Latest / The On Purpose Podcast / Ep. 358 - Building Character with Raymond Foster
Transcript
- speaker-0: You are listening to the On Purpose Podcast. Hey everybody, if you've been tuning into the On Purpose Podcast, you already know we don't do a lot of fluff. My excellence on the leadership course is built on tactical coaching that transforms how you prepare, connect, and lead. Whether you're building a business, leading a team, or leveling up personally, we focus on deliberate actions, strategic relationships, and decisions that create lasting impact. If you're ready to lead with purpose and precision, book me for a class or a speaking engagement at teamhardy.net. What's up, everybody? Welcome to this week's edition of the On Purpose Podcast, where you know it's our job to get you thinking, get you moving, get you looking in that mirror, maybe having an honest conversation with yourself about did you do what you're supposed to do today? Did we did we move the needle? Are we building for our future? Are we honoring our past self? And this week I'm super excited to have on a guest. Raymond Foster, an author, educator, retired LAPD lieutenant, Coast Guard veteran, whose work centers on something that I really love, and that is character is something you build, not something that's given to you or handed to you. His book, The Temple Within, explores Freemasonry as a practical system for developing integrity and discipline from the inside out across his writings, teachings. Raymond's message stays consistent. And this is what really drew me to him. And I'm excited to to dive into this with you all is that leadership is measured by conscience, conduct, and the work somebody does within themselves. So Raymond, my newest friend, welcome to the on purpose podcast. speaker-1: Well thank you for having me, Jared. I'm excited to be here. speaker-0: ⁓ it's our privilege to get you here. ⁓ yeah, I I I love I love leadership principles and conversations that anchor to the work done within has to happen before you expect anybody else to perform differently. speaker-1: Yeah, if you can't if you can't pull the rope, you can't get anybody else to pull it either. So ⁓ there's absolutely true. And well, and I we use this word authentic, right? And if you're not that thing, how can you ask other people to be that thing? I spoke yesterday yesterday was the installation of the board for our new chamber of commerce. I'm the outgoing chair. And so ⁓ there's they called it the farewell address, and I thought that's pretty funny because ⁓ this is one of those communities, nobody lets you out. So you're it's the it's the take a deep breath, we got something else for you to do address. ⁓ but one of the things I talked about was the fact that, you know, why do why is service so important to us and why is leadership so important to us? And and I to me it's just because I'm grateful. I mean, I'm just grateful for all I've been given. And I think that drives the search for leadership, the search for con ⁓ conduct and those kinds of things. So Yeah, I it's important to me. speaker-0: Well, Raymond, you're a baseball fan. I I've heard you know, before we went live you're talking about the Dodgers and stuff. And now if you're my ace closer, I can't just bring you out of the bullpen without some warm up throws, right? I can't expect you to come in and and do that. So I need to get you warmed up a little bit. So are you ready for some warm up questions, Raymond? speaker-1: Sure, go ahead. speaker-0: All right, here we go, here we go. All right. If your life had a theme song, what would it be? speaker-1: Well, I I would like somebody else to pick it for me. ⁓ but I I have I actually have a theme song, a personal one, that I will listen to occasionally, and it would be Shaherazad by Rimsi Korsakov, which is a classical piece that tells the it tells the the Arabian Knights story, right? ⁓ in with music. And so you have the music where there's the the the waves are tossing and you can feel and see the waves and the music. And there's just a terrible storm and then the day dawn breaks. And so much of our life is like that, man. There's just this terrible storm. The thing about the music is it gives you the opportunity to sit in the middle of the storm and enjoy the storm. Which is something we don't generally do. We you normally are panicking trying to get out of it. But sometimes it's just to s if you can just sit and enjoy what's going on, you know, we call that being present in the present and mindfulness, those kinds of things. That really helps to get your blood pressure down, your pulse down, get your thinking cap on, and think your way out of the storm. ⁓ and so Rimsi Korsakov, that's my I will listen to that. My my youngest grandson, I've I have nine grandchildren. The oldest is 28, the youngest is three years old. ⁓ he and I listened to that Rimsey Korsakoff song. I'll put that on, and he he just loves that song as much as I do. So I think we're connected there. ⁓ I if I was gonna pick another song it'd be money for nothing. Cause I've always felt that, man, you paying me to do this really? Cause this is too much fun. ⁓ everything, even the hard tasks that I've learned to do, ⁓ I've taken I I turned everything into a game. And by making every and it doesn't matter how hard it is, it becomes a game. ⁓ and once you start gamifying everything that you do, it's it's a joy to play. ⁓ because then everything becomes play and you relax. So I think money for nothing And then finally, and this one has a story behind it, but it would be the theme from MASH, which is suicide is painless. So again, there's three good selections for you. speaker-0: Yeah. All right. What about a favorite book that you find yourself going back to throughout your life? speaker-1: Well, ⁓ I'm one of those people that's read the Bible cover to cover seven times, certain maybe eight times now. I'm not certain. ⁓ because every time I go back and I read that a book's amazing. and ⁓ I find something different in that book. Now so that's a book I return to all the time. I have a shelf over here, in my office so you can see some of the books. But I've got a shelf right there, two shelves actually. And it's filled with what I call mind candy. And ⁓ they're they're ⁓ Did you ever see the movie Master and Commander with ⁓ Russell Crowe? That was a kid. Right. It was a compilation of ⁓ of about 17 books done by an author named Patrick O'Brien. Yeah, looked up and saw them on the shelf there. And so I reread those over and over again, and and not only him, but there's a bunch of authors that do ⁓ that do these ⁓ serialized stories around the time and the age of sale. speaker-0: That's actually speaker-1: ⁓ and I find those fascinating for a variety of reasons. So those are the books I return to for relaxation. speaker-0: Okay. What's a small habit that you've been doing that gives you energy? speaker-1: I guess get I gotta get up and stretch a lot when I'm the in the thing. ⁓ okay, so I if I am in a if I wanna get revved into something, again, it's about gamifying anything. And I call it triple fives. And this is a stupid little game I'll play. And so ⁓ if I'll just go, okay, I'm gonna find three tasks and I'm gonna do five things in that and I'm gonna move to the next task and then move to the next task, and I'll move five in it. One of them can be folding laundry, because that's usually it should be a physical task. So It'll be okay. I'm gonna answer emails for I'm gonna answer five emails or I'm gonna work on emails for five, or I'm gonna do something that's related to five. I'm gonna stop that when I hit five, and then I'm gonna go maybe fold five pieces of laundry, then I'm gonna go over and maybe I've got filing to do. You know, if you run your own business, you gotta sweep the floor, you gotta file stuff. I'll do five of those. And so I'll start doing triple five and pretty soon I'll get lost in the pattern. ⁓ and I'll go, Did I do six or did I four of those? And That just makes the time passes, you're productive, you're focused in on it, and helps me to focus in on what I'm doing by breaking those tasks up. You know, one of my early leadership books I write that you nobody and no one multitasks. ⁓ life is more like a pizza that you eat one slice at a time. And so triple five gets me into me personally into the mode of moving and ⁓ getting stuff done. speaker-0: Love it, love it. What about a quote or a mantra that that you kinda use in your daily life? speaker-1: Ain't nothing free. speaker-0: What's that mean to you? speaker-1: There is a cost to everything that you do. ⁓ you know, I one of the college degrees I got centers on economics, and there's a c thing called opportunities cost. And that means if you're doing one thing, you can't do another, right? ⁓ and so everything you do has a cost. ⁓ and you have to pay that cost, and sometimes it's worth it. ⁓ so you know, everything's nothing's free, everything costs you. Sometimes it's the most precious thing, it's time. Yeah. so you know. Again, I'm gonna go back to my three year old grandson there and I pi post a picture. I ⁓ we I was with him about two and a half hours last night and I don't know who watches who. I mean he might be babysitting me for all I know. And so, you know, we're we were arguing over a song and ⁓ and so I mean it just that time to me I'm focused in on him. The opportunities cost is I don't get to be with my peer groups, I don't get to watch T V. I don't get to do these things, but I get to do something even better. And so, You know, there is an opportunity cost to everything we do. If you're watching TV, you're not with your kids, ⁓ you're not working. ⁓ and this is if you're ⁓ you're own business. ⁓ I read this years and years ago. It might have been Zig Ziggler that said it. That's how long ago this was. He talked about it, the postage stamp syndrome. And I find myself doing this. That is, ⁓ you are in business and you're gonna go to the post office and get stamps, ⁓ and you spend, you know, two hours getting stamps instead of two hours of working on what you should be working on. And so it's important to prioritize what's going on in your day. So, you know, nothing's free. ⁓ I'll say that to myself constantly. speaker-0: Yeah, and then you also got the inverse, right? There's the opportunity cost if you don't pursue something, right? The lost opportunities. speaker-1: Sure. Right. You know, there's well, you don't never get time back, right? I mean there's certain things once you lose those. ⁓ you I would also argue you never get a relationship back if you blow that up. ⁓ and I'm good at doing that. I mean, ⁓ the one thing I like about being a business for myself is the ability to fire clients. when when you're when you're when when you're in civil service, right, you can't fire you can't fire anybody, right? ⁓ that was the whole premise of the first leadership book we wrote, ⁓ Leadership and civil service like five card stud, man. They give you five people. You don't get new ones. Yeah. You don't get to throw you can't throw any back. speaker-0: Yeah, I gotta I gotta tell you that was my favorite thing too, similar story when I left law enforcement. I was like, Okay, now I get to pick who I work with. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And and I and I've become better It walking away and disengagement than I was in the past. That's I've actually this year I've focused on disengagement, ⁓ the ability to see something as un ⁓ not fruitful and to back away, to see, to recognize when I'm part of the problem as opposed to when I'm part of the solution, and just disengage. ⁓ and that's you know, look how old I am, and I'm just thinking through this lesson. That's a hard one. speaker-0: Yeah. No, I I I tell you it's so funny talking about this and and I have a quite a few other people I associate with that came from first responder backgrounds into entrepreneurship or or small businesses, large businesses. And for as good as we are at telling people what has to happen on the street and directing them, we're not super good at saying no when we first go into business for ourselves. Right? Because it kinda like I guess maybe I had the fear of losing opportunities by saying, No, will I get this back? So then you find yourself saying yes to too many things, stretched thin and like you said, you know, what is the cost there? What what is not getting done because we've stretched ourselves too thin? speaker-1: See, I think that ⁓ I I thought about this long time because I retired a long time ago and I had this difficulty. I called it the difficulty asking for the order. Yeah, the the difficulty in asking for the money for what I provide as a service. and I gotta tell you, I believe now that that's because so much of the ⁓ particularly law enforcement leadership is about stamping on egos and burying What gets the organization in trouble is individual action. So there's a lot of stuff in trying to control that. They don't teach you the value of yourself. And so you have when you're in business, you have to value yourself and then you have to charge people appropriately for their time and your value. ⁓ and that's a har that's a hard transition. You're not the only one. That's hard. You have to learn to value yourself. speaker-0: Yeah. Or You know, i if I could give any people that are about to make this switch a piece of advice, tell me what you think on this, Raymond, but let your wife or your significant ⁓ other set your price. She was far better at it than I was. I was always underselling myself. speaker-1: You know what I I what so you know ⁓ I said I sa actually it came upon my hourly rate by accident. I would not one of the things they want you to do is a is especially once you're an author and educator, you've got college degrees, you got the background, they want you to be an expert witness. I will not be an expert witness against a police officer. It just goes against my grain. I'll see cops do stupid stuff. But I'm not gonna be the guy to point out how stupid it is. It's just not me, right? I don't want to be involved in that. So I'd get inquiries. So I remember getting inquiries, and we're going back 20 years, and I you know what? I'm just gonna put an incredible amount of money on that. I'll be okay. You know what? It's 275 an hour with an eight hour minimum to do that. So 1800 bucks, send me a check and I'll look at that. And they did. And I'm like, ⁓ my god. Yeah. This is I don't, you know. So and I so I completely now just refuse. I don't I won't do it because I'm it's not worth that kind of money. But that told me ⁓ well I guess I am worth two hundred and seventy five dollars an hour. and so that has been adjusted for inflation, how I found the rate. speaker-0: Yeah, that's funny. All right, one more question for you, Raymond. What is one word to describe the season of life you're in now? speaker-1: Winter speaker-0: What's that mean to you? speaker-1: Well, I mean, there are four seasons in there that you know, there's springtime. I mean, I remember springtime. I remember the fall. ⁓ I don't r I i I feel like winter. I mean, I have a blog called Adventures in the Winter of Life. ⁓ I'm at the age where everything hurts constantly. Where you go to the doc I'm with the doctor, you go to the doctor and you know, I have this problem he goes, Yeah. He goes, Yeah, you're old. And that's that's what happens. You know, you have you have right branch bundle block on your heart. You go, what does that mean? He goes, It means you're old. He goes, You have no other symptoms, there's nothing to do about it, but it's just old. And so as you get older, you have to compensate. That's one of the things my wife and I talk about constantly, is you have to compensate. Like I'm taking the train a lot, ⁓ to various events and taking public transportation. Not because I can't drive, but because it's safer for me and it's less stress on me. ⁓ I still love to drive and I make long drives twice a month to go to a certain meeting I attend, but ⁓ you you're in the winter, things are different. just physically. You also know a lot more than you did, and what you ⁓ know is clearer as you get older. It's c it's crystallized for you. And so you see things and you're seeing things over and over again. I love that everybody's all up in arms about. ⁓ about all the protests and all the things that go on. I'm like, man, I grew up in the nineteen seventies. Th that literally the world was on fire. ⁓ the Vietnam War was the country was telling itself apart. Gasoline lines and inflation was the was was double digit for years on end. So it's been bad. It got good. It will be bad. It will get good. You have more perspective. So winter is not a bad thing. I mean I'm not, you know, it's just where I am. speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's a good word and that's a good f that's a good thought process 'cause you're a hundred percent right. It's funny you mention that. I just had that conversation with my youngest daughter and I and tried to pull up some videos and some footage of the late sixties, early seventies to show her what the country looked like and be like it's not that different right now. Like we do have cycles to this thing's come and go and Yeah, no, that's that's a good word. All right, you feeling warm upper? Go ahead. speaker-1: Jared, ⁓ it was last week and we're getting ready for bed, and I I turned to my wife and you know, I have been in three gunfights, and we are about to do the most dangerous thing we can do at our age. Go to sleep. ⁓ Yeah. So of course Yeah. Well she well, she hit me. ⁓ and she quasi that's true. Right. And I said, and I've decided now I'm not gonna sleep all night. I'm gonna take naps because nobody dies in their nap. Right. Yeah. So you can't linguistically get away from it. But it's ⁓ you're laughing at it. That's part of coming to terms with ⁓ where you are in life. You know, you're gonna we're gonna speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's you get, you know, I like you were talking about the maturity and and ⁓ you the experiences you have and what you know. Now I think that's one of the the things that does come with getting a little older is a little humility and perspective of okay, I'm not gonna be here forever. My time is fairly short. What do I actually want to do with it? Right. You know, who who do I wanna be? Who do I wanna be around? And what do I wanna actually wanna get out of this next chapter? speaker-1: You know, and and Jared when ⁓ what I've learned too probably the last ten years, if I can convey that to you and you can and you can internalize that, and then you realize I'm spending time with you and you're spending time with me, then how special is that commitment we've made to each other, knowing that we have this finite amount of time, but we've decided to share it. ⁓ and so that makes the connections ⁓ ⁓ I think deeper and more meaningful. ⁓ it also gives us pause to we started out talking about authentic and leadership. It gives us the opportunity ⁓ to look. It's it's really a Buddhist, ⁓ well, Hindu maybe, ⁓ to see not just it's this is a Masonic concept too, really. It's not just I'm not gonna say I see God in you so much as I see my own mortality in you. And therefore that you know I see eternity in you as I see it in myself. speaker-0: You know, the other thing I'd throw out, Raymond, and get your thoughts on this is One, I appreciate your time, your attention, right? We're gonna have this interaction and thankfully technology allows us to connect from around the world. But I think there's also a curiosity, right, that I want to carry is like, okay, why did our paths cross, Raymond? Why why did I see your stuff when I saw it? What am I supposed to learn from you? What am I supposed to teach you? And what do we share in that moment? speaker-1: Yeah, no, I I actually probably three or four times a day I'll I'll I I will be in some situation I'll have the conscious thought, is this why I was put here? You know, and I'll tell you I had a conscious thought last night, ⁓ as I was ⁓ I was playing with the the three year old and I thought to myself, everything I happen to has said, everything that has happened to me in my life that has been been difficult. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: was worth to get to this place. Right. And so I mean if you if you begin to adopt that attitude, I think that the the time is i is the con connections and the time the connections are timeless, I suppose. speaker-0: Yep. No, I agree. All right, Raymond. I ⁓ the first question I have for you I wanted to kind of dive into is what drew you towards questions of character and moral development and when did that kind of start for you? speaker-1: I've had these, I think probably when I was ⁓ I remember the first internal question I asked myself, and that I was eight years old. And I remember my life changed. I remember this this happened. I was eight years old and I ran for class president in the third grade. And I lost by one vote because they counted them out. But I voted for the other guy because I thought that was the gentlemanly thing to do. Yeah. And it okay, so speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: I basically, my action had I thought it through differently, I would have been the class president, right? No one, and this led to lots of thoughts between probably eight to probably sixteen. Nobody knew that I had thought these things through. Nobody had knew I had taken those actions. Nobody knew that except me that I had sub I had submarined myself. So it led me to stop running popularity contests and realize that the external Adulation and external congratulations weren't important as important as the internal decisions I was making. Does that make sense? Because I made the decision to vote for the other guy. Didn't matter how popular I was, I rigged the game to lose. Right? I did that. So now I began to look at things, and I would say, Well, what's every time something goes wrong? My first question is, okay, what's my part, man? What did I do? Even if I'm not there, what did how did I contribute to this? I begin to debrief and follow back myself and figure out what I did. So I think introspection, if you can get to a place where you're questioning yourself in a in a positive sense constantly, and you're introspective about what you did and why you did, that then leads, you know, looking back, looking back, looking back, and then you begin to lean forward. And now I can see, well, you know, if I do say this, I can put this in motion, this will happen, this will happen, this will happen. So the view back has. in from internally has made the view forward more powerful because my predictive ability ⁓ is you know I can't tell you times I go like I knew that was gonna happen. I saw that coming but you can't tell people. You can't tell people they're not gonna listen and you're like, ⁓ that's not gonna work. That's when disengagement's good. speaker-0: Yeah. No. So t stay with that that young Raymond there when you realized your vote was the difference. How did you work through the emotions that came with that, right? 'Cause I think a lot of times we it's popular nowadays to talk about self accountability and and working on yourself and and finding your fault. But sometimes when we do that, there's still gonna be the emotion, right? Of am I blaming myself? Am I mad at myself? Do I understand the greater value of what I did? How did you work through that? speaker-1: Well, I think it led to a variety of things. The first is that ⁓ I'm I'm I debrief a lot. I'm very introspective, but I'm also selective in how I I didn't say this. I don't know who said it. ⁓ if something in the past you're still emotionally attached to it, you've not thought it through. In other words, if you think about something that happened in the past to you and you still got upset about it, you truly have not dealt with it, you've not addressed it and figured out why you won't do that, you know, what what'll prevent you from doing that in the future. so That's a poor it's important tool because it straightens out the past, helps you to guide the future. ⁓ and straightening how you feel about things, I guess that you need balance, you need a duality in this thing. And it's okay to feel bad about things you know you did and you could have done better and no one else knows. It's also okay to feel great about things you did that nobody else knows. I keep a lot of things secret. In other words, I I tell this story. I was I was driving to work. Graveyard shift. And on the 63, I saw a car veer off, a veer across over the embankment. It rolls down the embankment. It crashes. And I as I'm pulling over it starts to smolder and and fire begins. And I get out of my car, run down there, and I'm wearing what we call the Metro Tuxedo, which is your uniform pants and a white T shirt, right? That's your cops tuxedo, right? You know the uniform we're talking about. I run down there and there is a young girl hanging upside down in her, I think it was a Chevy Malibu, and I and I I reach up, I unc I unbuckle her thing, I pull her out of the car, which is now on fire, I pull her up to the thing. The high patrol gets there, I look at my watch, I go, I can't have time to make work on if I get out of here. I get in my car and I drive off. Six months later, I get called to the captain's office. And he says, Did you on your way to work? See a car crash on this day. They go, Yeah, I did. He goes, Did it roll off the freeway and burst into flames? They go, Well, it kinda. He said, Did you pull some girl out of it? I Yeah, I did. He goes, Why didn't you tell anybody? And I looked at him and said, Well, why would I why would I tell anybody that what's the purpose of that? He goes, We've been looking for you for six months. That was a city councilman's daughter. ⁓ They've been looking for the mysterious stranger person. That was something I wanted to keep secret to myself. I had done something that I knew that that I took the time. It was reasonably smart. I want to keep it to me. That's something I was going to know my entire life. No one else was going to know. Those things help me balance out the things I know I did wrong or could have done better. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. I keep that duality inside of myself. speaker-0: How do we teach that in today's world, especially with the social media and stuff where everything is so outwardly, right? You get you know, you you get rewarded for sharing how great everything is and you get followers and the influence and stuff. How do we teach still finding value and just the peace of knowing what you did and keeping it to yourself? speaker-1: Well, I y you know have lots of followers, ⁓ and you really have no followers. I mean, yeah, you can have lots of followers online. It doesn't mean you have any people who's gonna follow you into into a tough situation. Right. ⁓ and so I I do think that I think we attract people to that. a young man asked me, you know, what is your philosophy for life? I said, Well, I wanna live a life that other men want. think that that's the leaning forward that as men we have to have that kind of life where the other men look at us and go, I want to be with that, I want to be that guy. ⁓ we were I told you earlier we were at the Chamber of Commerce and we had the the an occasion of celebrating milestones for members. Our Rotary Club has 40 years of service. And so all the Rotarians in the room were called to the stage and I was standing with a guy who's a Marine, well former Marine and ⁓ There's a bunch of veterans there, but I lean into them and I go, you know, it look around and go, We used to be the breakfast club. Now we're the cool kids. That's a triangular transition. And so that's the, you know, once you get to the place where you're the guys that they want to be, they see the substance in it. ⁓ that's what you want. You want the the substance part that people will follow you literally. ⁓ so I think that's what we teach. speaker-0: Yeah, and I th that that you hit on a big word there and it's the substance, right? It's not what I say, it's not what what what the the buzzwords that I throw about, it's what you actually see me doing day in, day out that gets people to want to follow you. speaker-1: Well yeah, it's Somebody asks in one of the questions that comes up in podcasts, so they ask question, what would you want to be on your tombstone? I'm like, well, man, I don't care. this side up would be great as far as I'm concerned. ⁓ but I think that if if I walk, if I exit this world, and people, you know. He said what he meant, he meant what he said, and he did what he said, he did what he said he was gonna do. If your word and your actions are seen as one and the same, if word, your word is a verb and not a noun, then you are a man. That's my opinion. You are you are a solid human being. You can be a woman too. You're a solid human being. If your word is an action. It's a verb. That means who you're going to I'm going to do this or I'm not going to do that. You can't make me do that. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Now that that's great advice. What would you I I s researching you and getting ready for this, I came across something you referenced a few different times and that's called moral architecture. What would you say to someone, what is that? Explain that to somebody that's hearing it for the first time. speaker-1: Well we all build our own character and we all build our own Okay, so ⁓ We have this symbol in Freemasonry called the checkerboard floor. And it is a it's a the floor of the lodge is black and white squares. And you see these black and white tiles. And one of the things we talk about is that ⁓ as you walk through life, you're gonna make decisions, good and bad. You're gonna see good and evil in life. I think it's deeper than that. ⁓ as you walk through life, you're going to you cannot walk on this floor without encountering chaos, right? Chaos, badness, whatever. But as long as one of your feet is still in the light, and the light is your character and your value system and your the moral things about you that you've developed internally, you will be better able to work through the chaos, the darkness. And the darkness is important because that's where creativity comes out of. You know, we our best solutions are the ones we're forced to do in the dark because we did not have a solution. We make up new stuff as we go along. You're better able to do that. So the moral architecture is the character development that you're going undergoing ⁓ every day of your life. You're building your own inner temple. That's why it's called the temple within the book. ⁓ and so you know, that's what I say. You're we are born with certain dispositions based on our genetics, everything else is programmed. speaker-0: It w what it I like I like what you said there about understanding that there is gonna be chaos, there is gonna be turmoil in your day to day life and we're not trying to avoid it. Right. We're not trying we're not trying to create this mythical life where it's always sunshine or rainbows, because the truth is how you handle the chaos and the darkness and the low moments is what's gonna make all the the better moments better, right? What you've learned there. speaker-1: Sure, and and daylight would be would be nothing if there wasn't darkness. I mean, how would you know? so yeah, absolutely. And the chaos is important. It's where we learn, where we test ourselves, right? It's the forge that tests your character. It's all well, the that doesn't test your character. It's the forge that helps you develop your character too, in those moments of when things are going sideways. ⁓ are you the person that can plant your feet down on the ground and say, this far no further? ⁓ and I'm gonna fix this. Or are you the person that runs away, that gets terrified. By the way, it's okay to be terrified. It's just okay to it's not okay to freeze up. speaker-0: Right. Or to to shirk your responsibility, right? Like we could be afraid of something, we can have fear towards something, but when we know something has still has to be done, we have to do the action. speaker-1: You know, I was with my my second oldest grandson, he's 24. We were on the train going to a Dodger game. And ⁓ there was a sign up there on the terrain that said, See something, say something. And I said, Matthew, the real the real motto of human beings is see something, avoid eye contact. Right? We we turn away from what we see. But the other part of that, ⁓ we got into this discussion is Because everything we see is seen through the context of our own lens, sometimes we're wrong. We become the Karen is the word, right? Because we're reporting something we didn't think. So we have to be cognizant of that also, that what we see and we think is unusual or is wrong might be us. But we still have the moral obligation to be brave enough to see something and say something, even though we No, there is a slight possibility that it might actually be us. That's moral courage. speaker-0: Hm. Yeah. What was his response? speaker-1: ⁓ we had a long conversation. He's g this he's a brilliant young man. He we had a long conversation about it and And yeah, we just talked. We just talked. speaker-0: That's good. Hey, I wanted to ask this question to you. What how do you define leadership? speaker-1: I have a technical des b definition. speaker-0: If you don't have the authority. Right. So so here's kind of what I think and here's where I see people struggle, right? In the military, first responders. We get we can obtain rank, which gives us authority. People have to do what I say, but it does not make me a leader. Right? They're two different things. And I conversely, I can never give promoted and have the authority, but I could be the leader people want to follow all the time. So How would you say how would you define leadership if you don't have the authority? speaker-1: I only define leadership one way and it works for that question. ⁓ and we struggled with this. I struggled with this for decades. ⁓ because you'll read most leadership books and they'll go, leadership is about being a good leader. The word leader appears in the definition. Yeah. ⁓ I I define leadership as the ability to influence human behavior toward organizational goals. Okay. Yeah. And so there's a coup well, it's actually the art of influencing human behavior. So that tells us a couple of things. Number one is that because it's an art. It we know that there are science underpinning all arts. You know, music has a science to it, painting, everything. Leadership is an art, which it's applied sciences and it's based on you. But it's the ⁓ the art the art of influencing. Influencing is the word I could think of that had the most range of behaviors. I can influence you by firing you and anybody around me, I can influence you by socially amputating you. That's turning around and just walking away from you because you're an idiot. ⁓ Those are influence. I can influence by downcasting my eyes. I influence you. Influence beh human behavior. ⁓ if you're a leader, you got to focus on behavior. What most leaders now here's where they really fail. They want to change you. No, stop trying to change people. ⁓ you got what you got in that person. If they're gonna change, that's a long ass process. I can't probably change you, but I can change your behavior. Right. And then finally it's a movement toward, we're always moving towards organizational goals. So this kinds of thing, if we're doing these ability to influence, we're trying to influence you to get you to do what I want you to do. That's not leadership, that's manipulation. If I'm making if I'm it trying to influence you towards an organizational goal, that's leadership. That has nothing to do with authority, has nothing to do with positional power, ⁓ it has nothing to do with any of those things. And so that that throws the onus on everyone. We are all leaders in some context. But I'm going to tell you that leaders are unimportant. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay, explain. speaker-1: Followers are important. In particular the first follower. ⁓ the person that that's what I like. It's it's it's as important to follow as it is to lead. ⁓ and so follower following ⁓ is a responsibility, right? And it's a delicate responsibility if you're a very good follower. It's important to follow. It's hard to follow it's hard to follow. speaker-0: Yeah. So funny you say that. I just had this conversation a couple days ago with some leaders within an organization, and they were, how would you say, dismayed at the attitude that what they would say the newer generation brings to mandatory training and some other things. And and so one of the things that suited them is I was like, okay, when you're not in front of the class, what is your behavior in that class? And they just looked at and they go, What do you mean? I go, tell me this. You're coming to my class as a student. Where do you sit? And they're like, ⁓ we usually go to the back. I go, exactly, you go to the back as far from me as you can get. Right. And they're like, Yeah. And I go, What does that tell your the people you're trying to lead about how important this class is that you go to the back, you get on your phone, you don't pay any attention. They're like, right. And I go, now when you're teaching, And I'm the same student, but I'm coming to you. What have I seen in your behavior that creates the importance of what we're about to do? Right. And they were like, Well, I go, You're setting the example. You're telling people that what they're doing when they go to this training isn't that important because you sit in the back. It's only now important because you're up front. But they're watching your behaviors. speaker-1: I gotta tell you, you're out you're on your own cue there. I think it's a deeper problem than that for those leaders. ⁓ it's an excuse for a leadership failure to blame it on intergenerational communication difficulty. I I had a two hour conversation with a care a colonel last Saturday. Two hours. This guy is an armored brigade commander. Five thousand people he commands. Five thousand. speaker-0: For sure. speaker-1: People he commands. We talked about the tension that occurs as we get older. You and I were getting older. We have all this experience. We're a different generation. All this wisdom. We also begin to calcify in our positions, right? Here's all these young people. I was one of those young people at one time. I was a kid in the 70s, man. My grandfather thought my grandfather was a World War One doughboy. He was a World War I soldier, fought in the trenches, got gassed twice. He heard me listening to Mahler the first time and Called you that was long hair freaky people music. ⁓ because the you know, so you have the generational gap, right? But you need all of that stuff, you need all of that wisdom and collective knowledge, but you've got to make room for innovation and the new ways of seeing things that are coming up and they're gonna collide in the center. The best leaders realize that and they fight becoming calcified. And they embrace as much as they can and they guide that that youthful energy into becoming what they know it has to become. Yeah. now these children, the children now, the teens now, the young adults, face vastly different problems than you and I did, but they also have huge advantages that you and I never had ⁓ growing up, at least I growing up. And I and we're do on right now. Right. Yeah. ⁓ there I have a phone. I didn't have a I didn't have a the internet. ⁓ I was we were talking about the same conversation just to give you an idea. When I went to work on my master's thesis, ⁓ that meant going to the library with ⁓ with ten dollars and with with ten dollars and dimes, a hundred dimes. And there were some young people there as a young Sergeant Major goes, what? speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: Is that all about? And they go, well, because you had to pull the journal articles off the shelf, find what you wanted, then you went over to the Xerox machine, you put a diamond, so you could copy the page. Right. So now I'm telling you about this process that we went through. That was a disadvantage that I didn't have this technology available to me. But the advantage is too is that I don't live in a echo chamber bubble where I'm only getting the feedback from an algorithm on things that thinks I like. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: Then that's killing young people. So I would I would say to your leaders, ⁓ that's your problem to communicate intergenerationally. But if you're saying these kids nowadays, then you're the problem. That's that's the but you're the problem. If you don't realize you're the problem, then we stop talking. I'm I'm gonna disengage 'cause speaker-0: For sure. Yeah. Well and I I one thing I always like to share is you know what happens if you have two generations that are exactly the same. It's called a failure to evolve, right? Like that's that species have to evolve. And yeah, I I I find it to be ⁓ I don't know, I don't know if you'd agree with this or not, but I I challenge them that using that as an excuse is the easy way to let yourself off the hook. speaker-1: Right. Agreed. Yeah. I agree. That's that's the those are the people you have to lead and work with. ⁓ so now I will tell you again that we ⁓ six months ago organizationally there was a I was a a leader in an organization and it was I was a subordinate leader in many ways and maybe a tangential horizontal leader, but the guy actually in charge is going in a wrong direction. And six months later my wife and I we were just talking about it, it's collapsed. It's completely collapsed. And I knew it was going to collapse. I could see it. He wasn't listening. But I s I just consciously told him, look, I'm disengaging. ⁓ it's your time to be the leader of this thing. I'm only going to be destructive in these conversations with you. ⁓ I'm no longer helpful. There's nothing I can do to be helpful. And so I'm going to allow you, because you might be successful and I might be wrong. Sometimes we have to disengage. We have to realize it could be us. We have to let it run its course. speaker-0: Yeah, I I I love reflecting back and on something you said earlier is what is my role and whatever's not going right right now? What is my role here? you know, did I promote somebody that was good at the craft but not good at leading to people that now have to do the job? Did I, you know, did I miss something? Because there is always a chance that we're responsible for what we don't like or what is going well even. speaker-1: Me lay some heavy responsibility on you. You're the watch commander, you know, watch of a hundred and seventy-five cops. The problem is your patrol division is not very aggressive, and you've got a gang problem. So one of the things you decide to do is that your hiring process for your training officers, you one of the things you look for in those training officers is aggressiveness. So they're gonna go out and confront the gang problem. You hire the aggressive police officer. And he does go out and hunt the confront the gang problem. And ⁓ six weeks into that mission he's shot dead by a gang member. All those choices I made. I'm I that's my responsibil. Now I gotta think that through. That's the heavy weight of thinking I'm the one who said they're not aggressive enough. I'm gonna hire more aggressive guys. I'm gonna give ⁓ a mission. I'm gonna put ⁓ down range. He went downrange, he's dead. Responsible. speaker-0: Right. And when we reflect back. It's still a mission that had to be done. speaker-1: I wouldn't do it differently. I've thought I've obviously thought about this for thirty years. Right. That's what it's one of those ones you'd think about because you know, I had to talk to his eight-year-old son, man. ⁓ I mean, ⁓ and looking back on it, w but that's part of what we do as leaders, and then we gotta look and say, what is our responsibility for those actions? You know, I didn't put the gun in the gang members' hands, and this is a dangerous job, and there's all kinds of ways we can justify what happened. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: take some heat off of me. But I think we have to be that self-respective and think through, because there are other things if I went down that, if I as I went down that path and thinking this through, there are other things I might have done differently that might have ameliorated that situation. speaker-0: For sure. And I think you know, I I think that's a interesting dichotomy, right? I think a lot of times people kind of want to do what you said earlier is okay, I all this had to be done so that dismisses me like it was just the the circumstances I I bear no responsibility other than I gave the order. But I think to work through it, right? The emotional turmoil that comes with it, the the responsibility, you have to do what you said and say, Okay This was a cost. What can I do different to prevent it in the future? Because that mission's not gonna go away. But I definitely don't want the same outcoming. speaker-1: But Jared, remember this, and I said this earlier too, and I'm and I wasn't I didn't emphasize it enough. The stronger your ability is to be introspective and to judge your own actions on a daily basis is gonna be is it is directly proportional to the strength of your predictive ability. In other words, you're gonna build up you're gonna build up such a storehouse. of wisdom internally, you're gonna be able to look six months down the line and see what somebody else is doing and where it's gonna go sideways. You this look backwards, ⁓ the further back and deeper your horizon is backwards, the further forward and deeper your horizon is the other direction. It's the duality that we see in life, right? speaker-0: Yeah, and so let me ask you this, because I love that, because you're absolutely right. And and how do we get better at communicating that? Right? That our experience allows us to see patterns that are still coming up for us based off the past. How do we communicate it to get avoidance before we repeat the same mistakes? speaker-1: So and this comes back to the temple within the book I wrote. We talk about masonry being a progressive science and the ideas of secrecy and why we don't disclose all the information at once and why we use these symbols. you can't. You can't ⁓ that conversation we're having right now, some people are gonna go, holy shit, that's a great idea. I I am doing that partially. I did not see it, or I'm already doing it, but I'm gonna do it deeper. And other people are going, that's bullshit. And those people and those people in that part, it's only because they're not at the place, they haven't been given the other stuff yet. And so this is one of the things leadership is also very diagnostic, right? You can't give the your followers a tool they can't use. You have to give them tools they can use to build their own internal character. ⁓ and so you you teach these these lessons slowly. ⁓ and you teach them to level again. That's the conversation with my grandson. He was ready for the conversation. See something, avoid eye contact. ⁓ the three-year-old is not. The three-year-old is still learning to, you know. Now the three-year-old can count to 50. The three-year-old knows all his letters and can read. He's not three, he'd be three next week. That's gotta spend a lot of time tea. I've taught those taught fourteen people to read. That's awesome. Zero to zero to to ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: to ⁓ actually reading and that's you know to talk, to read, to communicate. ⁓ you gotta teach ⁓ where they are. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, what do you think about this? You gotta teach ⁓ where they are, but you have to give them tools for where you can see them going. speaker-1: Yeah, well you also have to be, you know, we have to do things I I used to hate this. I remember the I remember the clearly the last time it happened. ⁓ I was just sitting down in an auditorium, they were gonna deliver a a big speech. I was still in the job. This is when they all clarified for me. And a guy came in and he sat down next to me. He was another lieutenant and he and he said, ⁓ you know, remember last year when you're having problems the such and such? I said, Sergeant? I go, Yeah. And they go, he goes, It turns out you were right. And I looked at him and I go, and what F you. I said a year ago when I was dealing with that, and that was causing me so much heartache, you didn't want to be, you were, ⁓ I was right. And now you want to come and tell me I was right? we have what I learned then, and I again this is something looking back, and I really thought about this because I got so angry. ⁓ was if you're gonna see things other people don't see. And you're gonna take actions that are corrective in nature, you've got to realize you're gonna be the only one out on that limb. And you gotta be willing to see something and say the right thing and take the risk of being the person that gets ostracized or gets talked about badly and then someday you're gonna be justified. But when they come along and they justify you or they have your parade, don't be pissed off. They just didn't see it. ⁓ So I think that that's that's important to learn. To learn that you know I'm teaching you a skill, you're not gonna see it for I will never see it come to fruition. That's the thing I think about again as a the three year old. One of the things I think about with myself is you know, my my twenty eight year old, did you see the Artemis space launch? speaker-0: ⁓ yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. And on the back of that, there's seven thrusters that got it into lunar orbit and got it out. My grandson fabricated those. My oldest grandson. Right. So I mean, I get to see that, right? But this young one, all the things I'm booging with him now, I know that 25 years from now, I'm not gonna see what he does with it. I'm not gonna see it. But I know that I'm participating in it, even though I'm not there. So I think for a leader, it's important to know I may teach you a lesson, I may require you to do something. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And it will come to for come to pass that that it was a good thing, but I may not see it. And that's okay. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty profound. Knowing you're making a long term investment. speaker-1: Sure. speaker-0: Right. And I when I when you say that I'm I'm just pondering like how many times do we make decisions as leaders that impact others people's lives expecting to see a result immediately, not understanding the long term game of influence. speaker-1: And also though, you're you're gonna make an influence on somebody and they're gonna think they thought of it. Or somebody else could take cred we had a we have a big thing happening in the city here shortly. And this committee was started years ago. I founded this committee. And so we walked out of a meeting two weeks, two months ago, and I turned to the guy who's the chair, and I said, Okay, so next meeting. X, Y, and Z is gonna come back and that thing is gonna be so successful that they're all going to that this it's gonna come out that somebody else did it. Then very next meeting, there's a lady who wasn't part of this whole thing complimenting another guy that was completing my idea. I I wrote the whole process out. I wrote I could I wrote the forms, the flyer, the whole thing. I put the team together, I led the meetings, but because I'm such a can be so in the dark or in the back. You don't see it come to fruition. I laugh my ass off because this person that takes all the c ⁓ yes, I did a wonderful job. I'm like, Wow, man. It's okay. speaker-0: Yeah. Is it yeah, right? Like is it okay that isn't that probably one of the things we want as leaders is for our people to take action based off of our influence, even if they do think it's our theirs. Because it's showing learning, right? speaker-1: Who said Trying to think of who said you can get a lot done as long as you don't care who gets credit. And I I I don't I'll ru it'll come to me. But I mean that's one of the things you gotta ⁓ that's part of leadership. That's what I'm talking about. Is as the leader, if you're investing in long term future, you're investing in those kids you today, you see that generation that you is you called me the lost generation or whatever you want to think of it as. If you're investing in to grow that, ⁓ speaker-0: For sure. speaker-1: You're not gonna see that come to fruition. You just have to believe in yourself and believe in your mission. That's all. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. And make the most of the time you have with them and and hold yourself accountable to how am I influencing them. Right. So Raymond, as we get ready to wrap up, what is something you hope people listening today take away from this conversation? speaker-1: That's right. That I wrote a book. ⁓ you know, you don't have a lot of control over your life. None of us do. We have fact we have probably a minuscule amount of control. ⁓ because the genetics are so powerful. History is so powerful, ⁓ you know George Washington had been born in 1862, what difference would it have made? Right. I mean, he would be George Washington in character, but without the history to sweep him up in the whole thing. So we we probably make very we have very little influence on our own lives, except in this one way. Those small little things that we can do, they add up and have a tremendous, they're they're they're They're they're exponential in their impact on each other. Every time you make a small investment in tomorrow for yourself, you gain huge dividends. That's we you asked me my favorite by ⁓ book. One of the things I think that's so important about the Bible is the first story we read. Everybody talks about the first murder and the first murder and the da da da the first murder. And I look at that, I go, man, that's the first thing we're gonna learn about and and Besides the whole creation story, and it's all about who had the better sacrifice. How important is sacrifice to the future, to mankind? That the first recorded story we have is about two brothers, one who makes a great sacrifice and one who does a half ass job, and he knows he's doing a half assed job. That's part of the scripture, right? And I'm not a preacher. I'm just saying here's an old story that we tell ourselves, Cain and Abel. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And it's about sacr how important is sacrificing today for tomorrow? speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: I think it's tremendously important and its small sacrifices today will have a huge impact on your tomorrow. So I would leave you with that. speaker-0: I love it. Raymond, thank you so much for joining us this week. It's been a pleasure to sit and talk to you. Where can our audience ⁓ find your book and follow along on your journey? speaker-1: So ⁓ high tech cj dot com, h-i-t-e-c-h cj dot com. Originally was high tech criminal justice because of what I did consulting, but that's turned to an author website. You can find my social media, many ways to follow, content, contact and read stuff. ⁓ so go there, high techcj dot com. speaker-0: Awesome. Raymond, thank you so much, my friend. speaker-1: Thank you, brother. speaker-0: When you're training with purpose, your fueling can't be an afterthought. That's why I use Never Second, the simplest, most reliable system I have found for staying energized, hydrated, and steady through their long efforts. Their C-Series carbs take guesswork out of performance, no stomach drama, no complicated mixing, just clean, consistent fuel that actually works when the miles get long. If you want to train with more intention and recover without feeling wrecked, check out Never Second. Click the link in the show notes to get dialed in. And remember team, life is far too short to live any other way than on purpose. We will see you all again next week.