he did the same
thing whenever he was. He was he set out to
conquer Britain at the time, and his men were afraid,
and uh, you know, he was like, you know, if
if if you want to go forward, then you have
to burn the boats. You have to remove the escape
from your folks. But you know you mentioned fear. You know,
fear is the mind killer. One of the philosophers, right,
(25:14):
one of those Socrates are apostle guys. It might have
been Epiicetist that told us that we're tortured more by
our imagination than we are by reality, right, So we
will let our minds create a scenario that has not
that hasn't happened yet and probably won't happen. But we'll
lay in bed and this thing we'll just roll through
our mind in a torturous and we'll stay up all
night fearing something that hasn't happened yet. And that is
(25:38):
really hard to it's really hard to to to defeat.
And one of the things I learned from from a
from a first ergeant who wasn't a first sergeant. He
was a non diamond wearing first sergeant. We had a
situation going on where, you know, I had a guy
who's coming back from from deployment, and he was coming
back from to what was probably going to be not
(26:00):
a great situation. And I was a little bit worried
as his chief, because this guy's going to come back
and it's my job to protect him and take care
of him and love him. And I thought he was
going to walk back into something that was gonna be
pretty bad for him. And I was on the phone
with the Shirt one night and the Shirt told me this.
He said, Chief, you're not going to do anything. He
goes because you don't have a problem. You don't have
a problem until you have a problem, and right now
(26:21):
you don't have a problem. And that that was one
of the most sound pieces of advice that I got
in thirty years. You don't have a problem until you
have a problem. And sure enough, my guy walks off
the airplane, everything works out well, and he cruises on
to a fantastic career. But I had this thing playing
in my head, right I had this this movie running
(26:42):
in my head that was going to end up being
being terrible. So I'll share this with you. I share
this a lot in my one on ones when people
are talking about fear and I don't know that I'll
get this right, but I'll do the best I can
with it. We get to choose BBG. We get to
choose We get to choose fear of faith, all right.
And fear tells us all the bad things are going
(27:02):
to happen. Fear tells us what we can't do, what
doom and gloom is coming. But faith tells us what
we can do. Faith faith gives us optimism, you know,
and you get to choose one or the other. You know,
you can be afraid or you can have faith. And
I think that that faith a lot of times goes
back to that self discipline and self control. You know,
have you prepared yourself? You know, have you done everything
(27:23):
that you can possibly do? Have you positioned yourself well?
And if you have, then you should have faith. There's
nothing to fear at that point.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Give us about a minute for the next break, Jay R.
Give us if you can translate that example to someone
in the corporate world in a business, what how do
you go about burning your boat in the corporate world?
What is the equivalent of that? If you can, that's
a really good question. Burning the boats in the corporate world.
(27:51):
You know, sometimes you know, I'll set at the table
and I'll listen to owner operators and I'll listen to
executives that want to move forward. Right, we need to
do this, and it's a major change. Whatever that major
change is, right, we need to realign the organization. You know,
I work with a owner operator who wanted to completely
wipe out his organizational structure and redo it. And you know,
(28:13):
obviously you've got people who resist change. They fight against change, right,
And as they're fighting against change, they're trying to get
back on the boat. They don't like, they don't like
what's going on, and they want to get everybody back
on the boat and go back to where they were,
you know, where they're from. And at some point you've
got to go. You got to draw the line and
go We're not going back to this. We're not going
(28:33):
to go back. This may not work, but we will
not go backwards. Yeah. Great, great, perfect example. Ladies and gentlemen,
there's your host, Ben biler Garcia. We're talking with James
light about leadership and other topics that will help him
put your life stick around. Lots more coming up. Welcome
(29:11):
back to American Warrior Radio. Lice and gentlemen, there's your host,
Ben Buler Garcia. Real privilege to be talking with the
James Leda who I'll say, James, you when I talk
about the pandem of good leaders I've had the opportunity
to work with albeit you know, kind of briefly during
or interaction, You're you're definitely up on there. Now you're
now out spreading those messages in leadership and building better people,
(29:32):
not just better employees in the corporate world. I found
a little video on YouTube was from maybe your website
guide on Leadership dot com talked about leaving your fate
in the hands of the judges. Have you ever heard
of Kwan Fam I have not, No, so Kwan his family.
He and his mom and his sisters escaped Vietnam just
(29:53):
before the fall of Saigon, came to the US as refugees,
became the first American of Vietnamese defense to be a
Marine Corps pilot, and then went into the corporate world.
He's now involved in the pharmaceutical world. He is the
first American Vietnamese of descent to take a company, you know,
do an ipo on Nasdaq. And he's written a really
great book called Underdog Nation. And one of the things
(30:16):
that he talks about is the importance of never letting
anyone else define success for you. You know, a lot
of folks have an idea of what success looks like.
But you know, so many of us we take that
from you know, TV or the interwebs or whatever, you know,
the fashion magazine, when that's really not the way to go.
When you talk about leaving your fate in the hands
(30:38):
of judges, I see some parallels or explain to us
what you mean when we talk about leaving your fate
in the hands of judges.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
So that's actually a quote from Dana White from the UFC.
I used to tell the story to young Erman all
the time. I had lots of audiences with young airman.
You know, I would always give them three or four nuggets,
and one of those nuggets was never leave it in
the hands of the judges. What that means is is
that if you own it, then own it. Don't let
somebody else make a decision that affects you. Whenever you
(31:10):
own the situation. I see too many people that will
not give maximum effort. They won't put in everything that
they have. They'll actually work harder to get out of
doing something than the work it would take to just
do it. And then in the end, whenever they don't
get what they want, that it doesn't work out the
way they want to, then they want to wine and
cry alibi. I wonder why, you know, And in the end,
it's really you. You chose not to, You chose not
(31:31):
to work hard, you chose not to put the effort in,
and you didn't get the result that you wanted. And
you know, for your young folks that are out there,
whenever it comes to testing, when it comes to pt,
when it comes to learning your job, that's all your
responsibility and you can't let somebody else determine your fate
on those things. There's lots of other things that are
(31:51):
going to be outside of your control. My commander owns
I mean, he owned a lot of decisions in my life,
but the things that I owned, I didn't let him
have them. They were mine.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
And so how does how does someone actually do that
in their day to day life JR? I mean, do
I wake up and do I just pause before I
start my work and just remind myself of where I
want to go? Do I need to center myself every day?
Or because I you know, I could see, particularly if
you've got a repetitive job, whether that's in the military
or somewhere else, that it's just like, oh man, you know,
(32:23):
I forget why I'm here, I forget about the mission.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I think again, it goes back to that self control
and self discipline. Are you doing the things that you
need to do for yourself every day? You know? I
encourage people to get up in the morning, make your
bed every day, do some pushups, do some setups, take
a cold shower, sit down and plan out your day,
your next day before you go to bed. You've got
to do the small things, the difficult things, each and
every day. And as you do those things, it's going
(32:49):
to build the self control, and it's going to build
the discipline, and you're going to you're going to take
ownership of yourself and of your life.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I I feel like you know, you were talking about
social those types of things I think teach us to
be victims. And we see a lot of people that
have this victimhood mentality these days. And the truth is
is that the world really isn't out to get you.
In fact, the world, by and large, the world doesn't
even recognize you mean, we're so small, right, but we
(33:17):
think that there's so many eyes on us, But the
truth is there's really not. We control most of our
own fate, and those that believe that they have control
over their fate are the ones that have a tendency
to succeed. And it's those who blame the rest of
the world, that have this external locus of control that
get defeated and they get run over by life.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Forgive me here because it's not my first language, and
I'm going to take succeed and turn that into the
words succession. One of the things I also really appreciate,
or I recognize in a great leader, is there planning
for that person to replace them. You know you've mentioned before, JR.
We're all gone, and I'll never forget. I had a boss,
and again at that nonprofit, I started off working for him.
(33:59):
I eventually got promoted to the point where I was
his boss. And I really respect him for embracing that
and not causing a ruckus or a fuss. And he
understood that that was just because he was much older
than me. He understood, if you will, that I was
the next generation, and he embraced it. And I thought it,
Like you said before, I thought I was going to
(34:19):
be a problem. But why worry about a problem until
there's a problem, And there never was a problem. We're
kind of running out of time here at JR. But
I want to ask you a question. I had a
client that would I mean, they'd hire veterans all day long,
every day. They show up on time, they show up early,
they can pass a drug test, they know the command structure.
They're instilled with the concept of mission over self, which
(34:41):
is something that I find very often lacking in the
corporate world. So you know, mission over self, the team concept,
But if I'm a fry cook at McDonald's, how do
you translate that? How do you instill that mission over
self confidence with someone at that level in the corporation.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I was ask a very difficult question by an owner
operator one night. I'd been doing this job now, you know,
for about eighteen months, and he asked me, He goes,
what's the biggest difference that you see, Right, it's been
eighteen months that you've been in the corporate world. What's
the biggest difference between the military and the corporate world?
And man, I had to think about that for a second, right,
But what I came back with is this is purpose
(35:20):
and function. And I don't know if I'm using the
right words or not, but they are the words that
I use whenever I travel around. The biggest difference is
day one, minute one, when I got off the bus
at basic training. When all your military members that are
listening to this got off the bus at basic training,
regardless of where it was at in what service they
were in, there was an angry man or woman standing
there at two o'clock in the morning, yelling at us right.
And from that point forward, we were folding two shirts
(35:42):
into six Saint squares, and we were marching in a
straight line, and we were being yelled at. But all
of that was about can you be a team member
and can we grow you into a leader? That was
your purpose. I didn't find out my function. My function
was air traffic control. I was weeks in before I
found out what my function was. But my function changed
throughout my career. My purpose never changed. It was always
(36:04):
to be a team member, to be a leader, to
grow other people. And from the moment that you step
off the bus until the day you drive out the
gate on the last day, the military continually instills purpose
in US. We go to schools for it for weeks
and weeks at a time. In the corporate world, and
I'm not knocking the corporate world because I understand, but
when Johnny grabs the door handle to come in on
day one, it's about an ROI what is my return
(36:27):
on investment? And I got to teach him to do
a job, and that job is his function. And somewhere
along the way, hopefully we can teach him some purpose,
We can teach him some leadership, we can teach them
some teamwork, but it doesn't come until later on, and
you have to play catch up at that point. And
I think the difference between the military and the corporate
world is when you step off the bus, there is
(36:48):
no ROI. It's just an angry man making me do
push ups two o'clock in the morning. But that moment
continues for thirty years. I think the other thing that
the military does very very well is we teach value.
I use and we teach people to use values. And
I think in the corporate world, values are a poster,
they go up on the wall. But I think values
in the military is the price of admission onto the team.
(37:10):
And that was what General Fogelman told us in ninety six.
This is the price of admission onto the team. And
if you can learn to understand and appreciate and absorb
those values and adopt them and use them, then they
become a guiding light for you. And I don't know
that that gets used as well in the corporate world,
but it's one of the things that we're starting to
teach a lot. One last example that kind of kind
(37:33):
of gets after what you're talking about is coach John Wooden.
He had his pyramid of success, and I think that
there's about twenty five blocks on the pyramid of success.
One of them is team spirit, and team spirit directly
correlates to the Air Force core value of service before self,
which means I put the needs of the organization ahead
of my own personal desires. But when we look at
the world that we live in, especially the social media world,
(37:55):
we're being taught to be individuals. Our individualism is being celebrated.
But when you when you walk through the gate on
the first day, when you step off the bus at
basic training, now suddenly there's an expectation that you put
the needs of the organization ahead of yourself. And I
think that the military does a good job overall of
teaching that over the years. And I think as as
(38:16):
your Johnny's and societies leave the military and they walk out
the gate, they're bringing a quality with them that a
lot of owner operators that a lot of business owners
out there are looking for because they don't have to
teach that anymore. Somebody did it for them.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, I completely agree, JR. Listen, we're almost out of time.
We got about thirty seconds. We do have a lot
of kind of young military members listening tuning in on
the American Forces Network. Any advice to them from a
grizzled old chief.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
From a grizzle old chief, what I would tell you
is service before self. That's what I would tell you.
There's discipline, there's self control. It's about it's about the
people that are around you, and it's not necessarily about
your individualism. And you know, I think that that if
that when our folks stay focused on the team, on
(39:03):
the unit, on the organization, we all seem to work
a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Outstanding well, James Arlita Jr. We appreciate you spending some
time with our listeners today. Folks check out guide on
Leadership dot com. It's guid n Leadership dot com. Jr.
I look forward to chatting with you again sometime.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
BBG. I appreciate you, man. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
There you go. Ladies and gentlemen, Please spread these important
messages until next time. All policies and procedures at remain
in place. Take care.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
You've been listening to American Warrior Radio. Archived episodes may
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We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
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Radio is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, Oh ladies and gentlemen, you're tuned into American Warrior Radio.
This is your host, Ben buler Garcia American Warrior Radio
broadcast from the Silencer Central Studios. If you're thinking of
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there's never been a better time to do so. For
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(00:46):
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making silent simple. Since two thousand and five Slencercentral dot Com.
Over the course of my thirty seven year professional career,
I've had the chance to interact with a number of leaders,
many of them great, some not so good. And when
I'm talking leadership, I'm not just referring to their technical expertise,
(01:07):
but I'm also talking about the intangibles. Now I've been
fortunate for twenty eight of those thirty seven years I've
been self employed as an independent contractor. It was much
easier for me to walk away when I encounter talks
of leadership or those who clearly had risen to one
or two levels above their level of competence. I've always
been fascinated by the contrasts and parallels of leadership in
the military versus the private sector, So it's always a
(01:29):
pleasure when I get an opportunity to bounce my theories
by an established expert. Whether you're just getting started in
our military career, or a middle manager looking for that
next promotion, or a business leader trying to figure out
how to get your team to the next plateau, you
can all benefit from the wisdom of our guests today.
Stay tuned. James Arlida spent thirty years three months in
our US Air Force and served as a wing command
chief twice. During those three decades, he had the opportunity
(01:52):
to advise and interact with some of our military senior leadership,
while also taking care of mentoring younger airman. During his
last position before retirement, he was responsible for fifty five
thousand personnel. That'd be a good sized town or a
major corporation. After retiring from the Air Force, he founded
Guide on Leadership, a full service leadership development team to
help companies make better leaders, managers, and people. Among his
(02:14):
clients is McDonald's, the second largest fast food chain in
the world. James R. Lita Jr. Welcome to American Warrior
Radio BBG.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I appreciate you having me home.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, I appreciate you calling me BBG. That was a
big branding campaign, JR. You probably understand that now I
got what the guy to say. JR. I've had the
chance to interact with you, you know, personally face to face.
You don't have that air traffic controller look. I mean,
you look more like a pj R. Security Forces guy.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
You don't.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I mean, I don't know what an air traffic controller
is supposed to look like, but not you.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Man, Well, I mean I kind of think I did
look an air traffic controller. I spent let's say twenty
four to twenty five years as a controller, and man,
I loved ever minute of it. But you know, I
will tell your funniest were the first time that I
ever went to an airport, I got on the airplane
was to go to basic training And when I got
to basic training about three weeks later, they sent us
(03:06):
to a room and we got to pick jobs. And
I got picked to be an air traffic controller. And
I don't even know what one was at the time
I was I was asking the other guys, you know,
on in the flight with me, what is an air
traffic controller? I had no clue what one was. And
you know, twenty five years later, yeah, air traffic control.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
The first time you were ever on an airplane was
when you got on the plane to go to basic
training at what eighteen seventeen, eighteen.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Seventeen years old. This first time I'd ever been to
an airport was to go to basic training.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Holy cow, Jr. I kind of reminds me of the
story I've heard, you know, interviews with with paratroopers during
World War Two, and some of them said that, well,
when they after they got out of the military, you know,
took up a commercial flight, they said, you know, that's
the first time we actually landed into plane because we
used to you know, we used to getting out early.
But so I, Jr. I get a dumb question every show,
(03:55):
So I'm going to start right off the bat with that.
How does a roll of toilet paper become a mask
got man.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
So it's funny that you bring that up. That was,
you know, in the middle of COVID. I don't know
how many of your listeners are even aware, but in
the middle of COVID General Drowley Colonel Droughty at the time.
But General Trowley and I started this little banter on Facebook,
and you know, he started accusing me of bribing people
with toilet paper, because if you remember, toilet paper was
(04:24):
the hottest commodity on the planet during COVID. And somehow
or another, somebody brings me a roll of toilet paper
and from that point forward, for the next three or
four months, we just kept adding to it and dressing
it up, and it ended up in costumes and everything else.
But it all came from one little jab that General
Drowley made to me in the middle of COVID, and
that thing just took on a life of its own.
(04:44):
It ended up with appendages, it had ears. We dressed
it up like Darth Vader at one point, and it
was was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So it was like a mister Potato had but a
roller toilet paper.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, we drew, you know, we drew eyeballs on it,
and we put arms and ears and feet, and it
made appearances in all types of videos. It was found
all over the base. I think there was a there
was another online publication that picked it up, and you know,
they did an article about it. So yeah, this little,
this little roll of total paper took on a lot
of its own.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Do you have any idea of it's still kicking around
the wing?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Actually it is not. Whenever whenever I left service, whenever
I retired, they gave me the role of totlet paper
and I took it with me. So it is in
a box in the closet in the back of my
house at this point. Now Jr.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
As a civilian support in the military. Pretty much my
intilot attire adult life. I've been to gosh, hundreds of
changes of command and when they start the ceremony they
talk about the guide on and the history and the
purpose of the guide on. So when you left the
military and established your company guide on leadership, I suppose
it makes sense that you specifically chose that word right
(05:52):
as part of the company name.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So whenever I first started, I really didn't even have
a name for the company. I was just doing work
and but as this thing started to grow, I figured
I had to put a name to it. And I
sit down and and I put some thought to it.
One of the things I was really proud of in
the military was I was the keeper of the General's
guide on, and that guide on was you know, that's
the thing that we're oute that everyone rallies too. Whenever
(06:16):
we get information, that's what we line up on. Regardless
of where you're at on the field. If you can,
if you can see the guide on, you know where
your commander and where your chief is at. So as
I was going to create a company that focused on leadership,
it only made sense to take the symbol and the
device that led the team and use that as ours
as our as our business name.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And folks, if you like to learn more, you can
visit guide on Leadership dot com. Guide On is spelled
g U, I deal and j R. Y established your
own company versus just hopping into the corporate world when
you retired from the military BBG.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That's a really good question. I really didn't plan to
even hop into the corporate world, or to get a
job for that matter. My wife and I about a
month before I retired, we bought an RV and our
plan was we were gonna we were gonna travel the country.
In fact, our mantra was a thousand miles from nowhere.
Our plan was to just go live in the RV
and be left alone for a while. And you know,
(07:15):
part of the civilian community being a part of my
job as the command chief was to connect with the
civilian community. And I had an honorary command chief at
Davis Monthan, which you don't hear a whole lot about.
But when I got here, the guy was Paul Diaz.
And Paul Dia is a he's a he's a prominent
guy here here in the community, but he's a McDonald's
on our operator. And you know, I really embraced that
(07:35):
that role. So I was bringing Paul out and let
him see everything that we were doing, and you know
how we developed Airman. And as I got ready to retire,
Paul offered me the opportunity. He was like, I don't
I still don't know what a command chief is, but I
want one. And so in fact, it's kind of funny,
you know, he goes, all right, so I'll just add
you to payroll, and I go, oh, no, sir, I'll
never be on payroll. So I had to figure out
how to create my own business and how to get
(07:57):
this thing started, and uh, it just kind of grew
from there. It was never intended to be what it
is today, but fortunate that it grew into what it is.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
So that's how you got into the McDonald's corporation it is.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
That was, Yeah, absolutely, that was. Paul was the guy
who kind of opened the door. And it really wasn't McDonald's.
And you know, I do work with with McDonald's, but
it's really the owner operator and you know, for for
for folks out there that don't quite know how it works,
McDonald's corporate is very different from the owner operator. The
owner operator, uh you know, he has a franchise from McDonald's,
(08:30):
but he's his own businessman, owned businesswoman, and uh, they
are the ones that are actually hiring me to come in.
So it's grassroots folks who want to see their people better. JR.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
I recently had a conversation with the Sergeant major of
the Marine Corps, and I find it really interesting when
he was talking about what makes Marines different and he
talks about how they're you know, they're building this person
as as a you know, he says, every marine is
a weapon system, and but he says, we're also building
good citizens because we want to build a person and
who when they leave the Marine Corps is going to
(09:01):
go out back into their communities and be a good
citizen and be a good resource. And I love the
flat that. Well, when we come back, we want to talk
a little bit about that, because I've also seen on
your website you talk about how your training is building
better moms and dads and sisters and uncles, because better
people will always be better at you know, quote unquote
fill in the blank right where it might be. Okay,
(09:23):
super ladies and gentlemen, there's your host, Ben biler Garcia.
We're very pleased to be talking with James Lota. He's
the founder of Guide on Leadership and a lot of
interesting stuff you're gonna learn here today. Don't forget. You
can find over six hundred podcasts at American Warrior Radio
dot com or whatever your favorite platform is, whether it's
iHeart or Pandora or Spotify, Amazon. We're trying to get
these messages out to as many years as possible, so
(09:44):
please please share that with your comrades. We'll be right back.
(10:12):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Ladies and gentlemen, there's
your host, Ben biler Garcia. We're talking with James are
a lot of James had a thirty year plus what
three months, three days.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Something like that. Yeah, thirty years, thirty years, thirty years
is close enough. You've got to be precise. Details matter.
He's also now out there helping train future leaders. He
over the course of his career he had lots of
experience interacting with leaders and mentoring young people. James, I
kind of teaged before the break that you see your
role as not just training good managers and employees, but
(10:44):
training good moms, dad, sisters and uncles.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Explain to us why that's important.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
That was part of the part of the deal that
I made with that first owner operator, because you know,
the conversation went, look, man, I don't know anything about
Big Max and French Fries. So the deal that we
struggle was, you know, he didn't necessarily want to make
Big Max taste better at France Frise Hotter. What he
wanted was for his people when they left, to be
better when they showed up. You know, I remember having
(11:09):
a conversation many many years ago with a masters sergeant
when I was man, maybe a two stripper. From the
moment that you raise your hand at that map station,
when that hand goes down, from that point forward, you
are leaving the military. One of these days you will
leave the military, you know. I think that holds true
for about any career, any job, any corporation on the planet.
(11:30):
Everybody is leaving. And when they leave, how are they leaving?
Are they leaving better than they were whenever they showed up?
Have they gotten better by being with you, by being
with your company, by being with your organization, And if
you're not making them better, well, I guess maybe there's
a part of you that's failing them. So, you know,
I think whenever we can come in and we can
(11:50):
work on not just you know, making work better, but
making home better, by making life better, by making the
personal life a little bit better, I think that we
end up making better people, and better people make all
of us a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
You know. Gr That's one of the things the parallels
I've seen and interacting both in the in the business
world and the military world. It's the maximum that you know,
even if you have the best, fastest aircraft or you know,
better toys or the hottest French fries. Your main asset,
whether it's military or corporate, are your people, and you
(12:22):
got to take care of those people because they're the
ones that build up and support your organization every single day.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Absolutely, and you know, I think that there's some people
out there that really get that. But I also think
that everyone that you run into is going to say,
people come first, Our people are first. We put our
people first. But I think that there's a handful of
people that really live that. There's a handful of industry
leaders that really live that, that really breathe that I
think for Unfortunately, for a lot of folks, it becomes
(12:49):
a tagline or it becomes a poster on the wall.
But I've been really, really fortunate, and I want to
go back to the comment that you made in the
beginning is that you know, you get to pick and choose,
and you know, for a lot of guys in the military,
we don't get to pick. And I think the great
thing for me is since I've transitioned out of the military,
is that I do get to pick and choose, and
you know, I pick and choose and work for people
who really live that mantra, who really believe that my
(13:11):
people are the most important, And those are the folks
who are really making a difference. And I'm just fortunate
that I get to be a part of that and
to help their people alone.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
A JR. Over the course of my years, I've had
the opportunities I mentioned to work with a number of
great leaders, and a couple examples of those that really
stood out you touched on the Honorary Commander program. One
of the greatest honors of my life as a civilian
was to serve as the honorary commander for General Robin
Ran at that time, a three star who commanded the
twelfth Air Force. And I'll never forget. I was driving
(13:41):
him back from New Mexico anyway, so he noticed I
was cramping up on the drive back, And when we
got back to twelve Air Force headquarters, he was in
his blues, his dress blues, and he got down there
on the concrete in front of the twelfth Air Force
Headquarters and showed me some stretching techniques that he used
to avoid cramping up in the cockpit of an F sixteen.
(14:02):
And I challenge you to find me one private sector
CEO that would do that, you know for a slub
like me. And the other one that really kind of
still makes me chuckle is we're planning for the I
think it was a seventy fifth anniversary of the Doulah
rate and so there's going to be a big ball
and all this stuff. And he allowed me to sit
in on the planning committee. And if people aren't familiar
(14:22):
with that tradition, there's there's a toast Cognac toast that
the surviving Raiders at the time US used to do.
And Jenerand said to the planning committ said, you know,
wouldn't it be cool if we could get enough coognac
for everybody to have a toast? We're talking three four
hundred people. And I said, well, is there a budget
for that? And he said no. Okay, Well, you know,
(14:43):
in my world, in the corporate world, if the CEO
of the president says wouldn't it be nice? Eh, you know,
if it doesn't have a budget, it goes on the
you know, the pile of failed ideas well. Immediately after
that meeting that some of the enlisted of people cornering
me out in the hallway and said, BBG, you got
to you got to get someone that donated a bunch
of cognac, and we did. But what was great about
that was he challenged his staff. He didn't order them
(15:07):
to do it. He challenged them to do it and
allowed them the opportunity to step up and find an
answer to that problem. And for me, that's great leadership.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Well, i'll tell you, I'll share this this little one liner.
I use this a lot whenever I'm teaching classes. Whatever
my boss fonn's interesting off on fascinating. Normally it doesn't.
It doesn't take much of a nudge from the general
for his staff, or for his people, or for his
chief for that matter, to go out and get things
in motion. So yeah, whatever, my boss fond's interesting, if
on fascinating.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I tell you one of the other great leaders I
had the pleasure to work with back when I actually
was on staff, the president, Jack Camper, of that organization.
I started their entry level, you know, assistant vice president.
I was a lobbyist. He let me grow, but he
encouraged me to grow by placing opportunity in front of me.
And you know, literally, Ben, here's a blank whiteboard. You
(15:57):
tell me, as an assistant vice president, how we can
make this organization better. And this guy was very innovative.
I think that served the organization want and frankly, as
far as my personal growth, it served me very well.
But JR. Let me kind of bounce this by you too.
We've got a couple minutes for the next break. But
I've also experienced had enough experience to learn the tougher example.
(16:19):
So not to bag on all of them, but very
often I find that when it's the second generations that
have inherited a business, you know, their family built that business,
and now it's being handed off for the next generation,
and sometimes it's just readily clear that their heart's not
in it, and that can be toxic for that company.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Whenever you're working hard, right, whenever you start with nothing,
you begin with nothing and you start building up from there,
it means more to you, all right. And then a
lot of times we can pass it off to like
the second generation. The second generation sees mom and dad
working really really hard for it, and they respect it
and they appreciate it. But then the third generation, well,
(16:58):
the third generation didn't really see it being built. They
saw the result of it, right, and so they they
can they can respect what's there. But they didn't respect
the blood, the sweat, the tears, the suffering, the sacrifice
that went into it. And I think whenever you can't
connect with that, then it does lose a little bit
of value in it. And you know, my brother had
(17:19):
a I mean, he was I tried not to give
him a whole lot of credit for being smart, but
I mean it was a it was a it was
It was a pretty smart put that that that he gave.
You know, I think that whenever you're in the middle
of it, you really appreciate it more. I think whenever
you you get to watch what's there, you don't quite
(17:40):
appreciate it. We uh, we talk about running a marathon
and we see folks on TV that finish a marathon,
or maybe we show up somewhere and we see somebody
finish a marathon and we clap for them, and you know,
they broke a record, and that's amazing, But do we
really appreciate what happened? Do we really appreciate the years
of training, that getting up at five in the morning,
the running on rainy days and icy streets, and the
(18:01):
meal prepping and all the work that goes into it,
or do we just see somebody crossing a finish line,
and I think that that's really the difference sometimes is
that we just see the finish line. We don't see
the work that goes into it, and it makes you know,
it takes away some of the appreciation in it.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Jeral. When we come back, I want to drill down
a little bit more into some of those critical elements
that I've seen have been successful and that you're out
there preaching hopefully. Leason, gentlemen, your host, Ben Buler Garcia.
We're talking with James Loto from Guide on Leadership. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
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Speaker 2 (19:10):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Lason, gentlemen, this is
your host, Ben Bler Garcia. We're coming to you from
the Sallencer Central Studios. Silencer Central is the largest silencer
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(19:32):
They'll complete all the paperwork and ship right to your
front door, making silence simple. Since two thousand and five,
that Silencercentral dot Com a real privilege to be talking
with James R. Laida today on American Warrior Radio. James
had a thirty year career in the United States Air Force.
Now he goes out there and trains people to be
better leaders and frankly, better citizens, better moms and dads
(19:53):
and uncles and sisters. James, I gave some examples of
some My personal experience is with great leaders, and those
who I've worked with who I found were truly great
had one well lots of characteristics, but one that really
struck me is their ability and desire to develop relationships
(20:16):
with the people on their team, from the you know,
from the fry cook on up to the senior vice
president and there's a I love taking lessons from movies.
There's a John Travolta movie called Phenomenon. I don't know
if you've seen it, but there's a lady that John
Travolta's got, you know, a romantic interest in and she
builds these wicker chairs. Well, he takes them from her
(20:39):
and obstensibly sells them at his garage. Well, it turns
out he was actually buying all these chairs themselves. Nobody
else was interested in that. He didn't tell the woman.
But then when some of the people challenged him about that,
the doctor in the community said, you know the reason
for this, other Fallly says, the reason your marriage is
failing is you've never identified what your wife's chair is.
(21:00):
You know, what's the what's what is in her life
that is her share that you need to identify and
embrace and build up. And I like to use that
example with with good leaders. I've seen where they take
the time to find out what's important to BBG. You
know what, what what are his his uh, what does
he want to build upon? Where does he want to go?
(21:21):
And so I'm building those kind of relationships. I assume
jy are you that's absolutely critical right, and what you teach.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, absolutely, So you know, one of the one of
the core things that we teach is nothing there's no
there's no problem that a relationship can't solve. But I
think of you know a lot of what you're talking about,
And I want to go back to our previous segment.
You you mentioned something and I kind of sketched down
a note. You mentioned that you know, there were folks
that that gave you opportunities, And I've had folks that
have given me opportunities, but I think that there's something
(21:50):
that happens before that opportunity. And this is what the
great leaders see when they when they go to build somebody,
when they're when they become willing to invest in someone,
and it's the self controlling, the self discipline. And you know,
if you've got a lot of young listeners out here,
you've got a lot of people out here that are
trying to find their next step or their next way,
or maybe they just walked into the military. I think
(22:11):
the most valuable thing that we can do day in
and day out is to exercise some self control and
some self disciplined to stay focused on the long term,
to be willing to swim all the way to the wall.
I had a chief tell me that it blot when
I was in Iraq. He was like, James, you know
you're down to the last ten days. He goes, I
need you to swim all the way the wall for me, right,
you got to finish it. You got to finish it
for me. So, you know, show up every day, put
(22:33):
on your boots every day, get a haircut every day,
iron your uniform, show up and work hard every day.
Swim all the way to the wall. Be disciplined and
be focused in what you're doing, and that opens up opportunities.
It creates opportunities for you because other people see that
and they migrate to it. They want it, they want
it on their team, they want to be around you,
they want to be a part of it, and they
(22:53):
want to make opportunities for you. Not everyone will, but
the ones that mitter will, the ones that mitter are
going to seek you out, are going to find you.
But it all comes down to some self discipline, some
self control.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You know, Jared. That makes me think of Also, something
I've heard from a lot of very wise people is
it will touch on this a little bit. I think
you call it, you know, leaving your fate in the
hands of judges. You also, whether you're in the military
or in the business world, you really have to put
yourself in position to be able to take advantage of
(23:24):
those opportunities when they do arise. You can't be surprised.
You know, you've got to have a plan. You've got
to do the work, like you say, you know, put
it in build your resume, whether it's through volunteer ship
or whatever it is, but you know, put yourself in
position to really take advantage of that. James, one of
the my favorite quotes from a novel is from the
(23:45):
novel Doune and it is It says, fear is the
mind killer. And you know, not to get all doctor
phil on you, but I would say the one of
the biggest impediments in my career, and as I've been
building this this radio franchise is fear. And I can't
tell you how often I've got to check myself and
pause and say, Ben, are you in or are you out?
(24:06):
Because you could you do come to places, particularly for
you're an entrepreneur, where you've got you know, you've got
to commit and you use an example, you know what
did Julius Caesar, her Iron Cortez, and sons Sue all
have in common.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Burn the boats, burn the boats, right, take away escape. Right,
you've got to go forward. You've got to move forward.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Burn the boats and so so for people who don't
know that story, I thought it was my familiar where
that was ann Quartez when he landed, you know, his
his troops were a little bit apprehensive.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Oh they were terrified. They weren't apprehensive, they were terrified.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Well, so he burned the ships and so you know,
they'd crossed the ocean, they'd landed, and he's like, okay,
there's no going back, there's only going forward.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah, burn the boats. Julius Caesar he did the same
thing whenever he was. He was he set out to
conquer Britain at the time, and his men were afraid,
and uh, you know, he was like, you know, if
if if you want to go forward, then you have
to burn the boats. You have to remove the escape
from your folks. But you know you mentioned fear. You know,
fear is the mind killer. One of the philosophers, right,
(25:14):
one of those Socrates are apostle guys. It might have
been Epiicetist that told us that we're tortured more by
our imagination than we are by reality, right, So we
will let our minds create a scenario that has not
that hasn't happened yet and probably won't happen. But we'll
lay in bed and this thing we'll just roll through
our mind in a torturous and we'll stay up all
night fearing something that hasn't happened yet. And that is
(25:38):
really hard to it's really hard to to to defeat.
And one of the things I learned from from a
from a first ergeant who wasn't a first sergeant. He
was a non diamond wearing first sergeant. We had a
situation going on where, you know, I had a guy
who's coming back from from deployment, and he was coming
back from to what was probably going to be not
(26:00):
a great situation. And I was a little bit worried
as his chief, because this guy's going to come back
and it's my job to protect him and take care
of him and love him. And I thought he was
going to walk back into something that was gonna be
pretty bad for him. And I was on the phone
with the Shirt one night and the Shirt told me this.
He said, Chief, you're not going to do anything. He
goes because you don't have a problem. You don't have
a problem until you have a problem, and right now
(26:21):
you don't have a problem. And that that was one
of the most sound pieces of advice that I got
in thirty years. You don't have a problem until you
have a problem. And sure enough, my guy walks off
the airplane, everything works out well, and he cruises on
to a fantastic career. But I had this thing playing
in my head, right I had this this movie running
(26:42):
in my head that was going to end up being
being terrible. So I'll share this with you. I share
this a lot in my one on ones when people
are talking about fear and I don't know that I'll
get this right, but I'll do the best I can
with it. We get to choose BBG. We get to
choose We get to choose fear of faith, all right.
And fear tells us all the bad things are going
(27:02):
to happen. Fear tells us what we can't do, what
doom and gloom is coming. But faith tells us what
we can do. Faith faith gives us optimism, you know,
and you get to choose one or the other. You know,
you can be afraid or you can have faith. And
I think that that faith a lot of times goes
back to that self discipline and self control. You know,
have you prepared yourself? You know, have you done everything
(27:23):
that you can possibly do? Have you positioned yourself well?
And if you have, then you should have faith. There's
nothing to fear at that point.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Give us about a minute for the next break, Jay R.
Give us if you can translate that example to someone
in the corporate world in a business, what how do
you go about burning your boat in the corporate world?
What is the equivalent of that? If you can, that's
a really good question. Burning the boats in the corporate world.
(27:51):
You know, sometimes you know, I'll set at the table
and I'll listen to owner operators and I'll listen to
executives that want to move forward. Right, we need to
do this, and it's a major change. Whatever that major
change is, right, we need to realign the organization. You know,
I work with a owner operator who wanted to completely
wipe out his organizational structure and redo it. And you know,
(28:13):
obviously you've got people who resist change. They fight against change, right,
And as they're fighting against change, they're trying to get
back on the boat. They don't like, they don't like
what's going on, and they want to get everybody back
on the boat and go back to where they were,
you know, where they're from. And at some point you've
got to go. You got to draw the line and
go We're not going back to this. We're not going
(28:33):
to go back. This may not work, but we will
not go backwards. Yeah. Great, great, perfect example. Ladies and gentlemen,
there's your host, Ben biler Garcia. We're talking with James
light about leadership and other topics that will help him
put your life stick around. Lots more coming up. Welcome
(29:11):
back to American Warrior Radio. Lice and gentlemen, there's your host,
Ben Buler Garcia. Real privilege to be talking with the
James Leda who I'll say, James, you when I talk
about the pandem of good leaders I've had the opportunity
to work with albeit you know, kind of briefly during
or interaction, You're you're definitely up on there. Now you're
now out spreading those messages in leadership and building better people,
(29:32):
not just better employees in the corporate world. I found
a little video on YouTube was from maybe your website
guide on Leadership dot com talked about leaving your fate
in the hands of the judges. Have you ever heard
of Kwan Fam I have not, No, so Kwan his family.
He and his mom and his sisters escaped Vietnam just
(29:53):
before the fall of Saigon, came to the US as refugees,
became the first American of Vietnamese defense to be a
Marine Corps pilot, and then went into the corporate world.
He's now involved in the pharmaceutical world. He is the
first American Vietnamese of descent to take a company, you know,
do an ipo on Nasdaq. And he's written a really
great book called Underdog Nation. And one of the things
(30:16):
that he talks about is the importance of never letting
anyone else define success for you. You know, a lot
of folks have an idea of what success looks like.
But you know, so many of us we take that
from you know, TV or the interwebs or whatever, you know,
the fashion magazine, when that's really not the way to go.
When you talk about leaving your fate in the hands
(30:38):
of judges, I see some parallels or explain to us
what you mean when we talk about leaving your fate
in the hands of judges.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
So that's actually a quote from Dana White from the UFC.
I used to tell the story to young Erman all
the time. I had lots of audiences with young airman.
You know, I would always give them three or four nuggets,
and one of those nuggets was never leave it in
the hands of the judges. What that means is is
that if you own it, then own it. Don't let
somebody else make a decision that affects you. Whenever you
(31:10):
own the situation. I see too many people that will
not give maximum effort. They won't put in everything that
they have. They'll actually work harder to get out of
doing something than the work it would take to just
do it. And then in the end, whenever they don't
get what they want, that it doesn't work out the
way they want to, then they want to wine and
cry alibi. I wonder why, you know, And in the end,
it's really you. You chose not to, You chose not
(31:31):
to work hard, you chose not to put the effort in,
and you didn't get the result that you wanted. And
you know, for your young folks that are out there,
whenever it comes to testing, when it comes to pt,
when it comes to learning your job, that's all your
responsibility and you can't let somebody else determine your fate
on those things. There's lots of other things that are
(31:51):
going to be outside of your control. My commander owns
I mean, he owned a lot of decisions in my life,
but the things that I owned, I didn't let him
have them. They were mine.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
And so how does how does someone actually do that
in their day to day life JR? I mean, do
I wake up and do I just pause before I
start my work and just remind myself of where I
want to go? Do I need to center myself every day?
Or because I you know, I could see, particularly if
you've got a repetitive job, whether that's in the military
or somewhere else, that it's just like, oh man, you know,
(32:23):
I forget why I'm here, I forget about the mission.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I think again, it goes back to that self control
and self discipline. Are you doing the things that you
need to do for yourself every day? You know? I
encourage people to get up in the morning, make your
bed every day, do some pushups, do some setups, take
a cold shower, sit down and plan out your day,
your next day before you go to bed. You've got
to do the small things, the difficult things, each and
every day. And as you do those things, it's going
(32:49):
to build the self control, and it's going to build
the discipline, and you're going to you're going to take
ownership of yourself and of your life.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I I feel like you know, you were talking about
social those types of things I think teach us to
be victims. And we see a lot of people that
have this victimhood mentality these days. And the truth is
is that the world really isn't out to get you.
In fact, the world, by and large, the world doesn't
even recognize you mean, we're so small, right, but we
(33:17):
think that there's so many eyes on us, But the
truth is there's really not. We control most of our
own fate, and those that believe that they have control
over their fate are the ones that have a tendency
to succeed. And it's those who blame the rest of
the world, that have this external locus of control that
get defeated and they get run over by life.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Forgive me here because it's not my first language, and
I'm going to take succeed and turn that into the
words succession. One of the things I also really appreciate,
or I recognize in a great leader, is there planning
for that person to replace them. You know you've mentioned before, JR.
We're all gone, and I'll never forget. I had a boss,
and again at that nonprofit, I started off working for him.
(33:59):
I eventually got promoted to the point where I was
his boss. And I really respect him for embracing that
and not causing a ruckus or a fuss. And he
understood that that was just because he was much older
than me. He understood, if you will, that I was
the next generation, and he embraced it. And I thought it,
Like you said before, I thought I was going to
(34:19):
be a problem. But why worry about a problem until
there's a problem, And there never was a problem. We're
kind of running out of time here at JR. But
I want to ask you a question. I had a
client that would I mean, they'd hire veterans all day long,
every day. They show up on time, they show up early,
they can pass a drug test, they know the command structure.
They're instilled with the concept of mission over self, which
(34:41):
is something that I find very often lacking in the
corporate world. So you know, mission over self, the team concept,
But if I'm a fry cook at McDonald's, how do
you translate that? How do you instill that mission over
self confidence with someone at that level in the corporation.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I was ask a very difficult question by an owner
operator one night. I'd been doing this job now, you know,
for about eighteen months, and he asked me, He goes,
what's the biggest difference that you see, Right, it's been
eighteen months that you've been in the corporate world. What's
the biggest difference between the military and the corporate world?
And man, I had to think about that for a second, right,
But what I came back with is this is purpose
(35:20):
and function. And I don't know if I'm using the
right words or not, but they are the words that
I use whenever I travel around. The biggest difference is
day one, minute one, when I got off the bus
at basic training. When all your military members that are
listening to this got off the bus at basic training,
regardless of where it was at in what service they
were in, there was an angry man or woman standing
there at two o'clock in the morning, yelling at us right.
And from that point forward, we were folding two shirts
(35:42):
into six Saint squares, and we were marching in a
straight line, and we were being yelled at. But all
of that was about can you be a team member
and can we grow you into a leader? That was
your purpose. I didn't find out my function. My function
was air traffic control. I was weeks in before I
found out what my function was. But my function changed
throughout my career. My purpose never changed. It was always
(36:04):
to be a team member, to be a leader, to
grow other people. And from the moment that you step
off the bus until the day you drive out the
gate on the last day, the military continually instills purpose
in US. We go to schools for it for weeks
and weeks at a time. In the corporate world, and
I'm not knocking the corporate world because I understand, but
when Johnny grabs the door handle to come in on
day one, it's about an ROI what is my return
(36:27):
on investment? And I got to teach him to do
a job, and that job is his function. And somewhere
along the way, hopefully we can teach him some purpose,
We can teach him some leadership, we can teach them
some teamwork, but it doesn't come until later on, and
you have to play catch up at that point. And
I think the difference between the military and the corporate
world is when you step off the bus, there is
(36:48):
no ROI. It's just an angry man making me do
push ups two o'clock in the morning. But that moment
continues for thirty years. I think the other thing that
the military does very very well is we teach value.
I use and we teach people to use values. And
I think in the corporate world, values are a poster,
they go up on the wall. But I think values
in the military is the price of admission onto the team.
(37:10):
And that was what General Fogelman told us in ninety six.
This is the price of admission onto the team. And
if you can learn to understand and appreciate and absorb
those values and adopt them and use them, then they
become a guiding light for you. And I don't know
that that gets used as well in the corporate world,
but it's one of the things that we're starting to
teach a lot. One last example that kind of kind
(37:33):
of gets after what you're talking about is coach John Wooden.
He had his pyramid of success, and I think that
there's about twenty five blocks on the pyramid of success.
One of them is team spirit, and team spirit directly
correlates to the Air Force core value of service before self,
which means I put the needs of the organization ahead
of my own personal desires. But when we look at
the world that we live in, especially the social media world,
(37:55):
we're being taught to be individuals. Our individualism is being celebrated.
But when you when you walk through the gate on
the first day, when you step off the bus at
basic training, now suddenly there's an expectation that you put
the needs of the organization ahead of yourself. And I
think that the military does a good job overall of
teaching that over the years. And I think as as
(38:16):
your Johnny's and societies leave the military and they walk out
the gate, they're bringing a quality with them that a
lot of owner operators that a lot of business owners
out there are looking for because they don't have to
teach that anymore. Somebody did it for them.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, I completely agree, JR. Listen, we're almost out of time.
We got about thirty seconds. We do have a lot
of kind of young military members listening tuning in on
the American Forces Network. Any advice to them from a
grizzled old chief.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
From a grizzle old chief, what I would tell you
is service before self. That's what I would tell you.
There's discipline, there's self control. It's about it's about the
people that are around you, and it's not necessarily about
your individualism. And you know, I think that that if
that when our folks stay focused on the team, on
(39:03):
the unit, on the organization, we all seem to work
a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Outstanding well, James Arlita Jr. We appreciate you spending some
time with our listeners today. Folks check out guide on
Leadership dot com. It's guid n Leadership dot com. Jr.
I look forward to chatting with you again sometime.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
BBG. I appreciate you, man. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
There you go. Ladies and gentlemen, Please spread these important
messages until next time. All policies and procedures at remain
in place. Take care.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
You've been listening to American Warrior Radio. Archived episodes may
be found at Americanwarriorradio dot com or your favorite podcast platform.
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