What does leadership look like when the mission changes, but responsibility for people does not?

On Episode 305 of Combat Vet Vision, Aaron Q. Seibert and Chef James L. “JB” Brown welcome Mark J. O’Loughlin, Sergeant Major, United States Marine Corps, Retired, Founder and CEO of Validated Leadership and author of Validated Leadership.

Mark served 30 years on active duty in the Marine Corps. His career included infantry leadership, recruit training, combat deployments and service as Sergeant Major of Wounded Warrior Battalion West. His service included operations during Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Desert Saber, along with three Operation Iraqi Freedom deployments.

In this conversation:

How leadership changes from combat operations to recovery and transition

Why genuinely caring about people still requires accountability and hard conversations

Lessons learned while developing Marines, drill instructors and future leaders

Translating military leadership experience into civilian organizations

Why talented employees are often promoted without being taught how to lead

How continued service can provide purpose long after military retirement

Mark’s story connects leadership, resilience, mentorship and service after service. His work challenges leaders to move beyond position and authority and focus on the people they are responsible for developing.

Guest Links

Validated Leadership

https://validatedleadership.com/

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-j-o-loughlin-sgtmaj-usmc-retired-35017522

Co-Host

Aaron Q. Seibert

Linktree - https://linktr.ee/aqseibert

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/aqseibert

Co-Host

Chef James L. “JB” Brown, AAC

Veterans Transition Resource Center

https://vtrc.us

PRODUCER

Brian Colburn

Linktree - https://linktr.ee/Bcolburn

Hey, welcome to Combat Vet Vision.

Hey, you're here with me and Chef JB Brown, co hosting this great podcast of just helping our veterans out in so many different directions.

Yeah.

Welcome and good afternoon from sunny downtown Las Vegas.

It's going to be a little warm today, about 107 or 108, so.

But that's all right.

It's.

It's a dry heat.

That's right.

That's right.

Hey, we're coming to you with the live from the studio of the.

The Veterans Transition Resource center, the VTRC right here.

And Brian Colburn in the background pushing buttons such radio.com and a whole bunch of things.

Our guest today, good friend of mine, Sergeant Major, uh, Mark o', Laughlin, book writer of the Validated Leadership Book.

I want everybody to, you know, take, take this in because it's an easy read, a great read and a great subject matter.

I mean, he sent this book to me a couple weeks ago and I'm great grateful to have him on the podcast.

Mark, how you doing, brother?

I'm outstanding.

Aaron, how have you been?

Hey, good, good.

Welcome.

Yeah, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chef.

Yeah.

Very honored to be invited here.

Thanks.

It's our honor too, to have you.

I mean, what a book.

God, country and service.

That's right.

Isn't that the way it goes?

That's.

That's the way it's always been for me.

Yeah.

Been for me.

That's what I was taught.

Hey, Mark, Mark, if you, if you could take us back to your, your early days, why you want to join the Marine Corps, talk about that.

And then obviously, you know, you served, your last duty station was Wounded Warrior Battalion west, and you got to retire from there, is that correct?

And then move on from there.

I did.

And today I'm from, originally from an Independence, Iowa, small farming community back there in northeast Iowa, you know, so once again, seven day a week operation.

I was the fifth child of nine.

We're all but one of us were one year apart.

Wounded twice.

So back there in, in Iowa, Midwest, Midwest, Eastern Iowa.

Very patriotic.

Kind of grew up with going with my dad to VFWs, American Legions, things like that.

Talking about, you know, listening to all the stories about his time in service and other veterans time in service.

I'm a big history buff.

I knew I wanted to join the Marine Corps or the military because of my dad, but when I seen the Sands of Iwo Jima by John Wayne.

That was it.

That was hook time.

That was it.

That was hook time.

And I knew I wanted to be a Marine after that.

So join, you know, enlisted when I was 17.

My parents signed the papers.

I didn't go until after I graduated high school when I was 18, but spent my first, you know, did a guaranteed infantry contract.

I spent, you know, MCRD San Diego for boot camp, went to the Infantry Training School at Camp Pendleton.

Spent my first year in Marine Barracks, Fallbrook California on just the east side of Camp Pendleton for one year.

There's got transferred to 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, did a deployment with them.

I reenlisted in the Marine Corps, became a drill instructor.

So I was at MCRD San Diego from 86 to 88, drill instructor, senior drill instructor and transferred to the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines.

Spent another five years there, did three deployments including desert Shield, Desert Storm.

Got orders to the School of Infantry west as an instructor, troop handler, then instructor, got promoted to staff Sergeant, orders immediately to 1st Battalion, 1st Marines.

Did a deployment with them over to the Persian Gulf, cross decked over to two one, did another deployment to the Persian Gulf and then I reenlisted, went back to the drill field.

I was a drill instructor, senior drill instructor instructor at the drill instructor school.

And then the war kicked off, got orders right to Camp Pendleton, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, went to Iraq with them, came back, got selected for first sergeant, orders back to 3 1.

I did two more deployments to Iraq with 311 with Lima Company, the last time with weapons company and then got promoted to Sergeant Major, transferred to MCRD San Diego again.

I was the second second Battalion Sergeant Major.

And then that's when I got transferred to the wounded War Battalion west to Camp Pendleton where you and I met Aaron.

I was, I was already retired then, but I was coming, coming in and, and with Jim Galardi, four time Purple Heart guy and just helping out the vets with warrior groups and different things, but had a chance to meet a lot of sergeant majors that went through Wounded Warrior Battalion west because it was such a place.

Go ahead, Sergeant Major.

It was, it was great, you know, it was a great way to round up the career after.

You know, I, I love being infantryman.

You know, I love the high dead little straight up the middle, two up, one back and chime the objective.

So I just love being in that environment and if I couldn't be at that environment in the infantry, I spent the rest of my time at training new, new or new recruits.

You Know, civilians trying to help them make, make them into Marines and then entry level Marines making them into infantrymen.

And then I, like I said, I just love being in infantry.

I love the camaraderie, the, the togetherness, you know, the leadership and you know, working with people, working with an entry level, working with the more experienced ones and building that cohesive team.

You know, it's not a, they always say it's not about having the perfect team, it's building the best team.

And so that's just what, what was so great about the infantry is being able to build that team.

Being a tune star and platoon commander, company Gunnery sergeant, a company first Sergeant.

I only wish I could have went back as a battalion sergeant Major, but you know, that's, that was.

You already did.

What is in God's plan for me?

Yeah, no, you know what, you know what though?

You came as a sergeant Major to Wounded Water Battalion West.

Obviously that's not an infantry battalion.

That's a battalion of healing wounded, ill and injured.

So in all your time in the Marine Corps, you, you, you got to see how, you know, obviously in infantry battalions they, they would send their guys to s. And guys would be on limu and this whole process, you didn't really get to associate so much with it.

But being part of the wounded war Battalion west, you got to see the medical side of things in a whole different dynamic.

And you probably had to shift some of, you know, obviously, you know, being Semper Gumby and, and, and adapt and overcome was such a, such a different kind of a perspective from coming from all these infantry battalions and all this, you know, the Marine Corps way of doing life to now having to adapt to this medical.

Hey, only, only 3% were going to return to the, to, to the service again.

And 93, you know, 97% are getting out of the, out of the Marine Corps.

Yeah.

How, how was that, how was that adaption for you?

And how, how did you, how did.

You view that so especially, especially in the infantry and taking the, going to combat with an infantry battalion, seeing the, seeing just the phenomenal performance under, in combat conditions and in combat seeing scene Marines perform was just so inspiring.

But then when you get to a wounded war battalion where you see the effects of that, of that combat with all those wounds.

But what was really revealed there even more at wounded War Battalion was that indomitable spirit of the human will.

You know, you know, you have Marines with, without legs, you know, without, without an arm blinded, concussion, you know, concussion injuries.

But they're indomitable spirit.

Their still United States Marines, they still identify themselves as that and they still perform that that way.

It's just, you know, just remarkable.

It's really humbling for, for you when you've got all your limbs and you got all your faculties.

But you see the example that they are setting, even coming through their wounds and, and overcoming those adversities.

It's just, just totally inspiring.

Emotionally draining, but just totally inspiring.

Yeah, definitely.

It definitely was as, you know, being there and going through the process myself and, and getting out.

And what's, what's interesting is, and, and sad.

Obviously we lost some guys to suicide.

We've, we've lost a bunch to different things.

Even surgeries to, you know, there's just so many things.

But the end result of most of them is that they're going on to something else.

They're getting sent out into America.

They're going to have another opportunity that you just don't know.

But because we were at Wounded War Battalion West, I want to say those connections, just like you and I having this great connection, we get to see some end results, we get to see some progressive results.

Not necessarily in, but what is going on in those lives, right?

And, and your life.

You, you wrote this, you wrote this, you know, validated leadership book and you just, you just completed it.

Super exciting for you.

You know, those, those are things that are still progressing.

And you do a lot for Wounded Warrior Project.

You're doing the financial piece helping helping veterans out.

You got so much going on.

So I'd love to hear some more of your story.

We'll go into that.

Yeah.

So I, tomorrow will be two years since I joined Wood Warrior Project.

So after I, after I retired from the Marine Corps, I helped build a not for profit organization called Psych Armor.

And what Psych Armor was designed to do when it first started was to teach medical and mental health professionals on how to work with veterans.

Because remember back then at that time, the VA was getting overran with of, you know, cases of people needing counseling and they couldn't handle it, so they're farming them out to civilian providers.

Well, these civilian providers, some of them had no concept of how to work with a, a veteran.

They had no experience, no connection whatsoever.

And you know, it was proven that a lot of these veteran suicides had seen a mental health provider within weeks of their committing suicide.

So where was the disconnect?

You know, why was there, why couldn't they make that connection with that veteran and keep him coming back?

But the psychologist that started Psych armor.

Marjorie Morrison, she said it's not totally their fault because if you don't have a connection with the military, you don't know that ways to make that connection.

You know, you try, you use your, your book skills, you use your experience with civilians, but it doesn't always work.

That's why we, it was a five day process.

I would teach the first two and a half days.

We would go from the Department of Defense all the way down to say a Marine fire team.

And we would, I would give them the, a concept of how they think, how they feel, how they would like to be reacted to and asked questions of, you know, they don't, they don't want to be, you know, pitied or you know, feel sympathy for them, but they do expect some empathy.

They do expect some understanding.

So I would teach that first two and a half days and let them answer, ask all the questions to me.

And then the psychologist, Marjorie, she would handle the next two and a half days and go into the psychological things.

So that was.

So I worked with them for about three years.

We got it built up.

I finally moved on from that.

I started using my GI bill to go to school and then so I got my bachelor's degree.

I extended it out, achieved a master's degree in business administration.

So then I thought I was going to make all my big money, you know, so I started doing real estate and mortgage loans and things like that.

But I, I'm also a member of a charity organization in San Diego called the Nice Guys.

San Diego Nice Guys.

And it's our charters for San Diego County.

We provide a hand up, not a handout to good causes.

In San Diego county we also have a subcommittee called the Victory Fund for active duty military and veterans and combat wounded veterans.

So I was always doing that and I'm currently the president of that organization.

So I was always getting pulled back to helping out.

You know, I was involved the vfw, the American Legion, the Elks Lodge and running their veterans programs.

So our good friend of ours, Aaron, retired Colonel Greg Martin, working for the Wounded Warrior Project and said, hey, there's these positions you'd be perfect for once you put in for.

And so I did, you know, like I said, I kept getting called back to this thing about helping.

So I took the position as a financial counselor with the Wounded War Project and we, we help, we get cases.

The veterans call in, they're a member of the Wounded Warrior Project, they want to receive some financial education.

We get them, we have like a four month program where we go over their budget and spending plan, we see if they need any type of assistance with credit repair, credit management.

We'll take a look at our overall situation.

What's their VA rating?

The Wounded Warrior Project is a all around operation.

Goes from mental health to warrior talks, to warrior rides to outdoor odyssey type things.

We have warriors to work, we have a benefits program, we have the financial education program.

We are just an overall all around product.

It is a phenomenal organization.

It's came a long way since it first started.

Yeah, it sounds like it.

So we get them, I get them and all my teammates in the financial education program.

We call, we take a look at them, find out what their income is.

If they're getting 20%, we ask them, do you feel there's some conditions that might enable you to get a higher VA rating?

If yes, we get them over to the benefits section.

If they're look actively looking for work, we get them with the warriors to Work program.

And then if we get them a job and we get them a raise in their VA rating helps their financial situation because we know that also that some of these suicide attempts and the ones that completed their suicides had financial issues, had financial crisis issues.

So we want to take that out of the equation if possible.

We want to get them stable, we want to get them solvent, we want to get them in a positive attitude where they have a good living conditions.

You know, we can help them with, get them pointed toward the va, getting a HUD VASH voucher so they can get a good living spot.

They're not having to live in their car around the streets in a tent in the, in the woods.

So yeah, I love, I love working for the Wounded Warrior Project.

It's a great, a great organization.

And you're on, you're going on two years with that coming up here two years tomorrow.

And you've been working on this leadership book for how long?

15 Years.

You said, oh, I've had this.

So they say leadership is caught as, as much as it is taught.

And there's a other old saying that says you teach what you most need to know.

And leadership is one of those things.

I know that's something I need to know a lot of.

So teaching.

You know, if you teach anything, you usually get better at it.

So I've always been a proponent of teaching leadership and empowering the individual and, and taking a.

Like I said, that's why I love the, the drill field and SOI instruction and being a platoon sergeant, platoon commander, things like that.

Because you get that new, that new raw material and you develop it, you make it better.

And so I've had, I've had this manuscript.

Okay, sat down and, and finalized it.

Yeah.

And how do you, how do you feel about it?

Because I, I mean I haven't read the whole thing yet.

I've, I've read through it a couple.

You know, I think I'm into chapter.

Two, but so just, just like you said, it's awesome.

It's an easy read.

Easy read.

It's an easy read.

It was meant to sit and then put it into effect.

Nothing worse than have the big old, you know, thick, thick book that it takes.

It'll take you three months, four months to read and then you got to go back.

Well, what was those first things I was supposed to implement?

Yeah, the leader, the leadership rule.

There's five basic rules of leadership thing.

I didn't think anything this up.

This is how my mind take.

Took everything that I was taught about leadership through life and core and afterwards and how my mind organizes it, processes it and teaches it and lead by it.

So it's my five different rules.

You know, based, say, like very, very simple, very straightforward rules.

You don't have to have a, have a master's degree to, to understand them.

You know, they're, they're, they're, they're Barney style so that we can all, we can all learn them, we can all implement them.

So it's, it's very easy reading, very easy.

There's a whole chapter on just how to implement it.

Very easy ways that you can implement it.

And you can always go back over and reintroduce something.

It's, and you, you can just use it and keep building on it.

You know, the more you learn.

Say like let's take a look at the first, the first one, you, you have to care about people and desire to be a good leader.

There's the old saying, nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

You could be the greatest, smartest, brilliant individual in the world and, and have a be in a high leadership position.

But if your people think that you are just using them to aggrandize yourself, they're going to turn you off and they're just going to give the bare minimum to get by.

When people know you care, they will, they will just go above and to get things done higher than you even expected, you know, more than you expected more than you asked them initially for because you showed human dignity, concern, human care.

And when I say care, I don't mean carry.

I don't mean, oh, he just, he just made a major mistake or he, he did something wrong and you're just going to cover it up.

No, no, carry means holding them accountable.

Accountability is a cornerstone of leadership.

You have to hold them accountable.

You have to use whatever resources to, to get them to overcome their defects.

You can't change another person, you can only influencing them and provide them a good example to follow.

So if they change themselves so that they raise their standards, because if you can get all of the people in that little area of responsibility, if you can get all of them to raise their standards, it's going to magnify the, the performance level of the whole unit.

You know, it's just, it's just, just magnifies on itself.

When every individual has, is trying to improve themselves and do better and do something good for the, for the organization, there's just no telling what, how good it can be and how much better it can be.

It's, you know, it's like, it's kind of like the Marine Corps.

You know how they say there's, there's 10 types of people in any organization.

Six of them are basically just there, right?

They're being drug along.

There's, there's the next three that are pretty good performers and you want them around.

And there's that one who is the top level performer that you can't, sometimes you feel you can't do without.

But in the Marine Corps, everybody thinks they're that one person.

They're that one, that one out of 10.

And that's what makes the Marine Corps so special.

But that's what makes this leadership book so special.

Because if you can harness that, if you can harness that concept in everybody's thinking and get them to raise their standards, the organization is just going to get so much better.

That's so true.

That's so true.

Yeah, you got, you got, you know, you got that passion, that great, that the great, that the great thing.

You know, talk a little bit about your transition and why that was so important too and you know, talk about why that was such a, you know, cool part about the book too.

And what, what did transition do for you?

Because I think it's really hard for any service member to transition because again, you talked about, you know, civilians don't understand our language.

A lot of times they don't understand how to necessarily effectively treat us if, if we have to go to a civilian.

But you know, through leadership and through guidance and, and support on, on our fellow veterans.

Because I don't know about you, but for me I don't, I don't know what it's like not to have a veteran combat buddy.

You know, if you think you're just going to escape and do your own thing, you might be lost in the sauce for a while before you figure it out.

But you're definitely going to lean on some other fellow veterans along the path because everybody's going to tell you, someone's going to tell you how to make it to the next building over there in the va. You know, for one that's the simplest way to put it.

But there's so many things we lean on each other for and talk about that.

Mark.

Totally.

Totally.

So I think for it was for me anyway, is that ego?

You know, I retired.

I was a sergeant Major of Marines.

You know, I, it was one of my highest goals in the Marine Corps was to earn the rank, earn that title, earn that position of sergeant Major of United States Marines.

Some of my, my best mentors, my closest mentors were, were this majors and so I was just striving to do it, you know.

Then so you, you're kind of like at the top of the heap but then you go, so then you go to retirement ceremonies or change of command ceremonies, things like that and you're around these organizations and then some of your, some of the Sergeant Majors and 1st Sergeants and Master gunner sergeants are now that are now those people now used to be some of your Marines, you know, they were, they were under your charge for a while.

So you go to these organ, these events and then after the venture talk everyone's standing around talking to each other and everything and then they get together and then say the start division wants to have a little powwow with all his staff NCOs about some real world things, you know.

Yeah, they kind of look at you like it was good seeing sergeant Major but we got some real world things to do, you know.

Yeah, that's a good way to look at it.

That's a good, you know, hey, I trained you, you know, it's like yeah, I trained you but that's all part of the, that's all part of the thing where you know, you help develop them in some way shape or form.

And now they're the ones doing the real world thing, you know, they're the ones that have the watch as they say.

Yeah.

And it is kind of a You know, if you don't check your ego and if you don't develop humility, you know that, that can get to you.

And that's where a lot of veterans, you lose that sense of real world purpose.

You know, you're used to doing real world things, real world dangerous things.

And now you're.

That's right.

You know,.

And would you say that.

Laundry and you're doing.

Yeah, yeah.

And that real world dangerous thing doesn't translate very well into civilian worlds.

So you have to be humble to realize that you're going to be working for your s. The sergeant that you brought up and you know, the first sergeant and those guys have jobs that can give you a job and you know, those connections, those connections really matter.

And, and you don't really know it, you know, until you, until it, until you know it.

And, and it's, and it's part of that leadership that you're talking about, that leadership.

And once you're teaching it, you're learning, you gotta, you gotta care about people, but you got to be humble.

You know, you, yes, you identify yourself as a leader, but you have to know your place, you know, and your, what state of life you're at at that time.

You know, you can't go into a new job and be the sergeant major.

You know, if I, if I come in late and just try to get a cup of coffee, you know, that's not going to go good at the workplace.

No, no.

Hey.

And you know, I just want to throw this one point out that's really, you know, and I, I call you up and I say Sergeant Major first before I leave and say Mark, because it's out of love and respect.

It's not something that, you know, once you, once you retire, you don't have those titles necessarily.

But just like me, I go by Chief all the time.

But people call me Chief out of love, not out of, not out of something that I demand.

But I still feel like I'm a chief.

I'm still, you know, doing everything that I did in the military, just in a different uniform of the minute, whatever that is.

Warrior built, PTSD Foundation, Wounded War project, whatever you got going on, that's, that's the title that you got.

Correct.

You still have to perform at that level that you've developed about yourself, you know, but the execution or the display of it, you know, is, is different.

You're not in there yelling, you're not knife handing anybody.

You're not, you know.

Yeah, you're in the, you're in A different state, different stage, but you still perform.

Just like, you know, the Marine Corps has the staff NCO creed.

You know, it says, I'm a staff NCO member of the most unique group of professional military practitioners in the world.

I am bound by duty to my God, my country, and my fellow Marines to execute demands of my position to and beyond what I believe to be the limits of my capabilities.

You still perform that way.

You still perform at the top notch level.

If there's a, you know, if there's.

You walk into your work area and there's a spill on the counter, a spill on the floor, you don't say, oh, the janitor's gonna get it later.

No, you.

You take care of it.

You take the initiative, you get things done.

You still perform at a, at the, at a level, you know, you still are professional to everybody.

You give them a good greeting in the morning.

You know, you're.

You've got to make contact.

You gotta care about people.

Yeah, there's so many.

Once again, when you come in and you give that, that greeting to somebody, or somebody walks in and they got their head down and, and you kind of like get their attention and you say hello and a big smile, you know, you might be the first and only positive thing that's in their life that day.

Yeah, they might have just had the worst event last night on the way into work.

Things that might have been going bad.

You might be that first positive event in their life that will carry them through the rest of the day.

That's right.

That's such a great point.

Get them to pass it on.

Exactly.

No, it's, it's great.

I'm, I'm really, I'm really honored to be your friend.

And, and I know I get to see you, you know, in social media doing some stuff.

And, you know, that's such a way, a really awesome way to stay connected.

There's so much negativity on social media, so many other things that you can be involved in, but to be posting, you know, positive things and to share it amongst your friends is super important.

Just like this book, man, when I saw you, you had this book and, and all this, I want, I want to share that.

I want to see, I want to, I want to enjoy the success that you're having as, and, and follow those pathways.

Because it's not my pathway.

It's not, you know, it's.

It's not chef's pathway.

Yeah, it's yours.

It's.

It's each one of us, each one of Us has those pathways.

But to, to get a leadership perspective from, from your book here, validated leadership is going to be awesome.

To any, any, any veteran or any civilian that might pick that thing up.

Yeah, that's it.

You know, I, and that's what I did, especially right after I retired.

While I was helping build that psych armor, I was doing consulting.

I'd go into a company and I'd meet with.

First I'd meet with the, the CEO and I'd find out, okay, what have you been telling your organization time and time again that they're just not getting.

They're not, it's not sinking in, right?

And then when I talk to the whole group, I start taking that information and I start putting it into my lingo type thing and put it to them so that now they're saying, oh my, the boss isn't the only one saying it.

You know, it's just like, it's like talking to your children.

You can tell them and tell them and tell them goes on one ear out the other.

But then your friend or your brother or something, you know, some relative, your, their uncle tells them the same thing.

And it's like it came from the burning bush, you know, it's like, yeah, for some reason, they just can't take it from you.

But yeah, I would go in there and they'll.

So I would, so I would meet like first with the CEO, then I'd meet with everybody.

Then I'd go back and talk to the.

Their managers.

Because this book is perfect for civilian organizations.

Because a lot of times civilian organizations, they'll take the best performer, right?

They'll, there's, let's say, a sales company, they'll take that best salesman, the guy who's just ringing in sales and making these huge commissions and he's got his little rock out and he's got his schedule and he's happy and everything.

They're like, wow, he's such a great salesman.

Let's make him the sales supervisor or sales manager.

Well, he doesn't want to be the sales manager, so they make him the sales manager and he failed.

And then, then he starts.

Yeah, he's not bringing in the big things.

He's not getting those big commissions no more.

He's not in his, you know, in his comfort zone.

He's not where he's the best.

And so what's he do?

He either quits or they fire him because they never trained him.

That's it.

They never trained him.

And once again, leadership is, is learned by Observation, emulation and experience.

Okay, so.

And everybody's a leader in some way, shape or form.

Whether you're a father, whether you're an older brother, older sister, whether you're, you know, you run out, an event at your church, things like that.

You're a leader in some way, shape or form.

These are basic rules that everybody can take, learn and use.

And like I like to say, I didn't think one of these things up.

I learned all of this.

Yeah, I learned it.

I learned my observation, emulation, experience.

Well, you know, thanks a lot for sharing all this awesome information.

A little bit about yourself too.

And you know, obviously, you know, knowing these organizations that you're, you know, you're part of too, it's so cool that you're doing it.

And any, any final words and how people can get a hold of you.

And like I always tell people, you can get a hold of him through me.

And a shout out to Mike De Leon and, and, and Brad Fight for, for their, their, their shout out.

I see Brad's chat on there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But Brad was, Brad's one of those indomitable spirit individuals out there who, who had suffered greatly in combat, overcame all that.

And now I think he's on his, I think he's on his second book, if I'm not mistaken.

So see, you're a sergeant major.

You're a sergeant major with one book and you got Brad Fight who.

You know, I think he's got two books.

Well, I know I feel like a slacker, but so I got, I, my, my website's validated Leadership dot com.

It's being worked on right now.

So there's some things.

I bought it.

But you can grab the book on Amazon.

That's the fastest way to get is Amazon.

Grab the book on there and coda low.

Thanks for saying hi.

It's good to hear from you.

Yeah, thanks for popping on.

Hey, but that's, that's awesome.

Sorry, major.

And, and if somebody wants to get a hold of you, I mean, obviously the show notes have a lot of information out there, so you can get a hold of him in so many different ways.

Obviously checking out the book and you know, Wounded Warrior project, he's, he's in there doing the financial thing.

So if you need that help, you know, definitely.

If you're not, if you're a post 911 veteran and you're not, if you're not signed up with the Wounded War project, you are wrong.

Get signed up.

It's free.

Hey.

Hey.

Do you have to Have.

Do you have to fight your knife hand sometimes?

Our major, like, I saw you go with the finger instead of the, the knife head.

You know, it's like, it's, it's such an ingrained part of our lives.

You know, you get, you know, you, you get into the, to the talk.

You know, you get back into the mindset, and it just automatically comes out.

You know, it's that muscle memory.

There you go.

Well, that's.

That, that's what's cool about this podcast.

It's, you know, it's a, it's a developmental piece of information for our veterans, our society.

You know, it gives you a quick look into how we might interact because, you know, we feel like we're just here together.

And it's, it's just an awesome kind of, you know, spree decor, camaraderie, and just awesome stuff.

So.

And it's important for veterans, like I said, have a place to go.

I'm also on another podcast called the.

The Lost Art Projects Veterans Voices, and we're recording.

So Andrew Cox, retired master gunner Sergeant.

He, he records these, and they're archived with the National Archives.

So we need to get everybody on there scheduled to tell your story and get it archived because it's important.

Yeah, I'll get scheduled.

I'm gonna be scheduled enough to live.

It's important enough to record.

That's right.

That's it.

Yeah.

I'm gonna get on that with you, Sergeant Major.

I look forward to it.

I know we talked about it, Chief.

It's.

Once again, it's great to meet you, chef.

Great to meet you also.

Yeah.

Mark, I.

You know what, Mark?

I learned in my leadership days that a good leader learns when to lead and when to follow.

Because there's a lot of times in a kitchen where if I just lead, then I'm not really learning.

And to, to really learn, I need to follow sometimes.

And, and I have this saying.

It says Confucius say mind is like umbrella only works when open.

And I try to keep an open mind because it's so important.

And, you know, one of the things that's really important, you're a sergeant major.

You know, you had, you know, having a platoon or a company underneath you.

You've got multi different personalities that you have to deal with.

And, and if you get the job done, then you've done your.

Your work for the day.

You.

You've accomplished something.

And you know, I, I used to have 7 to 800 employees underneath me and, and executive chef.

We were feeding 32, 000 people a day.

That's like a small city.

And being the executive chef of that, you got to know people and you got to put trusted ones in.

But while those trusted people have those positions, you're always looking to bring people up through the ranks, too.

Just like you.

You know, you see the good ones and you.

You kind of nurture them along so that they will reach their potential.

They will become the best they can be.

And you know, chef, there's a big part of that in my book talks specifically about what you were saying about developing those others.

And like I.

It says in the book, nobody, no honorable person, like, comes into work and says, I'm going to be as subversive and destructive as possible.

No honorable person does that.

No.

But they might be having some bad life situations where they have that negative attitudes.

Yeah.

And so they need.

Do they need to be inspired or they need to be.

Or do they need to be chastised?

You know, they need to be inspired.

And now with good counseling and inspiration, they're either gonna raise their standards, which is going to help the organization, or they're going to seek employment elsewhere, which does two things.

It helped the organization, the person who counseled them and tried to inspire them, they learned.

They learned more about another way to do things and got some more experience.

And that person who, who left, they might have left, but they will eventually realize they were treated with dignity and respect and fairness, and it might just have planted a seed for them to.

Yeah, standards.

Sow your seeds.

I always say that to my people that I train.

So.

Your seeds.

Because you're going to need them later.

That's right.

Hey, thanks, Sergeant Major.

I appreciate it.

Hey, I'm gonna show this book one more time, but you guys need to check it out and, and, and, and look it up.

And, and if you want to follow up with Sergeant Major, let me know.

We'll do that, Mark.

Thanks a lot, brother.

Then my.

My email address is Mark M A r [email protected].

Okay.

Thanks, brother.

Appreciate you.

Thanks, Mark.

Se there.

Yeah.

Hey, we're gonna get into a couple of event things that are going on, and I'm.

Yeah, a lot.

A lot of really cool things.

And Chef, I know you got a chili cook off coming up.

We're going to talk about that.

Yep.

And I'm just going to talk real quick about an event that I went to last night.

Uh, vet talks.

Uh, awesome.

2026, The second year that they've ran that.

They ran it at the, uh, Leathernet Club here in las vegas.

It was definitely put together in such an awesome way.

The speakers that were involved, and there was eight of them, and I'm just going to go through them real quick.

Revious Gill, executive director, director of operation battle cry.

He, he has a whole attitude of, you know, live your happy life kind of thing, your happy triggers, and I thought that was really cool.

Amber joy bonds, soul recon retreats and she's breath work facilitator.

She had deceit and affair type stuff, you know, dealing with bodies that were getting jacked up.

And she had an incredible story.

Actually brought tears to my eyes.

I never thought I would actually cry at one of these events, but it was cool.

Travis Johnson, retired u. S. Navy flight officer, score mentor.

Good, good, good speech on his part.

Louis burrell, he was outreach coordinator, u.

S Vets las vegas.

Great story on his part, you know, talking about how he helps the homeless out and he helped a guy find some, some, some housing and you know, it took him a year to actually crawl into his own bed.

He was sleeping on the floor on a, you know, sleeping bag.

And it's just really incredible stories and, you know, finally getting him his vet vet benefits and things like that.

Steve altman, owner and operator of arizona off grid solutions.

Guy had an awesome story.

All over.

The place, wanted to be an actor, finally accomplished that.

But he builds this off grid compound that out there, out there.

And he, he did some really cool stuff.

Ross Bryant, really cool.

Executive director of military and veteran service centers at the unlv.

Incredible thing on his part.

He had a great story on how he, you know, took over a program that was really falling apart at unlv and kind of created such a veteran community for our veterans to have a place to kind of get some stuff done.

Yeah, we need to look him up.

Yeah.

Alfred, you talk to him about coming on?

I didn't, but I, I, I, I will.

I think that's, we should be really great.

Yeah.

Alfred brenner, purple heart recipient and Arthur is surviving with grief.

His, his dog, he was a dog handler, lost his dog.

Grief.

His dog's name was grief.

And in a, in an explosion that took, took place really tossed him all over the place.

And his, his dog didn't make it.

So, and that was a dog that was looking for ids and it was trained to do so.

And just his story was a great, incredible story.

And then, and then jacob, everybody knows jacob stitch duran, boxer, hall of famer, you know, and he's been in a couple movies.

Rocky creed, one Two and three.

Just, just a whole bunch of stuff.

And I got to spend some time talking to him.

He may be on my podcast at some point.

But, you know, shout out to all the guys that were behind the scenes thanks to the Ghost out there at the Leatherneck Club.

And they had heck of a great taco, you know, just, you know, four tacos and you know, uh, just some, just some awesome stuff.

And then Spec Ops Water was out there handing out waters the, in the cans.

Those were pretty cool.

But David Lorgan, he, he was, he was one of the main hosts there.

Jessica J. Lee D. Maria Mandalay or Zako.

I'm sorry, I'm butchering all these names.

And then Tom, Tom Ghost Martin, which, yeah, just an incredible thing.

So the vet talks and you can see Ghost up on the screen there.

And Jessica, but she hosted the whole thing and did an incredible job.

And I want to just say it was just, it was just great.

I applied for the vet talks.

I'm not known in the circle of these guys yet, but I look forward to hopefully making it on and, and telling my story in some way.

But it was great to see these stories because I, I don't think I have listened to enough storytelling from our military's brothers and sisters to really kind of hone my own story into an eight minute little segment of, of incredible storytelling.

The thing was just a, it was a great overall event and I would say, you know, just next year to really go through it and really do some stuff.

But I'm gonna turn it over to chef now.

He's got all kinds of stuff to talk about and I'm looking forward to you too, to brief all your good stuff.

Yeah, chef.

JB's kitchen, let's go.

Yeah.

So what's coming up with the BTRC comes up October.

We've got a chili cook off.

You can get a hold of us here.

If you need an entry form, I'll have those up pretty soon.

You can enter your chili anything you want to make.

Anti ISIS chili won.

One year it was all pork, and that was when ISIS was still conquering part of the world.

Or you can just come and enjoy.

You pay, I think it's $5 or $10 and you get to sample all the different chilies.

And the winners are announced at four, the tastings one to five, and then the winners announced at four.

You get a plaque, a red, really nice thing saying you won if you win.

And if you need cookers, I have Some, some little rashads that you can cook on.

Some people bring like cut up stuff already so they're not like chopping.

But if you want to come and do it from scratch, that's okay.

This isn't for like going for competition chilies and a five thousand dollar bike.

We just go and have fun for the day.

We have the rough draft, we have live music that day.

They come and play and donate their time and it's a great fundraiser for us here at the vtrc.

So it helps with keeping the doors open and this podcast going and, and us reaching out to you is the community.

So it's a good time.

Definitely, Chef.

And you got a. September 12th also up in Reno.

Yes.

The gala, the girls gala.

It's a poker tournament at the Nevada Museum up in Carson City.

It's great place.

It's like three floors and if you want to play poker, come or if your wife plays poker, if your kids want to come, please bring them.

They have a hunt, you know, for scavenger.

Scavenger hunt, yes.

And there's three floors and the bottom floor in the basement used to be an old United States Mint where they printed all the different coins and it still is operable.

So you can see that kind of.

And, and they just open all the doors to us.

They give us their.

The museum for the night.

They realize that we collaborate with a lot of different Horses for Heroes, some different groups up there.

It's just a really good time.

I was there last year doing the event and this year we're going to have poker tables if you want.

I don't know if, if Brian has the flyer still, but yeah, we'll, we'll,.

We'll put these flyers in for next week's show.

So we'll be able to.

Yeah.

Be able to highlight a lot of.

These things coming on to the, to the website really soon.

And we're working on that now.

Or Brian's gonna work on that.

Thank God.

Stitch radio or stitch radio.com.com.

So Brian's a great guy and he moved to Las Vegas to be with us.

No, that's part of the reason.

That's a good, that's a good, that's a good double stack right there.

Yeah, there you go.

He met one of our friends and, and really liked her.

So in fact he got engaged.

So happy engagement.

He moved here and great guy and, and it's gonna start helping us out on some issues like our website.

And of course he works on our show.

He's.

He's the producer of our show.

And great guy.

So I really look forward to working with him as I do with you, Aaron.

And that's how you grow.

You know, if you don't grow, you go.

So we're growing.

That's right, Chef.

And what's going on in the.

The other things you got.

We got the, the, the breakfast coming.

Up for the honor flights November 11, Saturday, we do about 500.

We do a pancake breakfast, Pancakes for patriots.

Goes to take some of our Senior Veterans, Washington, D.C. to see the memorials.

I still work with St. Jude's Ranch teaching workforce development for young adults in foster care 18 to 22.

And I just put in a brand new hydropower.

I didn't put it in.

Unr put it in.

And they're helping us teach the students how to do grow our own vegetables and in a hyponic garden.

So it's actually at the restaurant and when you come, you can look at it.

And that's at 806 South Rancho Drive, number 6.

It's called the Blooming Bistro.

We bloom young people up in life.

You know, my thoughts are, are like Mark, you know, how we develop, how we treat, train young people to accept more and be more and that leadership, you know, and it's great thing.

I enjoy doing that.

You know, I never woke up lately and said, well, what am I going to do today?

I really don't look forward to today, you know, and there's a lot of military people that do that and, and veterans that do that.

And I'm sorry to say that, but, you know, you got to have purpose, you got to have meaning.

And I, you know, I go to work some days and I deal with young people.

And not every day is great, but most days, you know, I float to my car.

I don't even want my car.

I.

It's just so rewarding and so absolutely uplifting to me.

I'm, I'm not uplifting them.

They're uplifting me, so.

Right.

And, and that's the great thing about leadership is when it's working, it's working really great all the way down and all the way back up.

No, that's some.

That's something.

That's amazing, Chef.

That's.

And thanks for sharing all that stuff.

Yeah.

Got anything else?

No, it's.

It's pretty much everything on my agenda.

Look forward to, to the coming weeks, like I said.

I'd like to talk with the guy from unlv.

I do a lot of stuff at unlv.

I, you know, they have a bistro there and, and I've worked with the culinary department there quite a bit over the years.

Taste the turkey there.

I mean.

Yeah, yeah, he's a great guy.

He's.

He was a tanker and, you know, has a whole bunch of tank history and, you know, transition from, you know, his old tank to the M1 grand and, you know, all that good stuff.

So it was, it was pretty cool.

His story was epic as well.

So I look forward to spending some time reaching out to these guys and getting them on the podcast as explaining, explain, you know, their story a little bit more.

Obviously they get more than eight minutes, but the eight minute limit was, was great because we had to go through so many stories last night.

Yeah.

And you know what, those are great, great events to go to, but if you keep them within a reasonable time, then it's a lot better.

So the eight minutes.

Perfect.

Yeah, excellent.

But, you know, the, the other thing too.

And I think the other one, you know, the one guy that explained, Gil, he basically said, hey, you know, trigger your happiness.

And I think that's something that you were talking about, Jeff, waking up every day and triggering your happiness.

Hey, today's is going to be great, but it's so often that we have so many things.

And he talked, you know, they talked about how, you know, your day can look so miserable.

And it came from another veteran that said, close your eyes and think about your bills.

Think about, you know, you got to do this and that, all these different things.

And you got, you know, you got dust under your bed and, you know, how much dust do you have under your bed?

And I thought it was kind of a cool concept.

Then he said, open your eyes.

And he said, now think about it.

You know, someone doesn't have a bed and, you know, someone doesn't have, you know, someone that doesn't have a home and they don't have bills, but they're, you know, you know, having a hard time.

So there's always somebody that has it worse than you.

And so that's it, you know, talk about triggering your happiness because of, you know, being thankful and humble enough to accept all these cool things that you do have.

And it's your happiness.

It's your happiness, you know, and, you.

Know, it's like you build up things.

Oh, I'm worried about this.

I'm worried about that.

And then when it really comes down to it, what were you worrying about?

It all got taken care of.

That's right.

I tell the young kids that all the time.

Don't worry about today.

Today itself, tomorrow's tomorrow.

You know, you don't have to worry.

Yeah.

And I just wanted, you know, the one last thing I want to kind of put out there before I bring Brian on to.

To evaluate the.

The program, because I just.

I just want to say, put this out there.

One is, I love your past.

I love to know the pathway.

I love, you know, having sergeant Major on here.

And, you know, I haven't talked to him in a long time, but, you know, talk to him over the last week, you know, just getting all this information and putting stuff together, but to find his pathway, to find out he wrote a book to do all these things.

It's great to know your pathway.

So I would.

I would.

I would say, you know, find some happiness, Find your pathway and.

And go with it for one.

And then the other thing is to reach out to a veteran that you haven't talked to in a long time.

You know, just.

That's important.

Just.

Just such an important piece that I think of, but I don't always apply it enough because I. I have so many veterans that I talk to constantly.

All the time, most of the time.

You know, throughout the week, the same guys that I talk to all the time, they're in my warrior groups.

They're doing this, this and that.

But I need to reach out to some that I haven't talked to in a while, and I ask that you pick up your phone because, you know, it doesn't always happen, but you need to be in a place, and you don't have to be in a good place.

You can be in a bad place.

But let's take on the ability to have a conversation with somebody that's.

That's dealing with stuff and just be a great listener, be a soundboard, be whatever and.

And find those resources that might help and adapt to their needs, whatever that might be.

And there's plenty of resources on my show that I've had that you can reach out to and kind of kind of grab a hold of and see what those are like.

The PTSD foundation is the one that I think of all the time.

Guys that need to go there, we'll send them to Camp Hope for.

For six to nine months, no cost to.

To them.

Those are for.

For the combat vets that need that.

That kind of support.

But there's all kinds of other organizations, other resources, other Other things that are out there for you and.

And grab a hold of that.

Yep,.

That's.

That's all I got for right now.

I'm gonna bring Brian on and then we will sign off.

Brian.

Hey, thanks a lot for coming.

Thanks a lot for being here, pushing all the buttons.

Thanks, brother.

What's going on, boys?

Here goes the evaluation.

This is a live, live evaluation.

So if you're a podcaster and you need some point points, Feed Drops is his thing.

I hope, Brian, I hope, I hope you keep Feed Drops kind of in the background.

I know that you wanted me to drop that name off, but it's such a cool name, man.

And Feed Drops is his own podcast where he takes about five minutes to just evaluate podcasts and he puts a lot of positive information out there to either improve it.

And these, these are, these are fine tuned podcasts.

They're pre recorded and sound is all dialed in and a whole bunch of good stuff.

But Brian, it was a fun show.

It, it was a fun show to work on.

You know, one of the things is a lot of podcasters didn't want to be evaluated at that level.

But I really think that it helped podcasters that weren't evaluated.

Just listening to the episode, then listening to my critique and putting two and two together going, oh, I have that same issue.

Let me improve upon it and, you know, improve the production value of my show.

But it's there, it's, it's still available at your RSS feed.

You can go back and listen to the work I did there and, and yeah, I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.

But as far as today's episode, Chef would love to hear you more up front, but after the guest, you guys did a really good job at transitioning back and forth, talking about the events that was, that was pretty dialed in.

I think you guys are finding your voice working together when it comes to the promotional aspect of what vtrc Warrior Bill, Wounded Warrior vt. Just all the groups you guys work with, man, the PTSD foundation, there's so many of them, I can't keep them all straight.

Chief's business card looks like a freaking nascar.

Yeah,.

But it's hard to promote, but.

It's all good work, man.

Yeah, just a little more up front, a little more back and forth.

I really love the fact that, Chief, you had the experience of being at Wounded Warrior Battalion and living it, working it, and the interjection, the back and forth between you and Mark was, was great there in, in the ways, you know, that battalion support are wounded.

That was, that was really cool to hear from my perspective.

So that, that was good, man.

Other than that, keep crushing, man.

Keep doing good for our veterans.

Better and better.

Your numbers are showing it.

We went over numbers before the show.

Mind blowing yesterday.

And it's you getting out there, talking about your show, you know, off social media in hand, shaking somebody's hand, talking about the punishment podcast that.

That blew your numbers out of the water yesterday.

So both of you keep that up, and we will see you next week.

Hey, thanks, Brian.

Thank you, Brian.

Hey, as I, you know, as I think about, you know, Mark.

Mark bringing up the fact that he saw, you know, sound the sands of Iwo Jima, and it inspired him.

Yeah.

You know, it reminds me of the time I was actually on Iwo Jima.

I think it was the 75th anniversary of the landing on Iwo Jima.

We made it out there, and I watched the sands of Iwo Jima for the first time on Iwo Jima, so it was a very honorable place to be, you know, and taking this Navy corpsman and as a corpsman, you know, to look at these beaches, his tears in his eyes when he was sitting there just looking at the.

The red beaches that, you know, just the sands, because the sand there is red.

It's a volcanic red, red beach.

Yeah.

And, uh, you would think Mount Suribachi was this giant mountain, but when you look at it, it's just like, uh, this.

This, uh.

This hill that's stuck up out of the ground.

But it's.

I mean, it's pretty big, but it's not that big.

To the amount of thought process in my head of how big this mountain might be.

Wasn't there, but it was.

It was cool.

So it was cool to see Mark's inspiration from that to find out, you know, and I meant to bring that up during his talk, but, you know, just.

Just kind of slipped my mind.

I'm glad to talk about it right now, and we're gonna finish it up.

Chef, Any last words from you?

Just, you know, what's really important in leadership is empathy, and that's the ability to take criticism and excel because, you know, nomad is an island.

And that word just really sticks with me today.

And.

And talking to Mark, I see that he lives it, so that's excellent.

Definitely.

So, as always, I hope you eat well and prosper well.

And bon appetit.

Thanks, Chef.

Hey, till next time, signing off.

Strength and honor out the only way and we need nothing more the only way Together forever.

That's for sure.