Latest / Something Extra / How Accountability and Humility Drive High-Performance Teams w/ Greg "Boss" Wooldridge

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How Accountability and Humility Drive High-Performance Teams w/ Greg "Boss" Wooldridge · Something Extra

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Lisa Nichols: Chromosomes.
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1:47
Lisa Nichols: I am honored to have Greg Boss Wildridge on the show today.
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Lisa Nichols: Greg is a retired US naval officer and the three time flight
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Lisa Nichols: leader of the Blue Angels.
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Lisa Nichols: Well, Greg Boss Wildridge, welcome to the something
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Lisa Nichols: extra podcast.
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Lisa Nichols: I am so delighted to have you on the show today.
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Greg Wooldridge: Really glad to be here, Lisa.
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Greg Wooldridge: This is a treat.
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Greg Wooldridge: You
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Lisa Nichols: It's a treat for me too.
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Lisa Nichols: I always typically go back and tell my listeners how I meet people,
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Lisa Nichols: and this was just a really cool one.
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Lisa Nichols: One day, I'm on LinkedIn, and I see stuff about you.
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Lisa Nichols: And I'm like, I'm just gonna reach out to him and see if he'll
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Lisa Nichols: be on the podcast, because I told you I've heard John Foley speak
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Lisa Nichols: before at a CIO summit, and I'm just so fascinated
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Lisa Nichols: by we'll talk about it.
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Lisa Nichols: But by the Blue Angels and, aviation and that, and I thought, you know,
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Lisa Nichols: I I wonder if he would come on the podcast, and you responded right
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Lisa Nichols: back to me.
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Lisa Nichols: So thank you so much.
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Lisa Nichols: Then we got on a phone, Greg.
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Lisa Nichols: How many people did we know?
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Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
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Greg Wooldridge: We both have dear friends.
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Greg Wooldridge: The the same dear friends.
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Greg Wooldridge: I think we all have dear friends, but the same dear friends.
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Greg Wooldridge: Wonderful.
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Lisa Nichols: I know.
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Lisa Nichols: So who knew?
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Lisa Nichols: You know?
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Lisa Nichols: So I'm just there's gonna be so much, here that I wanna talk about
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Lisa Nichols: today, but I just wanna read something real quickly before we jump into things
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Lisa Nichols: because I think this will set us up.
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Lisa Nichols: Captain Greg Wooldridge served in the United States Navy for twenty seven
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Lisa Nichols: years.
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Lisa Nichols: During the final decade of his career, he proudly served on three occasions as
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Lisa Nichols: the flight leader and commanding officer of the Navy Flight Demonstration
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Lisa Nichols: Squadron, the Blue Angels.
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Lisa Nichols: In addition to leading the team for hundreds of air shows in the United
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Lisa Nichols: States, Wooldridge took the team to various locations in Europe,
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Lisa Nichols: including Moscow, Bucharest, and Plautov, Bulgaria.
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Lisa Nichols: Greg, I this is so, so interesting
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Lisa Nichols: to me, but you grew up not too far from me.
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Lisa Nichols: Now you live in Oregon now, but you grew up in Springfield, Illinois.
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Greg Wooldridge: That's my high school graduation.
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Greg Wooldridge: It was Springfield High School.
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Greg Wooldridge: And then I commuted well, I didn't commute first year.
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Greg Wooldridge: I lived on campus forty miles down to the southwest at Blackburn.
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Greg Wooldridge: I graduated from Blackburn University down the between
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Greg Wooldridge: Springfield and Saint Louis.
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Greg Wooldridge: So I've I've got my roots here in the Midwest, and that's where I
4:05
Greg Wooldridge: I claim home.
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Greg Wooldridge: Even though after college, it was, you know, off and running in the in
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Greg Wooldridge: the navy around the world and all over the states.
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Greg Wooldridge: So
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Lisa Nichols: Right.
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Lisa Nichols: Right.
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Lisa Nichols: Right.
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Lisa Nichols: Right.
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Lisa Nichols: Well, that's that's good.
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Lisa Nichols: That's and sometimes you get back here because you do have good friends here,
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Lisa Nichols: and, we just happen to share some of those friends.
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Lisa Nichols: But what I wanna ask you about is well, I've got lots of
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Lisa Nichols: things to ask you about, but what were some of those values
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Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
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Lisa Nichols: Greg, that were instilled in you in an early age that you've carried forward
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Lisa Nichols: with you in your naval career?
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Greg Wooldridge: Well, I think I learned that performance
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Greg Wooldridge: creates growth.
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Greg Wooldridge: Right?
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Greg Wooldridge: And how well you do at things.
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Greg Wooldridge: I my dad was raised in an orphanage all the way through
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Greg Wooldridge: high school.
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Greg Wooldridge: I mean, he never just never never lived in a family, lived in an
4:54
Greg Wooldridge: orphanage.
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Greg Wooldridge: He he learned some incredible values, truth being
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Greg Wooldridge: foremost in his mind.
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Greg Wooldridge: And the belt came out every once in a while if there was a
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Greg Wooldridge: little a little fib or something.
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Greg Wooldridge: You know?
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Lisa Nichols: Little bit of white lie?
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Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
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Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
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Greg Wooldridge: So I learned about truth.
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Greg Wooldridge: I learned about trust.
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Greg Wooldridge: And, those things from my from my dad were were great.
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Greg Wooldridge: And then I, I was, you know, kind of a slacker
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Greg Wooldridge: academically.
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Greg Wooldridge: I mean, I think I had it in me.
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Greg Wooldridge: I just was lazy, you know, all the way up to college.
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Greg Wooldridge: Went to a college there in Central Illinois, Blackburn, where they had a work
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Greg Wooldridge: study program.
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Greg Wooldridge: So to live on campus, you had to do a job.
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Greg Wooldridge: I actually took care of the heating and air conditioning, for the campus,
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Greg Wooldridge: and and I learned from that that, you know, learn about responsibility
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Greg Wooldridge: and how you live up to the response the the, expectations,
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Greg Wooldridge: and that creates in you accountability and responsibility.
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Greg Wooldridge: I know a lot of those standard words that are thrown around, but but
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Greg Wooldridge: you learn how you learn them and how you live with them and how
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Greg Wooldridge: you let them bring you growth.
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Greg Wooldridge: And that's that's, I think, where I
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Greg Wooldridge: I got a lot of the things that I can count as blessings in
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Greg Wooldridge: my life.
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Lisa Nichols: Right.
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Lisa Nichols: Well, yeah, I knew that you were in charge of firing up the boiler.
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Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
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Greg Wooldridge: I wasn't gonna say boilers because that that makes me look like well, even
6:17
Greg Wooldridge: they were coal fired furnaces that were left over.
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Greg Wooldridge: I won't say that I was that old, but they were left over from,
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Greg Wooldridge: you know, earlier years.
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Greg Wooldridge: And I would get up at four in the morning and go, fire up
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Greg Wooldridge: the the big furnaces with the and get the what they call clinkers, the
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Greg Wooldridge: burned up coal.
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Greg Wooldridge: Reach like, we got a few scars, burn scars, get the old
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Greg Wooldridge: coal, and then fill the hopper that feeds the the furnace with the fresh
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Greg Wooldridge: coal.
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Greg Wooldridge: Anyway, I learned a lot about
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Greg Wooldridge: living up to expectations.
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Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
6:49
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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Lisa Nichols: And if you had not have done that, you know, then people would have
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Lisa Nichols: been cold.
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Greg Wooldridge: That's what I mean.
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Greg Wooldridge: Exactly.
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Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you this.
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Lisa Nichols: Did you always know that you wanted to fly?
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Lisa Nichols: I mean, did you dream of flying as a little boy?
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Greg Wooldridge: I hate to burst bubbles with that, but the the the when I I
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Greg Wooldridge: grew up in my my younger years in Cincinnati,
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Greg Wooldridge: and one of the things I used to do, I'd back in the day,
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Greg Wooldridge: I'd catch a bus from out in Westwood down to downtown Cincinnati.
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Greg Wooldridge: I was probably ten or eleven back when kids could travel.
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Greg Wooldridge: I mean, they were pretty much safer, you know.
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Greg Wooldridge: And I would go to the crew tower, which was the tallest building in
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Greg Wooldridge: Cincinnati, and you could go up on the on the top, and I would
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Greg Wooldridge: sneak up my little balsa wood airplanes, put them together up there, and
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Greg Wooldridge: fly them off the top of the you know?
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Lisa Nichols: Oh, I love that.
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Greg Wooldridge: They weren't drones.
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Greg Wooldridge: They didn't have that getting up, but they Right.
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Greg Wooldridge: But, so that was my my experience with flying and making
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Greg Wooldridge: models and things like that, plastic models.
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Greg Wooldridge: I can't remember the name of the Revel Revel Revel, I think, made a
7:55
Greg Wooldridge: lot of those models.
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Lisa Nichols: Revel.
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Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
7:57
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
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Greg Wooldridge: And and then at at a very young age, and then after that, it
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Greg Wooldridge: was like, well, what am I gonna do in life?
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Greg Wooldridge: I thought about forestry and, you know, I love the outdoors and,
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Greg Wooldridge: I never really got refocused on aviation.
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Greg Wooldridge: So here's how I got to it.
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Greg Wooldridge: I, I got into college.
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Greg Wooldridge: While I was in college, I I did
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Greg Wooldridge: a a college kid dump thing, and I I had a child and
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Greg Wooldridge: got married.
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Greg Wooldridge: So now
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Greg Wooldridge: in those days, coming out of college, I needed to be able to
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Greg Wooldridge: find work immediately, right, and learn a skill.
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Greg Wooldridge: And I I got a basic, bachelor of arts degree with an economics
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Greg Wooldridge: major.
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Greg Wooldridge: That was about as as, specific as you could get, economics,
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Greg Wooldridge: you know, macro, micro, whatever.
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Greg Wooldridge: Right.
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Greg Wooldridge: That that wasn't a real, a real big honor to carry out.
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Greg Wooldridge: But in those days, when you finished your college where you had
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Greg Wooldridge: a deferral from the draft, it was time to serve.
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Greg Wooldridge: I thought, okay.
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Greg Wooldridge: I don't have a problem with that.
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Greg Wooldridge: I'll I'd love to serve my country.
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Greg Wooldridge: And the way I found to get to
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Greg Wooldridge: that got me to aviation was I needed to learn a skill.
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Greg Wooldridge: Now I've got a college degree.
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Greg Wooldridge: I'll go into one of the services and learn how to fly.
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Greg Wooldridge: So when I get out, I can get an airline job.
9:23
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
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Greg Wooldridge: So that was my motivation to get into flying.
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Greg Wooldridge: You know?
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Greg Wooldridge: No no no scars in the eyes.
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Greg Wooldridge: No looking up saying that's what I wanna do.
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Greg Wooldridge: You know?
9:33
Greg Wooldridge: So graduated from college finally and
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Greg Wooldridge: was off to the navy to do the most demanding flying in the world
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Greg Wooldridge: off of aircraft carriers.
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Greg Wooldridge: So that's how I
9:44
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
9:45
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
9:46
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
9:46
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
9:46
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
9:48
Lisa Nichols: Well, several things that you just said, what you did in college, but, listen,
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Lisa Nichols: you had the blessing of a baby.
9:54
Lisa Nichols: Right?
9:54
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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Lisa Nichols: It could have been so much it could have been something different.
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Lisa Nichols: Right, Greg?
9:59
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, that's
10:00
Greg Wooldridge: Find them.
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Greg Wooldridge: That's fine.
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Greg Wooldridge: I say young man.
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Greg Wooldridge: You know?
10:04
Greg Wooldridge: Fine man.
10:06
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
10:06
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
10:07
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
10:07
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
10:09
Lisa Nichols: Okay.
10:09
Lisa Nichols: So I know I think this is true.
10:12
Lisa Nichols: Correct me if I'm wrong.
10:14
Lisa Nichols: Some things that are red.
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Lisa Nichols: I think your call sign was rug dance.
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Greg Wooldridge: Well, I didn't like it, so it stuck like a rug.
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Lisa Nichols: You didn't like it.
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Greg Wooldridge: If you get labeled with something, either by the way you look or your actions or
10:28
Greg Wooldridge: part of your something that sounded like your name, you know, that could be
10:31
Greg Wooldridge: laid into your name, like like a good friend of okay.
10:34
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
10:34
Greg Wooldridge: Rugged down.
10:34
Greg Wooldridge: So I'll tell you what that means in a second, but a good friend
10:36
Greg Wooldridge: of mine Yes.
10:37
Greg Wooldridge: About I'll give you a couple examples.
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Greg Wooldridge: He was his name was Scott Swift.
10:41
Greg Wooldridge: He became the four star admiral in charge of the whole Pacific
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Greg Wooldridge: white, warfare groups, you know, Navy, army, everybody.
10:51
Greg Wooldridge: So Scott Swift, his call sign was not so.
10:55
Greg Wooldridge: Not so.
10:56
Lisa Nichols: Not so?
10:57
Greg Wooldridge: Not so Swift.
11:01
Greg Wooldridge: And so here's his four star admiral, and I still call him not so,
11:04
Greg Wooldridge: you know, not so swift.
11:06
Greg Wooldridge: And then another fellow named Jim Ward, his call sign was Psycho
11:10
Greg Wooldridge: Psycho Ward.
11:11
Greg Wooldridge: And then then you had kid you know, young men that had
11:15
Greg Wooldridge: different appearances in the, you know, you you need to listen.
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Greg Wooldridge: My my call sign, rug dance, came from being called on
11:22
Greg Wooldridge: the carpet too much, being screwed up, you know, and and pressing the
11:26
Greg Wooldridge: envelope, maybe exceed going outside the envelope of legality.
11:30
Greg Wooldridge: And that Mhmm.
11:31
Greg Wooldridge: In front of the the boss's desk, the CEO's the commanding officer's desk,
11:36
Greg Wooldridge: and a cart usually a cart they always you call it the carpet and
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Greg Wooldridge: and shuffling my feet, and that was called a rug dance.
11:43
Lisa Nichols: The rug dance?
11:44
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
11:44
Greg Wooldridge: So I was I glad I got to the blues where they took away
11:48
Greg Wooldridge: your fleet call sign and called you boss.
11:51
Lisa Nichols: Boss.
11:52
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
11:53
Lisa Nichols: So I know that that was your call sign when you got there.
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Lisa Nichols: You know, when I was reading I because I read some things, Greg,
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Lisa Nichols: about you pushing the envelope,
12:02
Lisa Nichols: and I was thinking, maverick.
12:06
Lisa Nichols: You're like a Tom Cruise Maverick pushing the envelope.
12:08
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
12:09
Greg Wooldridge: A little bit of that, you might say.
12:11
Greg Wooldridge: But,
12:14
Greg Wooldridge: always considering the impact on others.
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Greg Wooldridge: That's, that's one thing that
12:20
Greg Wooldridge: has formed me a little bit that that
12:23
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
12:23
Greg Wooldridge: Accountability to other people.
12:26
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
12:27
Lisa Nichols: For sure.
12:28
Lisa Nichols: Well, let's get into it.
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Lisa Nichols: So the selection process, I know, is very, very rigorous.
12:34
Lisa Nichols: What do you remember about the day that you found out you were chosen?
12:39
Lisa Nichols: Wasn't there a number or something that you were supposed to call into?
12:42
Greg Wooldridge: Oh, that was, t hat was Amanda.
12:44
Greg Wooldridge: That's the story of Amanda.
12:46
Lisa Nichols: That's Amanda.
12:47
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
12:48
Greg Wooldridge: And and and the team did that with the junior officers.
12:51
Greg Wooldridge: They would tease them, make you feel like you didn't get selected.
12:55
Greg Wooldridge: Then they'd say, well, you know, then they on a conference call on a
13:00
Greg Wooldridge: phone, they'd say, welcome to the team, and they'd do, you know, see your
13:03
Greg Wooldridge: call sign, whatever.
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Greg Wooldridge: For me,
13:07
Greg Wooldridge: for the boss job, it was a different selection process.
13:10
Greg Wooldridge: We interviewed with, some ex Blue
13:14
Greg Wooldridge: Angel bosses, some flag officers, admirals, navy captains,
13:19
Greg Wooldridge: some senior officers, and they and they interviewed you and interviewed the
13:23
Greg Wooldridge: finalist for the boss job.
13:24
Greg Wooldridge: And there were about six of us, It was Christie, and
13:28
Greg Wooldridge: they,
13:31
Greg Wooldridge: they let me know after all the interviews were over, and they they deliberated
13:35
Greg Wooldridge: for a couple of hours.
13:36
Greg Wooldridge: And then they came and said, we've selected you.
13:38
Greg Wooldridge: You're the guy for the job, and I really didn't think that would happen.
13:41
Greg Wooldridge: One of the reasons why
13:43
Greg Wooldridge: I think I was so comfortable in that environment was because when I got
13:47
Greg Wooldridge: there, I saw the competition for the the new boss position,
13:52
Greg Wooldridge: which included the commanding officer of Top Gun, another
13:56
Greg Wooldridge: guy that had been doing aerial demonstrations on the East Coast, very
14:00
Greg Wooldridge: handsome blonde hair, you know, flowing blonde hair.
14:02
Greg Wooldridge: He just looked like the picture perfect person for the job.
14:06
Greg Wooldridge: So I was very relaxed, and I just said, I'm just gonna tell them
14:09
Greg Wooldridge: what it is, you know, like it is.
14:11
Greg Wooldridge: That's I'm gonna get myself, and if I get it, I'm not gonna get
14:14
Greg Wooldridge: it.
14:14
Greg Wooldridge: They're not gonna pick me.
14:16
Greg Wooldridge: And then, and then Wow.
14:18
Greg Wooldridge: But that's all Well, that's question one.
14:20
Lisa Nichols: That's probably one of the reasons they did pick you.
14:23
Lisa Nichols: It's because that you were humble and you were Wow.
14:25
Lisa Nichols: You weren't arrogant and all of that.
14:27
Lisa Nichols: Right?
14:28
Greg Wooldridge: One of the guys on the board, Chris Kanzi, I'll never forget the the
14:32
Greg Wooldridge: man.
14:32
Greg Wooldridge: He was a Hungarian refugee, but a navy captain.
14:35
Greg Wooldridge: He had seen the bad times in Hungary, but he's he said to me,
14:39
Greg Wooldridge: one of the reasons you got selected is because we saw you go over
14:43
Greg Wooldridge: to the communications center to find out about how you were
14:47
Greg Wooldridge: troops.
14:47
Greg Wooldridge: Because I was commanding a squadron, you know, on a ship in Japan,
14:52
Greg Wooldridge: And they say, we saw you go over there to check on your troops
14:54
Greg Wooldridge: and see how they were doing in the promotion boards and then the selection
14:58
Greg Wooldridge: boards and advancement boards, and they said, amongst themselves, they said, no.
15:01
Greg Wooldridge: There's a guy that cares about his people.
15:03
Greg Wooldridge: And that was a big a big factor.
15:06
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
15:07
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
15:08
Lisa Nichols: Thank you for sharing that with me.
15:10
Lisa Nichols: Well, this is probably I'm I'm just gonna repeat this, but
15:14
Lisa Nichols: you're the only person in history to lead the Blue Angels
15:18
Lisa Nichols: three times.
15:19
Lisa Nichols: That's incredible.
15:20
Lisa Nichols: So I'm sure that is one of the reasons that they
15:24
Lisa Nichols: picked you, you know, is because they knew that you really cared about your
15:28
Lisa Nichols: people.
15:28
Lisa Nichols: Are there other things you think, Greg, that they kept coming back to you
15:31
Lisa Nichols: and picking you for that?
15:32
Greg Wooldridge: Some of it, frankly, Lisa, was timing and availability.
15:38
Greg Wooldridge: And, of course, I was willing to come back.
15:41
Greg Wooldridge: I there were cup the first time I got a callback, I didn't particularly
15:45
Greg Wooldridge: like the reason that they had set that boss, the guy that relieved me,
15:49
Greg Wooldridge: they set him aside.
15:51
Greg Wooldridge: So that was a bit of a rub for me, but I had only
15:55
Greg Wooldridge: been gone for six months.
15:56
Greg Wooldridge: So coming back was fairly e I wouldn't say easy,
16:00
Greg Wooldridge: but, you know, workable.
16:04
Greg Wooldridge: And then the second time I got called back, I had flown for two
16:06
Greg Wooldridge: and a half years, and the team had a confidence issue,
16:11
Greg Wooldridge: a morale issue
16:13
Greg Wooldridge: in leadership.
16:14
Greg Wooldridge: And so
16:16
Greg Wooldridge: that was that was a bit of a challenge, and I was getting ready
16:19
Greg Wooldridge: to retire.
16:21
Greg Wooldridge: But the but I was the guy that that needed they needed to get
16:24
Greg Wooldridge: there.
16:24
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
16:24
Greg Wooldridge: And somebody that Yeah.
16:26
Greg Wooldridge: Step into a troubled environment and bring things right
16:30
Greg Wooldridge: again.
16:31
Lisa Nichols: Okay.
16:32
Lisa Nichols: Well, good.
16:32
Lisa Nichols: I'm glad you shared that with me.
16:34
Lisa Nichols: So tell me how what did you do when you came in?
16:37
Lisa Nichols: I mean, because that relates to business.
16:39
Lisa Nichols: Right?
16:40
Lisa Nichols: There are so many organizations that have a troubled environment.
16:43
Lisa Nichols: So what were some of those first things you did, Greg, when you came
16:47
Lisa Nichols: into the the squadron after you that that second time?
16:51
Greg Wooldridge: I think to elicit
16:54
Greg Wooldridge: trust and,
16:58
Greg Wooldridge: self confidence in each member.
17:00
Greg Wooldridge: There were about a hundred and fifty people in the squadron, and I talked
17:03
Greg Wooldridge: to each person personally about how we were gonna get this done
17:07
Greg Wooldridge: because there was a lot of doubt.
17:09
Greg Wooldridge: The skill level was still there, extremely high,
17:13
Greg Wooldridge: but
17:14
Greg Wooldridge: the doubt, the lack of confidence in what the leaders were
17:19
Greg Wooldridge: you know, leadership was doing.
17:21
Greg Wooldridge: So I shared with them that I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a hundred
17:24
Greg Wooldridge: and fifty percent, and I just ask that you give me your best.
17:27
Greg Wooldridge: And I hope we can get this done.
17:29
Greg Wooldridge: We're gonna go out and we're gonna knock it out of the park again.
17:32
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
17:32
Greg Wooldridge: And, I'm just here for you.
17:34
Greg Wooldridge: So you let me know what what's on your mind and and where we
17:37
Greg Wooldridge: where you think we can go from here.
17:39
Greg Wooldridge: And, I just ask for your best performance, and and,
17:43
Greg Wooldridge: I'm here for you.
17:45
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
17:47
Greg Wooldridge: And in a in a major corporation of thousands, you're gonna have to
17:51
Greg Wooldridge: get to the lowest possible level that you can, you know, do
17:55
Greg Wooldridge: time wise and and talk with folks and let them know who you are,
18:01
Greg Wooldridge: Project that
18:04
Greg Wooldridge: which which well, what I hope is real humility, you know,
18:08
Greg Wooldridge: but b have confidence, but also allow yourself to show vulnerability
18:13
Greg Wooldridge: because there's more strength in being vulnerable and being
18:17
Greg Wooldridge: able to share that, you know, okay.
18:18
Greg Wooldridge: I screwed that up.
18:19
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
18:21
Lisa Nichols: Right.
18:21
Greg Wooldridge: How do you fix it?
18:22
Greg Wooldridge: So, anyway, that and that's a long, long answer.
18:25
Greg Wooldridge: Sorry.
18:25
Lisa Nichols: That's
18:27
Lisa Nichols: that's really that's really good.
18:29
Lisa Nichols: Well,
18:31
Lisa Nichols: Greg, I mean, with the Blue Angels.
18:33
Lisa Nichols: And this still I told you this blows me away, and I know that
18:37
Lisa Nichols: you get even lower than that by the end, but flying that eighteen
18:41
Lisa Nichols: inches apart, I mean, that just blows me away.
18:45
Lisa Nichols: There's a tremendous amount of trust there between the pilots.
18:48
Lisa Nichols: Right?
18:48
Lisa Nichols: And you said at the end, the goal is to get down to twelve
18:51
Lisa Nichols: inches apart.
18:52
Lisa Nichols: Not all the squadrons make it to that.
18:56
Lisa Nichols: But what do you think?
18:57
Lisa Nichols: I mean, we're talking
18:59
Lisa Nichols: to execute.
19:00
Lisa Nichols: There's got to be so much precision and
19:04
Lisa Nichols: trust.
19:05
Lisa Nichols: I mean, what what's the hardest thing about leading a team that
19:09
Lisa Nichols: has to be that precise?
19:10
Lisa Nichols: I mean, there's really no room for for mistakes.
19:14
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
19:14
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
19:15
Greg Wooldridge: Well, the hardest hardest thing is is made is quite frankly
19:19
Greg Wooldridge: made simple by the way we operate it.
19:22
Greg Wooldridge: And that was when we got done flying,
19:26
Greg Wooldridge: we would sit around the table, and that sounds informal, but it's it's structured,
19:32
Greg Wooldridge: a long table, and, you you know, we were on the road thirty
19:36
Greg Wooldridge: five weeks out of the year, so the environment itself changed a
19:40
Greg Wooldridge: little bit.
19:41
Greg Wooldridge: But the our crew of how we got into this debrief, and
19:45
Greg Wooldridge: we talked about what had happened, that's how we generated
19:49
Greg Wooldridge: incredible trust because it started with me, the person that
19:53
Greg Wooldridge: was in charge, the CEO, you know, I would or the project
19:57
Greg Wooldridge: manager, whatever it was that you were debriefing.
20:00
Greg Wooldridge: In our case, it was a practice or an airshow, and practices were the
20:04
Greg Wooldridge: same as airshows as far as their intensity of
20:08
Greg Wooldridge: of debrief.
20:09
Greg Wooldridge: And so I'd get in there and talk about what I had done
20:13
Greg Wooldridge: and what I could have done better and what my mistakes were.
20:16
Greg Wooldridge: We call them safeties.
20:18
Greg Wooldridge: And everything that you could think of that you'd done wrong,
20:22
Greg Wooldridge: you put it out there and say, look.
20:24
Greg Wooldridge: This is what I I did wrong.
20:27
Greg Wooldridge: And that was what I call strength and vulnerability.
20:31
Greg Wooldridge: And the reason was that you'd say you'd fix it and
20:35
Greg Wooldridge: and then it would go to the next person and we built that into
20:38
Greg Wooldridge: the culture, that accountability that Mhmm.
20:42
Greg Wooldridge: Able to say exactly what you did wrong and give
20:46
Greg Wooldridge: assurances that I recognize it and I'm not gonna let it happen
20:50
Greg Wooldridge: again.
20:51
Greg Wooldridge: If you couldn't figure it out, then you we went into this mentoring
20:55
Greg Wooldridge: mode, which was not
20:58
Greg Wooldridge: caustic.
20:59
Greg Wooldridge: It was not critical.
21:00
Greg Wooldridge: It was not sharp.
21:01
Greg Wooldridge: It was, you know, with love because we loved
21:05
Greg Wooldridge: what we did.
21:06
Greg Wooldridge: We loved our team, and and we fired it up and got ready.
21:10
Greg Wooldridge: So at the end of the debrief,
21:13
Greg Wooldridge: now you had things that you had complimented each other on, you know, the
21:17
Greg Wooldridge: praise that comes from doing well and that was great.
21:22
Greg Wooldridge: But you'd also discovered and and that enabled you to do better the next
21:26
Greg Wooldridge: time in in great performance.
21:28
Greg Wooldridge: But we also discovered what had challenged us and how we were gonna keep
21:32
Greg Wooldridge: working to fix that.
21:33
Greg Wooldridge: You know, as Vince Lombardi once said, Vince Lombardi, the a lot of the
21:37
Greg Wooldridge: young folks don't know the the greatest of all time coach of the Green
21:40
Greg Wooldridge: Bay Packers, in paraphrase, he would say, we're gonna go out
21:44
Greg Wooldridge: today, and we're gonna seek perfection.
21:48
Greg Wooldridge: We are gonna work to get perfection, but we'll never get
21:52
Greg Wooldridge: there.
21:52
Greg Wooldridge: But along the way, we are gonna experience excellence.
21:56
Greg Wooldridge: And that's what we were shooting for in the blues.
21:58
Greg Wooldridge: And that's what made made us different, that that
22:03
Greg Wooldridge: being vulnerable, allowing to be vulnerable, expectations of that,
22:07
Greg Wooldridge: revealing everything you would you could that you had done wrong.
22:10
Greg Wooldridge: And if you had if you couldn't rip remember it, somebody would help you
22:14
Greg Wooldridge: along the way in a in a very positive way.
22:17
Greg Wooldridge: So that strength and vulnerability, that was what really unusual.
22:21
Greg Wooldridge: And nobody had to hold back because it was the culture
22:26
Greg Wooldridge: of being, you know, responsible and accountable, and that was okay.
22:30
Greg Wooldridge: That was encouraged.
22:33
Lisa Nichols: I love it.
22:34
Lisa Nichols: I love it.
22:35
Lisa Nichols: Oh, there's so much goodness in that because being able
22:39
Lisa Nichols: to take the feedback without the feedback, how can you
22:43
Lisa Nichols: ever how can you improve?
22:45
Lisa Nichols: Right?
22:45
Lisa Nichols: You can improve.
22:46
Lisa Nichols: And so I even, when I speak to younger
22:51
Lisa Nichols: people, I'm like, be be open to feedback.
22:54
Lisa Nichols: Ask for feedback.
22:55
Greg Wooldridge: Right.
22:56
Lisa Nichols: Ask for feedback.
22:57
Lisa Nichols: See, what could I do better?
22:58
Lisa Nichols: You observed me in that meeting.
23:00
Lisa Nichols: What could I do better?
23:02
Lisa Nichols: I think that's so important.
23:03
Lisa Nichols: You know, one other thing I'm just thinking about, Greg, is when I heard
23:07
Lisa Nichols: John Foley speak, you guys had a a line that you
23:11
Lisa Nichols: would say.
23:12
Lisa Nichols: Glad to be here.
23:13
Greg Wooldridge: Glad to be here.
23:14
Lisa Nichols: Glad to be here.
23:16
Lisa Nichols: And I, you know, I was thinking about it this morning.
23:18
Lisa Nichols: I was thinking, what a positive that's a positive, demeanor
23:22
Lisa Nichols: to have too.
23:23
Lisa Nichols: Right?
23:24
Lisa Nichols: And just being grateful that we're here.
23:27
Lisa Nichols: And, you know, what did that like, even saying that line, I
23:31
Lisa Nichols: mean, what what kind of, I don't know.
23:34
Lisa Nichols: What kind of emotions did that build in the team?
23:37
Greg Wooldridge: It it was an expression that allowed you to to level out.
23:41
Greg Wooldridge: Let's say you'd had a terrible day flying.
23:43
Greg Wooldridge: You were out of position.
23:44
Greg Wooldridge: You couldn't make your maneuvers work.
23:46
Greg Wooldridge: You talk about it, express it.
23:49
Greg Wooldridge: There was no fear.
23:51
Greg Wooldridge: So fear is dissolved in that in that in that debrief environment.
23:55
Greg Wooldridge: Now you're you're on edge and you're not fearful, but you're aware in flight
23:58
Greg Wooldridge: with these challenges.
23:59
Greg Wooldridge: But once you get in a debrief, there's no fear of being open.
24:03
Greg Wooldridge: So you can say everything that you had done, you can express that
24:08
Greg Wooldridge: in a in a fear free environment.
24:09
Greg Wooldridge: The end of whatever you did, if you had a terrible day, you you
24:12
Greg Wooldridge: could say glad to be here because I I'm feeling the trust that we
24:15
Greg Wooldridge: have amongst each other.
24:17
Greg Wooldridge: And when I talk about the culture of the Blue Angels, I talk about
24:20
Greg Wooldridge: the, the two factors that built the culture.
24:23
Greg Wooldridge: And one was trust.
24:24
Greg Wooldridge: And because the trust was so strong, you were glad to be there.
24:28
Greg Wooldridge: The trust And the gratitude work together.
24:31
Greg Wooldridge: So being,
24:34
Greg Wooldridge: trustworthy you know, talk about a leader, you have to be trustworthy.
24:38
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
24:38
Greg Wooldridge: And that involves a lot of things.
24:41
Greg Wooldridge: Some words that I I usually talk about.
24:43
Greg Wooldridge: But,
24:45
Greg Wooldridge: you've got that trust built in, and so that builds that
24:49
Greg Wooldridge: glad to be here.
24:50
Greg Wooldridge: And the glad to be here helps from us remind each other, you know,
24:54
Greg Wooldridge: I've even got a sticker of that on the back of my cell phone,
24:58
Greg Wooldridge: my iPhone, that, you know what?
25:01
Greg Wooldridge: Despite how hard it is, despite the day you you may have had,
25:06
Greg Wooldridge: you're allowed to talk about that.
25:07
Greg Wooldridge: And that,
25:10
Greg Wooldridge: you know, that Right.
25:12
Greg Wooldridge: Let you relax and become grad grateful.
25:16
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
25:16
Greg Wooldridge: The gratefulness of that.
25:17
Greg Wooldridge: I'm glad to be here to reset.
25:19
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
25:20
Lisa Nichols: So good.
25:21
Lisa Nichols: So good.
25:23
Lisa Nichols: Well, Greg, I've got lots more questions.
25:26
Lisa Nichols: But we need to take a quick break, and we'll be right back with
25:29
Lisa Nichols: Greg Wooldridge on the Something Extra podcast.
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26:01
Lisa Nichols: Welcome back, everyone, to the Something Extra podcast with Greg
26:05
Lisa Nichols: Boss Wooldridge.
26:08
Lisa Nichols: We've been having a lot of fun talking about Blue Angels and all kinds
26:11
Lisa Nichols: of other things.
26:11
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, Greg, you you have said a team's mission was
26:16
Lisa Nichols: bigger than just airshows.
26:17
Lisa Nichols: Right.
26:18
Lisa Nichols: How did you keep that bigger why in front of your squadron?
26:21
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
26:22
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
26:22
Greg Wooldridge: It was about,
26:25
Greg Wooldridge: building relationships with with people.
26:28
Greg Wooldridge: Alright?
26:28
Greg Wooldridge: The people that got to see you, the people that heard about you.
26:31
Greg Wooldridge: You're ambassadors of goodwill, and you're out working with the public
26:35
Greg Wooldridge: all the time.
26:37
Greg Wooldridge: I'll digress for just a second.
26:39
Greg Wooldridge: That is part of the reason why we didn't pick replacement pilots.
26:43
Greg Wooldridge: And we got to pick our own, which is pretty cool.
26:46
Greg Wooldridge: But we didn't pick them based on military records and
26:50
Greg Wooldridge: flying performance.
26:51
Greg Wooldridge: It was about personality because that's where we needed that humility.
26:56
Greg Wooldridge: The ability to connect, be accountable, and be humble at
27:00
Greg Wooldridge: the same time.
27:01
Greg Wooldridge: Be confident, but be humble humble.
27:03
Greg Wooldridge: So we got to interact with a whole bunch of cool people.
27:07
Greg Wooldridge: One of the things,
27:09
Greg Wooldridge: I think you'll enjoy is that appreciate is that we worked with
27:13
Greg Wooldridge: Make A Wish.
27:15
Greg Wooldridge: And we would ask, especially in the major markets that we went to,
27:19
Greg Wooldridge: we'd ask for the local chapter to bring the kids out.
27:23
Greg Wooldridge: And and the kids would be so wonderful to be with.
27:26
Greg Wooldridge: And we'd we'd have them come out on a Thursday when we first arrive
27:29
Greg Wooldridge: when there's no crowds, and we'd actually bring them out to the flight line.
27:34
Greg Wooldridge: I actually took some of my makeup which gets and put them in the
27:37
Greg Wooldridge: jet, put them in my seat in my cockpit, which doesn't happen very
27:42
Greg Wooldridge: often, and, give them a special very special experience
27:47
Greg Wooldridge: because they deserve it.
27:48
Greg Wooldridge: And Mhmm.
27:49
Greg Wooldridge: It's part of you know, I I found out in the Bay Area from
27:53
Greg Wooldridge: the chair chairlady there that it's not about
27:57
Greg Wooldridge: granting a wish because something
28:01
Greg Wooldridge: bad was going to happen.
28:02
Greg Wooldridge: It was about granting a wish for life, you know, to have an experience
28:07
Greg Wooldridge: that would
28:09
Greg Wooldridge: bring people to a a higher appreciation for living and
28:13
Greg Wooldridge: want and share share something with them.
28:15
Greg Wooldridge: Many times, the Make A Wish kids, unfortunately,
28:20
Greg Wooldridge: it's a blessing if they recover.
28:22
Greg Wooldridge: One of the essential parts of that was to know that there's
28:27
Greg Wooldridge: people out there, the Make A Wish kids, challenged kids
28:32
Greg Wooldridge: like Ally and,
28:35
Greg Wooldridge: you know,
28:39
Greg Wooldridge: we have it easy compared to all of them.
28:42
Lisa Nichols: Right.
28:43
Greg Wooldridge: They're the rock stars.
28:44
Greg Wooldridge: They're the they're the superheroes out there.
28:46
Greg Wooldridge: It's just us flying around in the blue jets with great
28:50
Greg Wooldridge: support and everything, but the kids that, woke up in the morning that
28:55
Greg Wooldridge: maybe didn't know what was gonna happen that day.
28:57
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
28:57
Greg Wooldridge: That's those it was great for keeping us humble.
29:04
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
29:04
Lisa Nichols: It's so beautiful.
29:06
Lisa Nichols: So beautiful.
29:09
Lisa Nichols: Well, let's talk a little bit about leadership and high performance teams.
29:13
Lisa Nichols: So what do you think I mean, we've already talked about some of these
29:17
Lisa Nichols: things and you'll I mean, I definitely think humility is humility
29:21
Lisa Nichols: is the first chapter in my book, by the way, Greg, because it's Yeah.
29:25
Lisa Nichols: So important.
29:26
Lisa Nichols: But what do you think separates a good leader from
29:30
Lisa Nichols: a great one?
29:32
Lisa Nichols: What are some of those characteristics?
29:33
Greg Wooldridge: How many books have been written on leadership?
29:35
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
29:36
Greg Wooldridge: How many times the word's been repeated?
29:40
Greg Wooldridge: I would say, for me, to build a trust environment
29:44
Greg Wooldridge: is crucial, and you do it through your
29:48
Greg Wooldridge: your personal integrity.
29:50
Greg Wooldridge: I I use four c's with trust.
29:53
Greg Wooldridge: One is competence, that you're competent in what you're doing.
29:58
Greg Wooldridge: You don't have you don't have to be the greatest that ever lived or,
30:01
Greg Wooldridge: you know, you don't have to,
30:04
Greg Wooldridge: be on that pinnacle, but you should be competent, and that starts
30:08
Greg Wooldridge: building trust.
30:09
Greg Wooldridge: And then it is about your character.
30:12
Greg Wooldridge: And and character's
30:15
Greg Wooldridge: terribly important, wonderfully important.
30:18
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
30:18
Greg Wooldridge: Neither and part of that is being truthful.
30:21
Greg Wooldridge: Truth is a big part of character.
30:24
Greg Wooldridge: And the the fourth c that I like to talk about is commitment.
30:28
Greg Wooldridge: Commitment to let's make let's make our mission happen
30:33
Greg Wooldridge: and do it in the best possible way.
30:35
Greg Wooldridge: And then you gotta trust going back and forth with your
30:39
Greg Wooldridge: teammates.
30:40
Greg Wooldridge: And the fourth one is consistency.
30:42
Greg Wooldridge: A good leader has to be consistent.
30:46
Greg Wooldridge: And and once you if you ever break that, be ready.
30:49
Greg Wooldridge: Be ready for some doubts to arise and your effectiveness to
30:54
Greg Wooldridge: to to shrink a little bit.
30:56
Greg Wooldridge: Mhmm.
30:57
Greg Wooldridge: Consistency.
30:58
Greg Wooldridge: Now I you know, all of that also leads to that when I talk
31:02
Greg Wooldridge: about allowing you to be vulnerable.
31:04
Greg Wooldridge: So you've earned the trust, and now you can be vulnerable
31:09
Greg Wooldridge: and and be unafraid.
31:11
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
31:12
Greg Wooldridge: We I've dealt with some corporations where that environment didn't exist,
31:17
Greg Wooldridge: and there were people that would never say anything, first of all, because they
31:21
Greg Wooldridge: were fearful.
31:22
Greg Wooldridge: So the fear has gotta be erased.
31:24
Greg Wooldridge: They were fearful.
31:25
Greg Wooldridge: And and and, others, there's cultural issues where, you know,
31:29
Greg Wooldridge: because of who they were, they weren't supposed to say anything.
31:32
Greg Wooldridge: But the fear is a big thing.
31:34
Greg Wooldridge: And we drove we drove that out, and that's what a leader will do.
31:38
Greg Wooldridge: He'll make sure that there's no fear because you're not gonna get to the
31:41
Greg Wooldridge: right answers about things and move forward positively
31:45
Greg Wooldridge: without being able to hear from everyone.
31:47
Greg Wooldridge: I I I see companies where they have in their midst
31:51
Greg Wooldridge: silent geniuses, people that make the difference
31:56
Greg Wooldridge: in that organization, but there's they're fearful.
31:59
Greg Wooldridge: They're afraid to say anything or they don't have the opportunity.
32:03
Greg Wooldridge: The structure,
32:05
Greg Wooldridge: the culture doesn't encourage that,
32:09
Greg Wooldridge: these are the mistakes I made, and I think we can all get better.
32:12
Greg Wooldridge: I took I took that debrief to FedEx when I was flying
32:17
Greg Wooldridge: with them, and we experienced some growth there with using that
32:21
Greg Wooldridge: that way of talking about things without being afraid.
32:26
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
32:27
Lisa Nichols: So talk about that.
32:28
Lisa Nichols: You spent, what, sixteen, almost six fifteen, sixteen years at FedEx?
32:32
Greg Wooldridge: No.
32:32
Greg Wooldridge: About active years, about thirteen.
32:35
Greg Wooldridge: And then I had
32:36
Lisa Nichols: Okay.
32:36
Greg Wooldridge: Then I had a a an event where I had a a wonderful
32:40
Greg Wooldridge: second chance, and I lived through, cardiac
32:44
Greg Wooldridge: arrest.
32:46
Greg Wooldridge: And then I I had to go had kinda quit flying after that.
32:50
Greg Wooldridge: But I s urvived something that's about an eighty percent
32:54
Greg Wooldridge: chance, sudden cardiac death.
32:56
Greg Wooldridge: Those are the things you're calling.
32:58
Greg Wooldridge: So I just second chance was there.
33:00
Greg Wooldridge: But I did get to wonderfully after retiring from that navy, I got to
33:04
Greg Wooldridge: fly with FedEx.
33:05
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
33:06
Lisa Nichols: Yep.
33:06
Lisa Nichols: Which is another iconic Oh, it's Iconic company.
33:11
Greg Wooldridge: God bless Fred Smith.
33:12
Greg Wooldridge: You you just recently passed.
33:13
Greg Wooldridge: What a what a Yes.
33:15
Greg Wooldridge: What an incredible man.
33:16
Greg Wooldridge: Did some great things and created a wonderful company, and they were great to
33:19
Greg Wooldridge: work for.
33:20
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
33:21
Greg Wooldridge: We had a great safety record there after I got, you know, in their
33:25
Greg Wooldridge: past, wonderful safety record.
33:27
Greg Wooldridge: Then they started having things happen, when the gear collapsed or something, you
33:31
Greg Wooldridge: know, where the airplane would be damaged.
33:32
Greg Wooldridge: And they said, well, why is this happening?
33:35
Greg Wooldridge: And I said, well, I they they asked us.
33:37
Greg Wooldridge: I was in a very minor leadership or manage
33:41
Greg Wooldridge: managerial position as a as a instructor.
33:45
Greg Wooldridge: And and I and I thought about it.
33:47
Greg Wooldridge: Why is this happening?
33:48
Greg Wooldridge: There's nothing common in what's happening here.
33:51
Greg Wooldridge: You know, the one was landing, one's a takeoff, one's something in flight.
33:55
Greg Wooldridge: You know, they're not the same type
34:00
Greg Wooldridge: I looked at it, and I went home, thought about it.
34:02
Greg Wooldridge: I said, you know, one thing we never do, we never talk about the
34:06
Greg Wooldridge: flight we just got off of.
34:09
Greg Wooldridge: Primarily, I think, because a lot of it was overnight
34:13
Greg Wooldridge: freight, overnight mail and and mission where you would get
34:17
Greg Wooldridge: into some place like Orlando at four or five in the morning
34:21
Greg Wooldridge: just, you know and and now you were working in the nighttime and sleeping
34:25
Greg Wooldridge: in the daytime.
34:26
Greg Wooldridge: The only thing you you wanted to talk about was get to the hotel
34:29
Greg Wooldridge: and not even tell if I just get there and and pull the blinds
34:32
Greg Wooldridge: shut, pretend like it's nighttime, and try to get some sleep.
34:35
Lisa Nichols: Sure.
34:35
Greg Wooldridge: And I remember laying my head down on the pillow a couple times going,
34:40
Greg Wooldridge: now there's something odd about that flight, and there was something cool about that
34:44
Greg Wooldridge: flight, you know, or there's something good about it.
34:46
Greg Wooldridge: I'd like to talk about that, but there was really no no
34:51
Greg Wooldridge: procedure, no vehicle to do that.
34:52
Greg Wooldridge: So I went back and I said, look, folks.
34:55
Greg Wooldridge: If we could only debrief what had happened.
34:58
Greg Wooldridge: I said, Blue Angels, our debriefs are about an hour to an hour and
35:00
Greg Wooldridge: a half long.
35:01
Greg Wooldridge: Immediately, they go, oh, yeah.
35:03
Greg Wooldridge: That can't happen.
35:03
Greg Wooldridge: I said, no.
35:04
Greg Wooldridge: But here's what we can do.
35:05
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
35:06
Greg Wooldridge: We don't need to do that.
35:07
Greg Wooldridge: We can spend thirty seconds, two minutes, whatever it takes to flesh
35:11
Greg Wooldridge: out the good things on the flight and the not so good things on
35:15
Greg Wooldridge: the flight.
35:15
Greg Wooldridge: We can grow and get better because we can diminish
35:19
Greg Wooldridge: the things that are not good.
35:22
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
35:22
Greg Wooldridge: And embellish and bring into light the things that we did well.
35:26
Greg Wooldridge: And and the captain of the ship, the captain of the pilot would
35:30
Greg Wooldridge: say, alright.
35:31
Greg Wooldridge: And and and before you left the cockpit, we put it on the checklist,
35:35
Greg Wooldridge: and the FAA approved it.
35:37
Greg Wooldridge: You'd say, okay.
35:38
Greg Wooldridge: Let's talk about let's debrief.
35:40
Greg Wooldridge: And then the captain would say, and so I thought it was a pretty
35:42
Greg Wooldridge: good flight.
35:43
Greg Wooldridge: I missed a turn on the taxiway or, you know, I was a little
35:46
Greg Wooldridge: off on altitude here, but I can fix those things.
35:50
Greg Wooldridge: So Yeah.
35:51
Greg Wooldridge: He gets out in the air, you know.
35:52
Greg Wooldridge: And then then the first officer and back in way back, they had a
35:56
Greg Wooldridge: second officer, an engineer.
35:58
Greg Wooldridge: Everybody had a chance to talk and discuss what had happened on that flight
36:02
Greg Wooldridge: and how we could grow from it.
36:03
Greg Wooldridge: And there was no fear.
36:05
Greg Wooldridge: There was a full accountability and, again, that that vulnerability.
36:08
Greg Wooldridge: So that's how they're glad to be here debrief.
36:12
Greg Wooldridge: Got into
36:14
Lisa Nichols: To FedEx.
36:15
Greg Wooldridge: Take it after take it from the Blue Angels.
36:18
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
36:18
Lisa Nichols: Take it from the Blue Angels.
36:20
Lisa Nichols: Well, I'll never forget, Greg having a Top Gun instructor
36:24
Lisa Nichols: on the podcast early on.
36:26
Lisa Nichols: Cujo, Teschner is his name, Robert Teschner.
36:30
Lisa Nichols: And he he discussed the whole thing about plan, execute,
36:34
Lisa Nichols: debrief.
36:35
Lisa Nichols: Plan, execute, debrief.
36:37
Lisa Nichols: And, so I just think taking that into your into
36:41
Lisa Nichols: your business, I think, is really, really important.
36:44
Lisa Nichols: After a sales call Right.
36:45
Lisa Nichols: After you've delivered a system, whatever the case may be,
36:50
Lisa Nichols: really taking a look and taking the time because otherwise, you know, you may
36:54
Lisa Nichols: repeat the same mistake over and over and over, and that's insanity.
36:57
Lisa Nichols: Right?
36:57
Greg Wooldridge: That's right.
36:58
Greg Wooldridge: It doesn't that's what they say.
37:00
Greg Wooldridge: And then you don't get better if you hit.
37:03
Lisa Nichols: That's right.
37:03
Greg Wooldridge: The things are hitting.
37:04
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
37:05
Greg Wooldridge: You're not getting
37:06
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
37:07
Lisa Nichols: Well, let's go back.
37:08
Lisa Nichols: Let's go back, because you you talked about
37:12
Lisa Nichols: your cardiac event, and I I knew about that.
37:15
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, you also you didn't you have an inverted spin?
37:21
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
37:21
Lisa Nichols: When you were flying, that almost was not a good outcome?
37:26
Greg Wooldridge: It was a it the the way I got into that inverted spin,
37:30
Greg Wooldridge: according to the flight manuals, was a guarantor
37:34
Greg Wooldridge: that you weren't gonna recover.
37:36
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
37:37
Greg Wooldridge: That meant either Yeah.
37:38
Greg Wooldridge: Jumping out, which means ejecting.
37:41
Lisa Nichols: Right.
37:42
Greg Wooldridge: You say you're gonna have to jump now, which meant eject.
37:46
Greg Wooldridge: Use your parachute.
37:48
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
37:49
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
37:50
Greg Wooldridge: I got the airplane in through my aggressiveness and my
37:54
Greg Wooldridge: my rug dance behavior.
37:56
Greg Wooldridge: I got outside the envelope of the airplane.
37:59
Greg Wooldridge: I was dogfighting with another guy.
38:01
Greg Wooldridge: We both got our nose pitched straight up, and I watched
38:05
Greg Wooldridge: him fall off.
38:06
Greg Wooldridge: And I and that's when you in the normal dogfighting world, you'd be
38:10
Greg Wooldridge: able to roll in behind.
38:11
Greg Wooldridge: And when you get behind somebody, you have a tentative you have a Sure.
38:15
Greg Wooldridge: Weapon solution.
38:16
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
38:16
Greg Wooldridge: So you win that fight. So , I got up there.
38:19
Greg Wooldridge: We got really high in this a these a fours, and I watched him
38:23
Greg Wooldridge: roll off.
38:23
Greg Wooldridge: I said, I got him now.
38:25
Greg Wooldridge: And I tried to I tried to move the controls.
38:28
Greg Wooldridge: The airplane wouldn't do anything.
38:30
Greg Wooldridge: I thought, oh, no.
38:31
Greg Wooldridge: In the in the in the flight manual, it said, don't ever get the
38:35
Greg Wooldridge: nose of the airplane straight up or or even beyond straight up
38:39
Greg Wooldridge: a hundred degrees nose up, and you're at zero air speed
38:44
Greg Wooldridge: because you'll get into an inverted spin.
38:46
Greg Wooldridge: So with the tail flying back and you you're on your back and you're
38:49
Greg Wooldridge: going around in in circles, out circles, but on a rotation.
38:54
Greg Wooldridge: And it said in the flight manual, there is no known recovery.
38:58
Greg Wooldridge: So in most most, places where you get into an environment
39:02
Greg Wooldridge: in the in an airplane that is unfamiliar or is,
39:07
Greg Wooldridge: not where you wanna be, there is a recovery process.
39:10
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
39:11
Greg Wooldridge: And it Mhmm.
39:11
Greg Wooldridge: Put the controls into the spin or wave the spin, the router do all
39:15
Greg Wooldridge: these things, you know, no known recovery for an inverted spin.
39:18
Greg Wooldridge: So we start to slide, and I had a two seater in the kinda
39:21
Greg Wooldridge: my back seat, which starts tail sliding back and then then got into that
39:24
Greg Wooldridge: emergency.
39:25
Greg Wooldridge: You know, we watched the altitude decrease further and further.
39:28
Greg Wooldridge: Now when you're in a spin, you don't have airflow across
39:32
Greg Wooldridge: the flight control, so you don't have airflow across the canopy.
39:36
Greg Wooldridge: And there's a different sound, right, when you just quietly
39:40
Greg Wooldridge: turn and like that,
39:42
Greg Wooldridge: And, watch the air the altitude drop and drop and drop.
39:46
Greg Wooldridge: We got to the altitude where we should have rejected and didn't.
39:50
Greg Wooldridge: That was my call.
39:51
Greg Wooldridge: My with concurrence with the fell on the back seat.
39:55
Greg Wooldridge: And then we got to the altitude where it would have been futile to
39:59
Greg Wooldridge: eject.
39:59
Greg Wooldridge: We're too low.
40:01
Greg Wooldridge: Mhmm.
40:02
Greg Wooldridge: Finally, at less than five thousand feet, way less than that off
40:06
Greg Wooldridge: the water.
40:07
Greg Wooldridge: Finally, I could hear the wind coming by the canopy.
40:11
Greg Wooldridge: So that meant there's probably wind over the flight control.
40:13
Greg Wooldridge: So I started try and I was able to roll the airplane right right
40:17
Greg Wooldridge: side up and fly it away, scooped out, I think, around
40:21
Greg Wooldridge: maybe five hundred feet off the water.
40:24
Greg Wooldridge: And then, and started heading back to land.
40:27
Greg Wooldridge: And one of the one of the funny things, now that's funny, was that
40:32
Greg Wooldridge: as I added power to fly so fly back toward
40:36
Greg Wooldridge: the coast of California,
40:38
Greg Wooldridge: I looked up at the instruments, and there was zero oil pressure,
40:43
Greg Wooldridge: which means the engine's gonna rub itself to death, you know, without oil.
40:47
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
40:48
Greg Wooldridge: And then it'll wear itself in.
40:50
Greg Wooldridge: And, I told the guy, hey.
40:52
Greg Wooldridge: Good news, bad news.
40:53
Greg Wooldridge: We are heading back.
40:54
Greg Wooldridge: Bad news is there's no oil in the engine.
40:58
Greg Wooldridge: And and what had happened was because of that upside down flight, the oil
41:02
Greg Wooldridge: had gone back into the tank.
41:04
Greg Wooldridge: It would cavitate it away from the engine.
41:07
Greg Wooldridge: It was still there
41:08
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
41:09
Greg Wooldridge: While for it to get pumped back into the system, and it finally came
41:12
Greg Wooldridge: back.
41:12
Greg Wooldridge: I know.
41:13
Greg Wooldridge: I'm like, well, we did it, but we're we're still gonna
41:17
Greg Wooldridge: have to go through my mind maybe.
41:19
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
41:20
Lisa Nichols: So did you?
41:21
Lisa Nichols: Did you have to go swimming?
41:22
Greg Wooldridge: We made it back.
41:24
Lisa Nichols: You made it.
41:24
Lisa Nichols: Wow.
41:25
Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
41:26
Greg Wooldridge: Things like that.
41:26
Greg Wooldridge: Second chances have been on
41:30
Greg Wooldridge: on my on my, life.
41:32
Lisa Nichols: Radar Yeah.
41:33
Lisa Nichols: On your life.
41:33
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
41:34
Lisa Nichols: Well, did it inform faith at all?
41:37
Greg Wooldridge: It did.
41:37
Greg Wooldridge: Absolutely.
41:38
Lisa Nichols: What did it do with your faith?
41:39
Greg Wooldridge: Well, see, that's another thing, Lisa.
41:42
Greg Wooldridge: I
41:46
Greg Wooldridge: I had a belief, but I didn't have a, what
41:50
Greg Wooldridge: we call a relationship with the Lord.
41:53
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
41:54
Greg Wooldridge: And so I thought, well, I lucked out there.
41:58
Greg Wooldridge: I lucked out here.
41:59
Greg Wooldridge: I lucked out with the hard thing.
42:01
Greg Wooldridge: But after the cardiac arrest is when I really started wondering, you know, about
42:05
Greg Wooldridge: what happens and what what happens when you pass, and where does
42:09
Greg Wooldridge: all this energy go?
42:12
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
42:14
Greg Wooldridge: Our energy, you almost can't see it in our thoughts.
42:16
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
42:16
Greg Wooldridge: Our thoughts are out there.
42:18
Greg Wooldridge: Where does it go?
42:18
Greg Wooldridge: What happens?
42:19
Greg Wooldridge: Where do we where do we wind?
42:21
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
42:21
Greg Wooldridge: Where do we wind up?
42:23
Lisa Nichols: Right.
42:23
Lisa Nichols: Right.
42:24
Lisa Nichols: So you started asking the questions.
42:25
Lisa Nichols: I
42:25
Greg Wooldridge: started asking the question.
42:26
Greg Wooldridge: It took me a long time to find out.
42:27
Greg Wooldridge: Too long.
42:28
Greg Wooldridge: But once I found out, that's when I realized those things that I called
42:33
Greg Wooldridge: luck were were really blessings.
42:36
Greg Wooldridge: And,
42:36
Lisa Nichols: Were God's hand on you?
42:38
Greg Wooldridge: Yes.
42:38
Greg Wooldridge: Absolutely.
42:39
Lisa Nichols: He was he was sparing you.
42:42
Lisa Nichols: But wow.
42:47
Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you a question.
42:49
Lisa Nichols: Since that realization,
42:53
Lisa Nichols: how do you think you've been transformed?
42:57
Lisa Nichols: What what kind of transformations happened?
43:00
Greg Wooldridge: One thing that's happened I don't know.
43:01
Greg Wooldridge: There's been tons of things.
43:03
Greg Wooldridge: But one of the things that I noticed every day,
43:06
Greg Wooldridge: and
43:08
Greg Wooldridge: it's being judgmental.
43:11
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
43:11
Greg Wooldridge: I I fight that all the time, you know, because
43:15
Greg Wooldridge: I know we're all created in the image of god.
43:18
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
43:18
Greg Wooldridge: And you can't judge people because
43:23
Greg Wooldridge: you don't know what their life is like.
43:28
Lisa Nichols: Right.
43:28
Greg Wooldridge: The, the things that they they're facing.
43:30
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
43:31
Greg Wooldridge: And Mhmm.
43:32
Greg Wooldridge: You make a judgment and all of a sudden, most of the time, you
43:36
Greg Wooldridge: realize, well, that was not right.
43:38
Lisa Nichols: Completely wrong.
43:39
Lisa Nichols: Right.
43:40
Greg Wooldridge: And and the and our our lord teaches us that, you
43:44
Greg Wooldridge: know,
43:45
Greg Wooldridge: judge not, lest ye be judged, right?
43:49
Greg Wooldridge: I'm not worried about it.
43:50
Greg Wooldridge: And then just loving everybody, you know, and, filing
43:54
Greg Wooldridge: it.
43:54
Greg Wooldridge: Our society, our culture is so so downtrodden
43:58
Greg Wooldridge: now that it's,
44:00
Greg Wooldridge: more
44:02
Greg Wooldridge: of us could say, you know, approach life and
44:06
Greg Wooldridge: people with love and let that play out, r ight?
44:10
Greg Wooldridge: And it and it brings out the best in others.
44:13
Greg Wooldridge: A lot of times you see somebody that's really downtrodden and frowning
44:17
Greg Wooldridge: and and unhappy, even people you meet in a store that are clerks
44:21
Greg Wooldridge: or whatever, and you just say, hey.
44:23
Greg Wooldridge: How's it going?
44:24
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
44:24
Greg Wooldridge: You look you look kinda beat up.
44:26
Greg Wooldridge: Are you doing okay?
44:28
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
44:28
Greg Wooldridge: And smile.
44:30
Greg Wooldridge: You don't have to be quite that personal unless you feel like it's the
44:32
Greg Wooldridge: time, r ight?
44:34
Lisa Nichols: Right.
44:35
Lisa Nichols: Right.
44:35
Lisa Nichols: But that smile, that just that kind gesture,
44:40
Lisa Nichols: that kind,
44:42
Lisa Nichols: reach out.
44:42
Lisa Nichols: I mean, Greg, it can change the trajectory of someone's life.
44:46
Lisa Nichols: You know?
44:46
Lisa Nichols: It can change their day for sure.
44:48
Lisa Nichols: Right?
44:48
Greg Wooldridge: One of the things I do, Lisa, when I talk about, what builds a
44:52
Greg Wooldridge: team, a lot of it has to do with respect.
44:55
Greg Wooldridge: So you you approach people with respect.
45:00
Greg Wooldridge: You know, like, tell the little story of walking through an airport and seeing,
45:03
Greg Wooldridge: you know, we're just passing face to face with people and, you know, I
45:07
Greg Wooldridge: gotta get to the gate, you know, and I'm I'm not real happy about
45:10
Greg Wooldridge: flying and blah blah blah blah blah.
45:11
Greg Wooldridge: And you and you and but you I take a look around and I
45:15
Greg Wooldridge: notice how clean and beautiful the place is.
45:17
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
45:18
Greg Wooldridge: And I I'll look look to see who's involved with that.
45:22
Greg Wooldridge: I may see some somebody cleaning the walls or sweeping
45:26
Greg Wooldridge: the floor or pushing the carts.
45:28
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
45:30
Greg Wooldridge: And if if it's a clean and wonderful environment, which
45:34
Greg Wooldridge: we don't take notice of often enough, Excuse me.
45:37
Greg Wooldridge: I'll I'll say to him, hey.
45:39
Greg Wooldridge: This place is beautiful.
45:40
Greg Wooldridge: Great job.
45:41
Greg Wooldridge: Thank you.
45:42
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
45:43
Greg Wooldridge: And that that little bit of interaction, that little bit of
45:47
Greg Wooldridge: respect,
45:49
Greg Wooldridge: boy, it took it takes you three or four seconds to do it.
45:52
Greg Wooldridge: But what do you think?
45:53
Greg Wooldridge: How do you think they this call it a menial job, call
45:57
Greg Wooldridge: the people invisible because they are invisible to most
46:02
Greg Wooldridge: of us.
46:02
Greg Wooldridge: And and what that does, oh my goodness.
46:05
Greg Wooldridge: Can you imagine?
46:06
Greg Wooldridge: Well, maybe I maybe my job is doesn't stink as better than I think
46:10
Greg Wooldridge: it does.
46:10
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
46:11
Greg Wooldridge: Right.
46:11
Greg Wooldridge: I'm appreciated.
46:12
Greg Wooldridge: I there's an appreciation and respect.
46:14
Greg Wooldridge: So that's another thing that,
46:18
Lisa Nichols: I love that. Very practical
46:20
Lisa Nichols: thing that we can do, but it's opening our eyes to see those.
46:24
Lisa Nichols: Right?
46:25
Lisa Nichols: It's opening our eyes, getting outside of ourself.
46:28
Greg Wooldridge: If more people could do that too. The whole world would change.
46:33
Lisa Nichols: Oh, no doubt.
46:34
Lisa Nichols: No doubt about it.
46:36
Lisa Nichols: Well, I wanna talk about this real fast because I really want our listeners
46:39
Lisa Nichols: to go and do this.
46:40
Lisa Nichols: So you were part of you were co producer for the Blue Angels
46:44
Lisa Nichols: documentary that came out in twenty twenty four.
46:48
Lisa Nichols: I told you that our family sat down and watched it, and it is
46:51
Lisa Nichols: so so good, Greg.
46:53
Lisa Nichols: But why, you know, why do you think telling
46:57
Lisa Nichols: that story is so important?
46:59
Lisa Nichols: You know?
47:00
Lisa Nichols: Because, I mean, it's special.
47:02
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
47:02
Greg Wooldridge: About five years well, twenty nineteen, before the pandemic, I had the idea to
47:06
Greg Wooldridge: make another documentary about something that was good and true
47:11
Greg Wooldridge: and all American, right, and showed American exceptionalism.
47:14
Greg Wooldridge: And and I thought there's nothing finer than the Blue Angels in what we
47:18
Greg Wooldridge: do and what we demonstrate.
47:20
Greg Wooldridge: So I called Rob Stone, a good friend of mine, who had made a
47:23
Greg Wooldridge: award winning documentary on the blues before on about my team
47:27
Greg Wooldridge: that went to Russia.
47:29
Greg Wooldridge: And I said, Rob, it's time time to do it again.
47:32
Greg Wooldridge: And we and we we got through it.
47:33
Greg Wooldridge: We got through the pandemic where we lost support, but then gained it through,
47:38
Greg Wooldridge: Glenn Powell and JJ Abrams and some of those folks.
47:41
Greg Wooldridge: And and we got the movie out, May of last year.
47:45
Greg Wooldridge: But it was so important for me to me to
47:49
Greg Wooldridge: to get that done because it really it shows
47:53
Greg Wooldridge: how you can go beyond your even your own self imposed
47:58
Greg Wooldridge: limitations to to do extraordinary things.
48:02
Greg Wooldridge: And once you get to be doing once you have the chance to do
48:06
Greg Wooldridge: them, you don't even look at them look at them as extraordinary anymore.
48:09
Greg Wooldridge: You look as though at those things as a way of life, and you're
48:12
Greg Wooldridge: able to share with others.
48:14
Greg Wooldridge: And and I think it was important to to see that on screen.
48:18
Greg Wooldridge: You know, I I wanted to make sure it was G rated so k ids
48:22
Greg Wooldridge: could grow from it and l earn from it.
48:25
Greg Wooldridge: But adults love it too.
48:26
Greg Wooldridge: So, yeah, I it was just important to me.
48:29
Greg Wooldridge: And and the beautiful thing was,
48:32
Greg Wooldridge: Brian Kesselring was the boss on that team that you saw in the movie.
48:37
Greg Wooldridge: He was in his third year because of the hold holdover from the non
48:40
Greg Wooldridge: basically, non airshow year of the pandemic, and he was terrific.
48:45
Greg Wooldridge: So between a wonderful production team and
48:49
Greg Wooldridge: a wonderful Blue Angel team, I kinda kinda built those
48:53
Greg Wooldridge: bonds and that trust back to the the good t word, the trust.
48:57
Greg Wooldridge: Mhmm.
48:58
Greg Wooldridge: We got it done.
48:58
Greg Wooldridge: It was just important to do it.
49:00
Lisa Nichols: So good.
49:01
Lisa Nichols: I encourage our listeners to go watch it.
49:03
Lisa Nichols: It's in IMAXs. B ut you can also see it on Prime.
49:07
Lisa Nichols: Amazon Prime, right?
49:09
Greg Wooldridge: The only place you can see it in IMAX now is is in museums because in
49:13
Greg Wooldridge: January this year, IMAX made a forty minute version instead of a
49:17
Greg Wooldridge: feature length like it's on Prime, but it's in IMAX the way it
49:21
Greg Wooldridge: was filmed.
49:22
Greg Wooldridge: And I've been promoting it.
49:23
Greg Wooldridge: I went to Kennedy Space Center and the the Air and Space Museum
49:28
Greg Wooldridge: with showings of the movie.
49:30
Greg Wooldridge: So it's a great way.
49:31
Greg Wooldridge: But that's just just to tell you that IMAX is is a wonderful way,
49:34
Greg Wooldridge: but a prime on a big screen with a lot of good sound is
49:37
Greg Wooldridge: is pretty cool.
49:39
Lisa Nichols: So good.
49:40
Lisa Nichols: Alright.
49:41
Lisa Nichols: One other thing I wanna talk about.
49:43
Lisa Nichols: I've got so many other things, but I know we're running short on time
49:45
Lisa Nichols: here.
49:46
Lisa Nichols: You actually ran for governor.
49:48
Lisa Nichols: You ran for the governor of Oregon.
49:51
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
49:52
Greg Wooldridge: I did.
49:53
Lisa Nichols: 2018.
49:54
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
49:55
Lisa Nichols: You ran in the primary for governor.
49:57
Lisa Nichols: You didn't win.
49:59
Lisa Nichols: But, Greg, what did you learn?
50:00
Greg Wooldridge: Oh, I learned that, there are so many people that need to
50:04
Greg Wooldridge: be represented in an area, in a state, in a country that
50:08
Greg Wooldridge: don't get a voice.
50:10
Greg Wooldridge: And even as a candidate, I was able to bring
50:14
Greg Wooldridge: their ability to voice their concerns and and weave
50:18
Greg Wooldridge: the way they felt into what I would do going forward where I elected
50:23
Greg Wooldridge: and and being able to share that in the competition,
50:27
Greg Wooldridge: in the election process, to share those thoughts and
50:32
Greg Wooldridge: and the needs and wants of people other than the the
50:36
Greg Wooldridge: the vast majority here in Oregon and represent folks
50:40
Greg Wooldridge: the right way.
50:41
Greg Wooldridge: So I learned that,
50:43
Greg Wooldridge: you know, and you learn the the mechanics of of a race.
50:47
Greg Wooldridge: And, of course, we all know what kinda know what those are, but they're
50:51
Greg Wooldridge: tough.
50:52
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
50:52
Greg Wooldridge: It's a tough world running for office.
50:54
Greg Wooldridge: It really is.
50:55
Greg Wooldridge: But I enjoyed it.
50:57
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
50:58
Greg Wooldridge: I wanted to change the dialogue, and I wanted to go back to something
51:01
Greg Wooldridge: I learned on the blues that,
51:05
Greg Wooldridge: just quickly about policy.
51:08
Greg Wooldridge: People come in and say let's drain the swamp.
51:10
Greg Wooldridge: Well, my my idea was
51:14
Greg Wooldridge: it's not a swamp.
51:15
Greg Wooldridge: It's that that area in government is filled with really
51:19
Greg Wooldridge: good people.
51:20
Greg Wooldridge: They just need to be led.
51:22
Greg Wooldridge: You know?
51:24
Greg Wooldridge: No clear expectations.
51:27
Greg Wooldridge: Clearly know what was expected of them, and they will
51:31
Greg Wooldridge: do great.
51:32
Greg Wooldridge: And and then, again, like we talked about leadership, earning trust
51:36
Greg Wooldridge: and, being humble with them, being vulnerable.
51:39
Greg Wooldridge: And that's what I that's what I learned and tried to carry forward.
51:44
Greg Wooldridge: Unfortunately, I didn't win.
51:46
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
51:47
Lisa Nichols: Oh, but you know what?
51:49
Lisa Nichols: I bet you you changed some minds.
51:51
Lisa Nichols: And even, like like you said, like, getting voices that
51:55
Lisa Nichols: were not typically heard.
51:58
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
51:58
Lisa Nichols: I think that's so yeah.
52:00
Lisa Nichols: Don't discount what you were able to do, Greg, in that.
52:04
Lisa Nichols: Well, this is called something extra.
52:07
Lisa Nichols: What do you believe is the something extra that every leader needs?
52:11
Greg Wooldridge: Well, I I'll go back to, trust, first of all.
52:14
Greg Wooldridge: But you need to be confident
52:17
Greg Wooldridge: and at the same time, be humble.
52:21
Greg Wooldridge: Allow yourself to be vulnerable.
52:22
Greg Wooldridge: There there you know, there's so many words that go on to leadership,
52:27
Greg Wooldridge: but you have to weave them together and,
52:31
Greg Wooldridge: and know what intensity each of those things, how it appears
52:35
Greg Wooldridge: and how it's brought to the surface in your leadership style.
52:38
Greg Wooldridge: And and as a leader, don't try to be somebody you're not.
52:41
Greg Wooldridge: You know, I always love love leaders that could tell a good joke.
52:44
Greg Wooldridge: Well, I can't tell a joke worth beans, you know.
52:46
Greg Wooldridge: So that wasn't gonna go in my leadership toolbox, r ight?
52:51
Lisa Nichols: So I just Be your authentic self.
52:54
Greg Wooldridge: Beautiful.
52:54
Greg Wooldridge: That's it.
52:55
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
52:56
Greg Wooldridge: And then and then earn the trust.
52:59
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
52:59
Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
53:01
Lisa Nichols: Well,
53:02
Lisa Nichols: when are you coming to Saint Louis?
53:04
Lisa Nichols: You need to come to Saint Louis.
53:05
Greg Wooldridge: I come I come every summer to work with the R ed T ail C adets,
53:10
Greg Wooldridge: which is a great program.
53:13
Greg Wooldridge: An an offspring of the,
53:16
Greg Wooldridge: Tuskegee A irmen because they were the red tails.
53:19
Greg Wooldridge: Right?
53:19
Greg Wooldridge: They they had their own Yes.
53:20
Greg Wooldridge: That was the first African American black squadron
53:25
Greg Wooldridge: in World War two, and they did great.
53:27
Greg Wooldridge: And they gave underprivileged youngsters a chance to
53:31
Greg Wooldridge: do some pretty spectacular things.
53:32
Greg Wooldridge: And now that's what they they do that in Saint Louis.
53:36
Greg Wooldridge: Brent Brent and Mann, you know him.
53:39
Greg Wooldridge: He he brought me into that.
53:40
Greg Wooldridge: And so I come back every summer to talk to those high school kids
53:44
Greg Wooldridge: that are learning how to fly.
53:46
Greg Wooldridge: That's great program.
53:47
Greg Wooldridge: Great.
53:48
Greg Wooldridge: Yeah.
53:48
Greg Wooldridge: So I'll be back.
53:49
Lisa Nichols: I mean, it'll You gotta let us know.
53:52
Lisa Nichols: You gotta let us know, Greg.
53:54
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
53:54
Lisa Nichols: Well, this has been such a pleasure for me.
53:57
Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much for making the time.
53:59
Lisa Nichols: I'm so excited,
54:02
Lisa Nichols: truly about just continuing our relationship because I think we're gonna do
54:06
Lisa Nichols: some other things together.
54:07
Greg Wooldridge: Thank you, Lisa.
54:08
Greg Wooldridge: And congratulations on your book.
54:10
Lisa Nichols: Thank you.
54:11
Greg Wooldridge: It's a lot of work.
54:12
Greg Wooldridge: So I'm anxious to read it.
54:13
Lisa Nichols: something extra book.
54:15
Lisa Nichols: com.
54:15
Greg Wooldridge: Oh, and then it's gonna be great.
54:17
Greg Wooldridge: I haven't read I haven't gotten it yet, so I well, I'm looking forward
54:20
Greg Wooldridge: to it.
54:20
Greg Wooldridge: Congrats.
54:21
Greg Wooldridge: Yes.
54:22
Greg Wooldridge: Thank you.
54:22
Lisa Nichols: Well, have a great rest of the day.
54:24
Greg Wooldridge: Thank you.
54:24
Greg Wooldridge: You too.
54:25
Greg Wooldridge: Take care.
54:25
Greg Wooldridge: Glad to be here.
54:27
Announcer: Thank you for listening to today's show.
54:29
Announcer: Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production.
54:33
Announcer: Copyright Technology Partners Inc two thousand and nineteen.
54:36
Announcer: For show notes or to reach Lisa, visit tpi dot co
54:40
Announcer: slash podcast.
54:41
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54:48
Announcer: you listen.