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One Leg Up With Capt. William Toti This Veterans Day 11-11-23 · OneLegUpAlex Media

0:08
Here's your host, Alex Garrett. Welcome back to One Leg Up with Alex
0:13
Garrett. Well rocking Lady Liberty. That's Veteran's Day weekend. Because obviously she's
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a symbol of freedom. She's a symbol of what our men and women fight
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for every day and it's important this's veterans say, we can to recognize that.
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But my next guest, Captain Naval Captain William Tody, this was on
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my wire, is helping veterans when they come off the battlefield and come home
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physician back into civilian life. But firstly, Captain Tony, thanks for joining
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the Alex Garrett podcast Network. Thank you, Alex, thank you for having
0:46
me. Now you're in the navel. But you can speak on the military
0:50
as a whole. I believe that's why I wanted you on today. But
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when it comes to veterans, say what does this day mean to you,
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Well, it's a wonderful opportunity to recognize the service and sacrifice of our veterans.
1:06
Obviously, you know we've got three holidays during the year that they do
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similar but different things. Memorial Day honors those who are killed in action from
1:18
the military. There's Armed Forces Day, that honor those that are still on
1:22
active duty, and Veterans Day honor those who have served like me, And
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so each has a different, you know, spin on a similar theme.
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And it's very nice that the country does this, particularly for the veterans that
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struggled a bit more than idea on my active duty time, that they get
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recognized appropriately. There's a big debate, I always think, and it might
1:51
be minute to you, but they're always like, do we say happy or
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how do we say? Because no one really wants a happy Memorial Day?
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It just comes down actually, so how would you address it? Is it
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a happy day? Is it sort of like a somber day all three days?
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Or how would you address them? I would say generally, Veterans Day
2:08
is a happier day, certainly than Memorial Day. Right. It's for those
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veterans who are still alive and those who've passed but just passed, you know,
2:20
in the normal course of life. You know, my uncle was a
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World War Two veteran. He survived the war, and you know that he
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died lived to a ripe old age. And when I think of Veterans Day,
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I think of him too. But even though he's no longer with us.
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So yeah, it's it's difficult to decide what the appropriate way to say
2:46
Happy Veterans Day, but it's as good as any. Well, let's get
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to the heart of the matter and I'll get to your experience in the military.
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But what you're doing for veterans from CEO to CEO, it's why I
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have a lot of different CEOs on because you guys have a different story.
3:04
Did you became a CEO and now you're helping civilian veteran transition back into civilian
3:08
life? Is that correct? Yeah, that's essentially what I'm doing, and
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I'm doing it out of the frustration I felt when I was in private industry
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trying to help betteran succeed. So I had a twenty six year active duty
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career. When I transitioned to industry, I thought I knew a lot more
3:27
about how to succeed in business than I really did, and I almost crashed
3:31
and burned myself. I was lucky enough to have a very good mentor who
3:38
was actually my boss's boss, who had personal capital invested in my success and
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for whatever reason, wanted to see me succeed. So when I started struggling,
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he took it upon himself to try to help me understand what was happening
3:58
and helped me do better and get better in my career in my industry career.
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And I keep in mind, at the point I entered industry, I
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had already served as a commanding officer of a nuclear submarine. I had already
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served as a commodore of a fast attack squadron of six nuclear submarines, and
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I still was screwing up a fairly basic leadership position in industry. What I
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didn't realize that military and industry is so different than many of the skills that
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allow you to succeed in the military not only don't allow you to succeed in
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industry, some of them set you up for failure. I also didn't understand
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that the military itself screws up veterans as they leave the service and enter industry
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by telling them things they just aren't true. They try to make the feel
4:55
veteran feel good about his or her active duty service by telling there's an experience
5:00
on active duty will directly translate to success in industry, and that is absolutely
5:08
not true. The skills you learn in the military can be helpful in industry,
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but a lot of the talent and behaviors you develop in the military can
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also be harmful in civilian life. So if you don't understand that, and
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don't understand how to adapt those behaviors and skills to civilian life, you're going
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to be just like I was, on the verge of crashing and burning.
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And two often veterans do fail in factor's a statistic. You know, two
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hundred thousand or so veterans leave active duty every year to enter savine industry.
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About fifty percent of those two hundred thousand will leave their first job within two
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years of entering the private marketplace, either because they got fired because they didn't
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adapt well, or they quit because they didn't adapt well. And that's a
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statistic. That's very it's it's terrible, right. So, when I was
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in you know, private uh service, in private practice, I did try
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to help veterans individually by mentoring, but but I could only help a handful
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of a time. When I decided I was going to retire for the second
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second time out of my full time industry job, I said, now,
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how can I help a broader swath of veterans keep help keep helping, keep
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from making the same mistakes over and over again. I decided the best way
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to do that was to write all these lessons down, and that's how this
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book evolved. And tell us about the book, because obviously it's important for
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not just veterans, but everyday life people as well. I would think,
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right, But when you when you wrote this book, I'm sure you were
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inspired by the stories you were hearing of your fellow veterans that were not adapting
6:59
well into their communities, right, or weren't even being given the option to
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adapt well if you will. I sure was, Alex. And there's a
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couple of aspects of that that are worth talking about. And the first one
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is when you leave the military, particularly if you leave it as senior enlisted
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or a senior officer, and your boss is somebody who never served in the
7:24
military. What ends up happening is those bosses have a hard time having challenging
7:32
conversation with you as an employee. And if I could characterize it, I
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would characterize it like this, You were a senior enlisted leader, senior officer.
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Who am I to tell you that you have you need to develop your
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leadership skills, that your leadership skills aren't getting you where you need to be.
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You were your leader in the military, Who am I to tell you
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how to be a better leader? And what ends up happening is a lot
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of these civilian bosses, when faced with failure in their veteran employees, would
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rather just let them go than have that challenging conversation with them and help them
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understand how to get better. And when I talk to my active duty friends,
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I tell them, you may think you're a good leadership, and leadership
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is hard, but it's even harder when you're leading people who can actually quit.
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And you never had that problem when you're on active duty. Your troops
8:39
couldn't quit no matter how much they didn't like your leadership style. There was
8:46
no place for them to go. In civilian industry, your people vote with
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their feet. If they don't like the way you're leading, they just quit.
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And that's something that active duty people have a hard time adjusting to.
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This is interesting because you mentioned industry, but do you find that a lot
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of these a lot of veterans go into as a industrial jobs or do they
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go into sort of like I don't know, real estate or insurance, or
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is it mainly they go into the field they know the most. I think
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most of them try to go into the field they know the most to leverage
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the military skills to the maximum extent possible, not the you know, veterans
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are not monolithic. Some of them do say, look, I think I'd
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like to try this real estate thing or this insurance sales thing, because they
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see it as a path to rapid revenue growth and things like that. Right,
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But you know, selling when you're a veteran, A lot of veterans
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do kind of turn their nose up at the thought of going into sales,
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you know, that kind of transactional sales, in particular when they're put in
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a position where their job is to sell to their friends on active duty.
10:09
Right. And so I think, you know a lot of guys just and
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gals just want to get away and do something as different as possible from what
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they've done on active duty. But a larger percentage say, look, I've
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spent five, ten, fifteen, twenty years developing this particular skill set.
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I don't want to waste all that time I spent on active duty developing those
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skills. So yeah, I'd like to do something that comes close to what
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I was doing on active duty. Now I've gotten to know some veterans over
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the years who have started their own foundations, their own businesses, and I'm
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sure in this book, from CEO to CEO get gets involved with that as
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well, because hey, if the private sectors now hiring are doing a great
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job at it, why don't you go on your own path? Is that
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kind of what you have as well? Yeah, I talk about starting your
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own thing in my book. There are a lot of challenges to doing that
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that I would call babe in the wood. Veterans who just got out of
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the military and have this pie in the sky concept of what that's going to
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be like just don't understand. There are a lot of trip wires and hazards
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to starting your own thing, And so I don't tell veterans don't do it.
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What I tell them is if you're going to do it, and imber
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won't read my book because I do outline all the hazards. And number two,
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you better have a lot of cash put aside because you're going to go
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a long time with zero income and that may not be something you can live
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with if you have a mortgage and kids in college and things like that.
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So you better understand fully, you know, all of the disadvantages, you
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know, for the very few advantages that comes with all Right, got to
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ask you this because when I think of civilian life for veterans, we're talking
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about mental health aspects as well. We're talking about integrating back into family life.
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And I'm sure this new book you have because you've experienced yourself that integration
12:11
back into your family life and your mental health, you know, well being
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and whatnot that all came to play when you left the military and came back
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home right into civilian life. Absolutely true. You know, the most challenging
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thing from the family perspective when you're an active duty is going on deployment,
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and I did seven deployments during my active duty time. The second most challenging
12:35
thing is coming home from deployment and having to reintegrate into your family when they've
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developed all these behaviors to compensate for your absence, and now suddenly you inject
12:48
yourself back into that environment and you think it's going to go back to the
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way it was before you left. And that is a difficult struggle. When
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you finally do leave the military. Some families say, wait a minute,
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those period Fortunately this wasn't true for my family. But those periodic absences,
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actually we're a good thing. We got a little break from each other and
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you know, we're able to decompress. And then when we got back together,
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we realized how much we love each other and you know, need each
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other. And then when those breaks don't happen anymore, and suddenly you're there
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twenty four to seven, you know, twelve months a year. Some families
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have a difficult time adjusting to that. But you're right about the fact that
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difficult transitions generate mental health issues. Stress that only add to the other burdens
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of having to adapt to a new culture, a new environment, a new
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work, you know, life balance, and a whole bunch of other new
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factors learning a new job, and when you add the challenges of no longer
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being around the familiar military environment, it can lead to PTSD. The PTSD
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that you might otherwise have from your combat experience, and other stresses that you
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can't just erase. So you know, while I don't address the PTSD issue
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in my book, I leave that to others who are expert in the field.
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If you don't transition well into your job, that just adds yet one
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more stressor to all of the other stressors in your life. So that's my
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focus and that's the issue I try to help with. I'm honest, a
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lot of veterans, I think, starting to feel like the government has failed
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them. And if we can get into that real quick, and did you
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leave the military feeling like, Okay, I'm proud I served my country,
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but where was my government? Or do you not touch that in the book
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one hundred percent? I touch into my book. First of all, the
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government sets you up for failure by telling you things that just aren't true about
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your life in the savane world. And you know I talk about in the
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book, I say it's somewhat the blind leading the blind because the guys and
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gals teaching these courses, these military transition courses, have no idea what they're
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doing because they've never done to themselves. They've never transitioned to surveying jobs themselves.
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So that's that's the I would say, that's the positive spin on the
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government failure. The negative spin is that they just don't care that they're not
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incentivised to help veterans succeed because there's no metricment of veteran success that they're measured
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against. Nobody in government is scored based on how well they're transitioning veterans do
15:56
following their octaduty service, so they don't care. I mean, that's the
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non positive. That's a negative view of why the dynamic is so bad.
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And then of course the Veterans Administration is you know, organization level well,
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but it's filled with people who really want to do a good job but can't
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because they're anchored by typical government bureaucracy and efficiency, in effectiveness, ineptness,
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the Peter principle, executives who shouldn't be in their position but can't be fired
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because of the protection rules from federal employees, and a whole bunch of other
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factors that go into inhibiting the Veterans Administration from being able to do a good
16:48
job for their vets. And so all of that mixes to a very negative
16:55
experience for the transitioning veteran. Again, I can't do anything about helping the
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VA. I can't do anything about PTSD. I'm not a mental health expert.
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My niche is helping the veteran eliminate one potential stressor, and that's the
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job stressor. This is fascinating because I also want to know, are you
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still proud that you serve your country? Though that's my main that's my other.
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Absolutely, one hundred percent. I would not have changed a thing,
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Alex. I wouldn't have changed, you know, going to the Naval Academy,
17:27
spending twenty six years in the Navy on active duty, being a submarin,
17:32
or that I was in the Pentagon on nine eleven and I lived when
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my friends died. I wouldn't change the fact that I was there that day
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because it was an inflection point in my life. I wouldn't change. I
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would I would love to change the fact that my friends died, but again,
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that's not something I can actually do. You know, I had some
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survivor's guilt from that, but I you know, I figured that out and
18:00
I worked through that, and so there's nothing about my military career I would
18:06
change one hundred percent. Proud of what I did and everything I did for
18:11
those twenty six years. What was the most what was the most exciting or
18:15
best mission you had to do well and in the Navy, And I feel
18:19
like it's something you call recall to this day, right, Yeah, Unfortunately,
18:26
the most exciting, best experience I ever had I'll never be able to
18:32
talk about. It was one of those super secret things you do on a
18:36
submarine. If I can't talk. When I was captain, I will tell
18:40
you it was so important and super secret. They brought me back to the
18:45
White House to brief about what we had done, so that that kind of
18:51
gives I know, that's a teaser. I apologize. That's about all I
18:55
can say about it. But it was very, very It was spy novel
19:02
kind of thriller stuff that you can't make up. It's that the truth is
19:06
actually more exciting than much of the fiction. Here in America, we do
19:11
the veterans of the game every day, you know, for different arenas,
19:14
different sports venues. But I always feel like Americans jolly around veterans three times
19:22
a year, the three times you mentioned, and then it start of like
19:25
we put them back, you know, back back back until May or November,
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and that should have been we should always continue this conversation past those three
19:33
days, shouldn't we? Well, yeah, but I got to tell you,
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I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam era, and I remember our troops
19:42
coming back home from Vietnam, and in fact, when I first enlisted in
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the Navy. Before I went to Annapolis in nineteen seventy five. The Vietnam
19:51
War was largely over at that point. The draft it ended in nineteen seventy
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three. No I enlisted nineteen seventy four, And so in nineteen SI I'm
20:00
walking through Chicago O'Hare Airport in uniform, coming home from boot camp, and
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there was a Vietnam War protest going on outside the airport, and a woman
20:11
spit on me. Okay, imagine that I'm seventeen years old coming home from
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boot camp. I'm a kid, I'm in uniform, and a woman spit
20:22
on me because I'm in uniform. That's how unpopular the Vietnam War was.
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I'd never been to Vietnam. I'd never been anywhere except for boot camp.
20:30
Hey, when you contrast that, Alex with what's going on today with thank
20:37
you for your service, I'm so much. I'm so grateful that the nation
20:42
has evolved since the nineteen sixties and seventies in their respect and appreciation for veterans.
20:52
So I don't worry about the fact that we only think about it three
20:56
days a year. I think, and most people are very gracious to me
21:00
personally, and I'm very grateful for that. Well, that's a great line.
21:03
I'm glad too, because we should always think a veteran, which is
21:07
kind of a theme around Veterans Day, and thank them every day that we
21:11
see them. And that brings me my next point. We do see a
21:15
lot of veterans on the streets. They're homeless, and there's this book help
21:21
find resources for people that may not have a home right now. And how
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do you tackle that issue, Captain Tody, I would say not directly.
21:29
There are great organizations that work that issue, you know. The only thing
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I would say is that failure to transition well into a severne job can lead
21:37
to that homelessness that you're talking about. And so the degree to which people
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don't thrive in their severne job once they leave the military does increase the risk
21:48
of homelessness. And so if I can help them thrive in that severne job
21:53
by helping them understand the pitfalls as they make that transition, I hope I
21:59
help into directly to address that problem as well. Captain Tony, you see
22:03
all these different elevations of General Milly to becoming general. You see mostin Lloyd
22:11
become the Defense Department of Defense head. But do they lose their touch for
22:17
the soldier on the ground once they become elevated. I feel like that's what
22:21
you're getting at here. The good ones don't, and I have known some
22:26
that have, so let me tell you. I don't want to tell you
22:30
that that doesn't happen, because it does. But the good ones, and
22:33
I can't count both, you know, Secretary of Defense Austin and General Milly
22:38
in that category. And I've had many, many, many good, admirable
22:42
bosses that also fit into this category. They do not lose their touch with
22:48
the sailor. Here's a funny story. When I was enlisted and I got
22:52
accepted to Annapolis and my boss realized my boss was a senior chief petty officer,
23:00
realized that I was going to be an officer. He pulled me out
23:03
of the job I was in as an enlisted man, and for the next
23:08
three months, while I was waiting to start an applis, my job was
23:14
cleaning the heads, cleaning the toilets on that base. So for three months
23:21
I cleaned toilets. And his point to me was he was he might have
23:26
been a little bit over the top, but a little cruel and harsh in
23:30
this lesson, but he says, he said to me, I never want
23:36
you to forget what it's like to be an enlisted man where someone has one
23:41
hundred control over your life. And his way of doing that was to have
23:45
me clean toilets for three months. So no, I never I hope I
23:49
never lost touch with my sailors, you know, in troops in different jobs
23:56
over my career, because you became you went from captain to CEO in everyday
24:00
life. So what was that transition like for you and what lesson did you
24:04
take from the military to become a leader off the ship, if you will,
24:10
on shore. Yeah. One of the things I point out in the
24:14
book is that there's a lot of military people who've been commanding officers who think
24:18
that it's equivalent of being a CEO and savan life, And in the book,
24:22
I try to make sure that they understand that is not true. When
24:27
I was CEO, you know, and some many some CEOs, not many
24:33
CEOs. Some CEOs have great authority over their troops, over their people in
24:40
their command, but they don't get to pick their mission, they don't get
24:42
to pick their strategy, they don't get to pick where they're going to go
24:47
what they're going to do. They don't get to decide what their budget's going
24:51
to be. They don't get to do any of the things that every CEO
24:57
has to do. The reason I make that point is they delude themselves into
25:03
believing that the positions are equivalent and develop a sense of hubris when it comes
25:08
to thinking that they're fully capable of doing a kind of job in industry that
25:18
they see as equivalent to their CEO job. They are very, very,
25:22
very different. And I go through that a lot in the book because when
25:29
I didn't understand that when I first transition in the industry, I did think
25:33
that a CEO is the military covalent of a CEO, and I didn't realize
25:38
that, look, a CEO, I was making all the hiring decisions.
25:42
I couldn't do that as CEO. There's a whole bunch of things I had
25:48
to do as CEO that I couldn't do as CEO. So they're not the
25:53
same. It's a very intense learning curve, and those that do well do
26:00
really really well. CEO now or is there still a lot to learn for
26:06
you? Well, I mean I've retired from my CEO position, so I
26:11
could focus more time on this, but I'm always learning. There's always more
26:17
to learn, and I'm happy to learn every day. A couple of things
26:21
current events wise, we see now ships deployed in the Middle East, and
26:25
I feel like this veteran say, there is that possibility of American troops being
26:30
deployed hanging over everybody's head. What are you thinking when you see those in
26:34
the Middle ease? Are we are we bound to be involved with in what
26:37
these conflicts? Now? We have to be ready to be involved. So
26:41
as part of me says, I wish I was there. I wish I
26:45
was back in uniform. You know, this is an important mission. But
26:48
one of the things that folks need to understand about the Navy and the Marine
26:53
Corps to you know, to some extent smaller units in the Army and Air
26:59
Force as well, is that the Navy and the Marine Corps deploy continuously in
27:06
peace time and in war. So it's not a big deal for two carrier
27:11
strike groups to be underway deployed at the same time. And those two carrier
27:17
strike groups do need to be ready to go to war a moment's notice.
27:22
They do. Does that mean I think that they will I hope that they
27:26
don't, but if they're not there or not ready, the probability that we
27:30
will be pulled in this war goes up. The presence of naval power at
27:36
sea is the greatest guaranteer of peace, and that's the thing that the Navy
27:41
Marine Corps bring. The other distinction for the Navy Marine Corps is we operate
27:48
independently and from sovereign United States territory. If you're going to launch a strike
27:56
from another country's land day territory, you generally need that country's permission to do
28:03
it. When you launch a strike from a Navy ship at sea, that's
28:07
the Navy sovereign, that's the United States sovereign territory, you don't need anybody's
28:11
permission to do it. So it gives you a whole lot more flexibility that
28:15
the other, you know, services may not have when they're operating from the
28:21
land. So those are important things that Americans need to understand about their Navy
28:26
Marine Corps. It doesn't mean we don't need the Army troops in Syria and
28:30
Iraq. We absolutely do the Air Force troops that are there, But you
28:34
know the fact that they're there, and the fact that they've been targets.
28:40
You know, a lot of people have pointed out, Holy cow, maybe
28:44
it would be better. We'd be better off if all of our forces were
28:47
operating from c rather than on the ground in these countries. Right. Interesting
28:52
take. Well, Captain Tony, I want to ask you one last thing,
28:55
because I'm in New York City base, so never a participant in Fleet
29:00
Week any Memorial Days. I haven't been the Fleet Week in decades. I
29:04
did in the mid nineties and not since. I go up to New York.
29:11
Love the city, go up to it periodically. It was just up
29:14
there for a couple a month or two ago to see a wonderful Broadway show
29:18
called The Shark Is Broken about the USSA Indianapolis Great Navy Ship, about the
29:25
movie Jaws and its relationship to ussit A Andnapolis. But yeah, I get
29:29
up there as often as I can. But I haven't been a Fleet Week
29:33
in a long time. I went there as a midshipment. In fact,
29:34
I sailed in New York Carver when I was at the Academy in nineteen seventy
29:41
seven Operations Sale, and that was my first real visit. What a great
29:45
time that was. Well, this has been very special and I love that
29:48
back on as things are going. You know, it's never easy when you
29:52
hear the President say, yeah, we are keeping an eye on and getting
29:57
involved with two conflicts at the same time. That's never easy for an American
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to hear. And I'm sure the average American family who has a veteran or
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even those deployed right now, are a little bit on their edge. So
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I'm glad you gave us a little coming advice today as well, and happy
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to be here. Thank you, Alex Perfect, Thank you so much.
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Sah God bless Captain same to you. Take her