Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple O' Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today is exciting for a whole list of reasons. One, there's nothing better for, for me, you know, this is my personal opinion, but then when someone that you've podcasted with connects you with other people, you know, I love connecting other people.
I love forming those connections that can do amazing things, help amazing people. And so the great, wonderful Steve Wright. Founder of the managers who lead Facebook group, shameless plug. If you have not met him, he is such a great guy. I know, I know he's British. It's okay. We forgive him. But but I, I hang out with him.
I try to get with him once a week on his drop in Tuesdays and what have you, but I live a busy life, but whenever I do, it's amazing. He eats donuts with a chopstick with chopsticks during it. Yes. Believe it or not, he cuts up the donuts and eats them with a chopsticks. And you know, he, but he came on my show.
You can find that episode up here or in the description below. And we talked about leadership and values, and we're going to cover that today as well. But going from civilian side to military, although what Steve and I applied to both and that ties into my intro here, which is if you're not into military content, I've gotten some three star reviews from people who are like, I don't like military content anyway, you know, if you feel like, oh, I can't relate because I wasn't in the military or I don't know anyone in military, these stories that we share.
The lessons, the skills, and the personality traits of these characters are all universal, alright? Sure, there's some unique circumstances, there's some words that you might not know. But overall, the leadership that we're going to talk about, the, the heartbreak, the struggles, the hardships, the conflicts, the great memories, they are all human experiences that happen civilian side too, especially blue collar industries is you'll find the same kind of behavior as in the military.
So ladies and gentlemen, don't be deterred from anything being labeled as military or veteran stories because it can Educate you and entertain you quite a bit. In fact, I love it. You know, every person I have on from a different branch I can relate to all their stories, even though it's a different branch, because there are some themes across the military.
And so today I have Don Gleason here to talk about some. Amazing stories, some amazing, but not so amazing for him stories and just the goods and the bads. And then, of course, what he's doing nowadays to help people, which he is doing, and he's doing an amazing job at it. And we're going to talk about that later.
But Don, would you please go ahead and give yourself a little introduction here? Hey, thanks, Mark. I really appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. And I think you're so right on, you know, and there are some things that are different. There's many things that are the same, and it would almost be like saying, well, I'm not going to read about Richard Branson because he's got an airline industry.
I can't learn anything from him to apply to mine, right? Well, yes, I can. He's he deals with people. He deals with projects. He deals with funding. He deals with all the same things, maybe just at a different level. So, yeah. Everything. That's why I love reading books about successful athletes, successful corporate leaders, et cetera.
And I'm a, as a form of introduction, I guess, I'm a lifelong learner. I was just, just on a podcast recording of the last hour doing two back to back today. And we talked about, you know, what was I like? As a kid, and I started looking at that when I joined the service and 27 years later and how I have changed and how I grew my lifelong learning in every area of my life.
I had to transform my diet, my workout routine. I had to transform my spiritual side, transform my leadership side. So, I would say as an introduction, I'm that lifelong learner who was continually curious, wanted to improve and get better every day. Darren Hardy compound effect. I wanted to learn and grow every day.
And I just changed my life. And and I'm excited. We'll, we'll, we'll hold on to what I'm doing now, but later, I'm excited. We're. I was gonna say where God has taken me. I have been so blessed again. Don't be defended because it was God. Maybe it's not God for you. Right. But it is for me. And that's all I can say is I've just been incredibly blessed and I've had opportunities that I never, never would have imagined.
But I took advantage of them. So yeah, that's me. I agree. And It's not necessarily proper for me to one up my guests, but this is my third back to back recording, not my second. Okay. So, it was supposed to be my fourth, and then I had a cancellation so I'm just putting that out there, you know, you guys can Here you go.
pick your poison, but, It's fine. Yeah, yeah, I got you. It's it's, it's great though. And you talked about that compound and that's something I've been talking about mostly offline with guests, which is the one of the great privileges and joys of being a podcast host is that all these guests that I have, I learned.
Each guest I have, I leave smarter than, than the last recording. I mean, I'm sure there are podcast hosts out there who take nothing, you know, it goes in one ear and out the other, but I absorb all of this, you know, that's why I referenced a lot of old episodes and guests in, in each episode, because they have great things to offer and it's it's amazing.
And being a host is even better than just listening to all these podcasts because I get a, Ask personal questions or guide the questions and sometimes the audience thinks, Oh, this is for us. No, it's for me. No, that's not true at all. I like to ask questions that. I think everyone's thinking or that I really like to ask the questions that most people aren't thinking for those few out there who are wondering and don't want to leave y'all unsatisfied with that that question, you know Uh, and like you don i've always been a intellectually curious person.
I mean It's so important to, to learn and want to know how things work. And you know, I don't know if you were one of those people in school where the teacher got mad, you kept asking further and further. And they're like, you don't need to worry about that. We just do in base level. You don't need to know all these, you know, little sub factors and all that.
Very much so. Yeah. Always kind of learn a little bit more. Yeah, and so we're all curious about, of course, being the military side of the discussion. When did you join and why did you join? What branch? Yeah. When was September, 1982, U. S. Air Force both of my older brothers, I was the youngest of three.
They both were enlisted in the Air Force. I joined after college, so I went the officer route. I had no intent, none to join the air force. It was not a lifelong dream. I didn't want to fly. I didn't want to, you know, didn't want to serve. I wanted to serve, but not in the air, in the military. And I graduated in may of 1982 with a bachelor's in civil and environmental engineering and less than 15 percent of my graduating class had a job after four months.
Wow. So I was looking all through the spring. My wife every day would type. Like 10 letters to go with the resume that I had written and we send them out. And by the time I graduated on the 5th of May, I had a stack of 454 rejection letters from companies and, and that it kind of bothered me, but then again, it was a recession and I knew hiring was tough.
And I took them at their word. Right. Most of them said, you know, we're not hiring right now. We will keep your resume and file. I never heard from probably 99 percent of those. So nobody ever called me back. But, but I I looked for opportunities. I could go back to school. I was tired of school. I wanted out.
I had already done what five plus 12, 17 years plus kindergarten, 18 years of school. I was 23. And I said, you know, I want some experience. I want to put something on, some notches on my belt and get experience. And the Air Force gave me the opportunity and almost got kicked out on day three for weight.
I lost an inch flying from Milwaukee to San Antonio, which meant my max went down. So instead of four pounds under, I was now at my maximum, actually six pounds under. I was at my max. Wow. And, and the flight commander called me in and explained how the, what do they call it? How the chi, how the cow chews the curd and said, tomorrow morning at 7 25, I'm picking you up in the morning and we're gonna go way in, and if you are at or over, you're going home.
Wow. And he said, do you remember, do you remember that line from a few good men we're, Colonel Jessop says, am I clear? That's exactly what my flight commander told me. 'cause I asked the question, I said, how did I lose an inch? He goes. Back to, as you lost an inch, that's the way it is. Your new maximum is 230 clear.
It's like, yes, sir. And I walked back to my, my flight room where my, my flight partners were like my teammates, my, my flight mates. And I had to decide, was I going to try, or was I going to do, is this my path home? I did not drink for the next. 16 hours. I did not eat a thing for the next 16 hours. I went and ran eight miles that night in the Texas heat end of September.
I ran another mile and a half the next morning. I lost eight pounds, all water weight, but I lost eight pounds. And I got to stay and that was the beginning of a journey learning about myself and about personal growth and about accepting responsibility. And just like I said, when I joined the service to when I retired 27 years later, Totally different person.
Yeah, for sure. And ladies and gentlemen, don't let Don's story discourage you if you know, you got a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, all that times are different. So if you're pursuing that or thinking about it, don't hear that 15%. And you know, be scared. That is crazy though. You talk about all those rejection letters.
Just, just insane to hear that number. It's astonishing. The key, the key in that, and I appreciate what you just said, I really do. But the key is I'm going to flip that around and say, even in an environment where there's only 15 percent have a job after four months, there is a job for you. You just got to find it.
That's what I did. I went out and I found it and I developed into it and would you believe in 2009, the recession of 2009, I retired from the military again, lots of people are not getting jobs. I faced it twice and I got a job with Booz Allen Hamilton that I stayed in for nine years because it was such a great fit.
It can be done. You just got to work at it. Yeah, for sure. And ladies and gentlemen, shameless plug, but if you want to hear about a Marine and his story of 2009, Richard Walsh, amazing guest again, check that out. That's an awesome story. And in that episode, we shared some stories like we're going to do right here.
Some of the. Best parts of the air force and some of the not so bad at you had 27 years worth so you experienced a lot of good, a lot of bad, a lot of change to, you know, you see a lot of, I mean, every day, every week you're, I mean, I get emails all the time from DFAS of just new policies, old policies, changes, revamps, you see stuff on the news.
Each command and division is different. You have leadership coming in and out. And Yeah, so, you know, like I've said, and like you and I have discussed, Donna, I mean, your command and your command climate can make or break your military experience, no matter where you are, and you can have a great command and command climate, and they can swap a few people around and suddenly it's upside down, you know, what you see in the military.
And I'm sure you've seen in Civilian War 2 anywhere some people don't respond well to when they're given power. Not in a, they can't do, I can't handle this, as in a, they go power hungry for, yeah. And you'll find a lot of people in the military who were bullied as a kid, or neglected by their parents, and when they get that power, it really they pay it forward.
And that's very unfortunate. There's a vicious cycle of All right, once we get to, you know, this rank or once we're in this position you know, because when we were new, we were, you know, however you want to say it, Hayes, you know, given more work, whatever it is, when we get to that senior rate position, we're going to pay it forward to the new recruits instead of let's end this culture that we didn't like you see a lot of vicious cycles and that's anywhere for any culture, but especially in the military.
So Don, I mean, as an officer, you automatically have. You know, levels of leadership over enlisted sailors and I guess they're not sailing through the sky, sailing through the sky. Yeah, that's right. Air airmen and airwomen. So being an officer already gave you kind of some authority before you were even put in a position of leadership.
But with that, and then on top of that, any leadership positions you were in, can you kind of tell us about You know, over the years, how your view on leadership changed because of your personal experience and your initial reaction to it. Yeah, you know, when I joined the service, I didn't really understand what leadership was all about.
Yeah, you know, and and I had yeah, and I had to develop exactly and I had to develop a leadership philosophy and I started with a foundation of respect I respect everybody. This is not about me putting anybody down, trying to be, you know, cause John Maxwell describes, you know, bullies, they, they lift themselves up by pushing other people down.
And this was never about me pushing people down, making them look bad. This was about me growing and lifting up everybody around me respect. So I started from that in a core value. I didn't understand core values back then, but that's where I started from. How do I treat people with respect? And then how do I help my team be better?
We're all in the same team. We just have different positions, right? Just because I was a squadron commander doesn't mean I was any better than the young airman. That young airman would go out and do some amazing things that I couldn't do. I watched when I was a captain, I watched some of our equipment operators in Germany do some amazing things as we were doing rapid runway repair.
And then we, we did this competition called the rapid runway repair Olympics. And this guy could take a. An excavator with a drilling attachment and put it down in a hole about four feet. And without hitting the cone, he could knock the golf ball off the cone. I can't even see it. You know, I can never do that.
But these guys had that capability. So we together as a team could do amazing things if we all pulled together. So, so I brought that into my mindset of how do I resource them? How do I help them? Right. To do that, I have to build a relationship with them. I've got to know them and they got to know me.
Yeah. So I've got to be willing to share my failures, share my concerns, right? I had a situation one time where I got to be wing commander for a day. I was a group commander at Offutt Air Force Base. You did quotation marks for whoever is listening. Yeah. Yeah. The wing commander was gone. The vice wing commander was gone.
The two ops group colonels were gone. So I was the next guy. So it happened to be our wing safety day. So I got to put to, they were going to put me on this big lift aircraft lift in front of a nosedock hangar. So several thousand people, and I was going to be talking to them about safety, but just, just ends up the Saturday before that.
I went down to Kansas City. This is from Omaha, Nebraska to Kansas City, and I went down and spent the day with my sons, both in college. And I went down and watched my one son bowl, and we went to the batting cage, and I ended up with the other son going to a football game. It was about 1030 at night. I decided to drive back to Omaha.
Hadn't been drinking, so I wasn't tired. I took a Mountain Dew, so I had a little bit of caffeine. Stopped, you know, right on the, the Iowa Nebraska border as I was coming up through there and had took a walk and, you know, got, got my blood flowing and I was awake. 15 miles up the road, I fell asleep and I started driving off the road and I'd gone from the right hand lane over the left hand lane.
I was going down into the ditch and I woke up as I hit the Rumble Strip. And I was able to write my car and pull it up, scared the living crap out of me. But I stood up there on that aircraft hoist and expressed how quickly things can, you can do all the right things and boom, a bad situation can happen.
Yeah. You just gotta be ready for it. Got to be anticipating. So that was just a great example of me trying to be open. I had people come up to me afterwards. I can't believe you shared that because that's kind of an embarrassing story. I said, yeah, but if it helps one person, it was worth it. And people got to know me better.
So there's just a number of things that I grew into in my leadership philosophy, but it started with respect. Resourcing people, helping them be better, being open, developing relationships, getting to know them what they wanted. I had one time I was given an article 15, right? It's non judicial punishment and for the gentleman for weight.
And I just made a comment to him. I said, you know, there's some things that you're going to have to work on. And he said, sir, he says, can I speak freely? I said, sure. And he goes, I'm having a hard time taking advice from a guy who's so skinny. And I said, can I speak freely? And he goes, sure. And I said, I want to tell you my story.
Go back to my day three of OTS, right? And that had led, that had led to 20 plus years of changing my diet and my workout every year to keep my weight down. And we talked about it and he goes, I never knew. I just assumed you were skinny all your life. I said, no, I fought my weight battle all my life. Well, we formed a bond in that conversation and then I was able to talk to him periodically and he would share some things he was doing and he would ask questions and I was able to help him.
And then he shared some of that, what we were doing with others. And then I would help other people. So that formed a bond just by me being open. Right. I could have said, look, airman, yeah. This is just for you to do this job and to get lose that weight and I don't care, you know, you know, you can't speak freely.
Just get out of my office. Yeah. But that wasn't me. My, my role of helping him required me to be open and honest. And I, and I think that's exactly what you said in, in, in your intro, right? That's what we got to do in the corporate. And there's a lot of people who don't understand that they haven't gone through some of that.
I'm going to say the shame of almost being kicked out of OTS on day three.
I felt if I would have gone back home at that point being kicked out, I would have been full of shame, right? My, my nephew got down to basic training and got kicked out on day three. And I can relate to that. And I remember talking to my, his, my brother, his, his dad. And there was some shame there, right?
So. We gotta, we gotta be willing to get through it. Yeah, for sure. Transparency as a leader is so important for building trust and respect. And also I know a lot of people have this stoicism kind of mindset where they're like, as a leader, I need to be impenetrable and a perfect example. And they never allow themselves to be vulnerable.
Like you said Just giving orders and, and not being personal and allowing, you know, people to express their emotions. Like you said, you could have just told them, hey, just lose the weight. And if you were that type of leader, probably would have had a couple F bombs in there too. You know, as you and I discussed off mic, the excessive cursing.
One of the leadership skills that don't know if it's a skill. I think it is a skill to manage to fit in so many F words in a, in a five word sentence. It's like, how did you have seven F words in there? I've had some leaders where it was more curses than, than orders, you know, But it's so important to talk about leadership.
Like I said, it can make or break the command. And I appreciate what you did as wing commander. That's awesome title to have. And safety briefs are, you know, it can be one of the hardest briefs to hold because no one wants to hear it. Especially it's, it's. Becomes very redundant. You know, we used to have it every once a week when we went to field day, the submarine.
Mm-Hmm. . Don't stick your hand in anything that's spinning or turning . Not just your hand. Anything you can stick somewhere. Don't stick it in a, in a anything , you know, when you're with a bunch of military men, you gotta, you gotta be more obvious about some things, but specific, yeah. Yeah, you know, don't climb up onto something 20 feet and then without any, you know, all the safety briefs and people never want to hear it.
But it is important because there are tons of incident reports. I mean, you, I mean, books, books and stacks of incident reports from people doing the very thing that you say, that's so stupid. Who would do that? And like you said, also just things can change so fast, you know, you can be doing everything right.
And I would put it like the ocean, you know, it's neither your friend or your enemy, right? Just like the ship, the base, the airplane, whatever it is, it's not going to maliciously hurt you, right? It's not your friend either. Is a, is an industrial hazardous work environment and anything can happen.
And especially with the military grade. Quote, unquote some stuff just falls apart and breaks pretty often, depending where you're at, you know, you will, you will get plenty of opportunities every day, military and non military to take advantage of situations and to be. Hurt by advantages by situations.
We have to make, be ready to make those decisions and more we can do to anticipate those and how we're going to react, the easier it is to move in the right direction. Yeah. And going back to a one team, one fight. I hate that saying most of the time because when it's used for punishing everyone for one person's mess up I have group disciplinary actions are there, there's a time and a place when overused, it just really crushes morale, you know?
So I've seen some awful implementations of that and then of course we've seen some good ones. But what I will say going back to the. Everyone plays an important role and then talking about some of the people you know, that you're leading doing amazing things that you just, you know, maybe even you can't do, it's so important.
Like I've talked with you before, Don and other people is that the military in particular, one, like we said, gives you so many leadership positions that you would never fathom of doing. You also get so many I'll say almost random roles and responsibilities and abilities that you didn't think would come with your job that your recruiter didn't tell you because they didn't even know some half of this stuff exists because it's always changing and you'll end up doing stuff that It's important to recognize that you never know what someone is capable of, especially when you're working as a team and you know, just putting so much on the rank it's important to respect rank and to have that order, but I've also seen it weaponized a lot where rank meant that they had absolute power, that all their moral decisions were the correct one, as well as Seeing people as lesser than them, that if you weren't a certain rank, that meant you didn't matter, that you weren't human, or that you couldn't do the same stuff as people who had been in longer than you or had that rank.
And, Don, I don't know if you want to bounce anything off of that. Ooh, there's probably a number of things that pop into my head. I think you're exactly right. As you said in your intro, sometimes people who weren't taught leadership or maybe they're talking, you know, more is caught than taught. So you go back to statistical studies.
If you are in an abusive, if your parents are abusive, you will probably tend to become abusive. If you have a abusive spouse, you probably will continue to stay into a abusive spouse relationship. Yeah. If the leadership you saw, say from your parents or from an uncle or whoever, maybe a boss in your first job was abusive, you're going to think that that's the way leadership is.
And you will carry that forward. And that's why I'm in this business of leadership training and coaching is because we've got John Maxwell, Maxwell leadership has a motto that says everyone deserves to be led well. And that's so important. We all deserve to have a leader that motivates us, that inspires us, that helps us be our best.
And anything short of that is falling short of the goal of a leader. And that doesn't mean barking orders and yelling at you and making you pushing you down, making you feel stupid, making you feel embarrassed, you know, there might be a place for that. Like you said, something goes wrong, you use group pressure to help correct the behavior because sometimes you can't do it directly.
Sometimes the barracks. You know, it can be the best teacher, but you got to know when to take that and when not to do that. So leadership is a tough job and that's why they get paid more. That's why a lot of people don't want to do it. I found it exhilarating. I made mistakes. Certainly I did. I pissed off some people.
I know I did. It was never intentional. I was trying to do the right thing. Now sometimes abusive people would say I was trying to do the right thing too. So I don't want to, I'll just throw that out. Everyone can be justified. You know, everyone has their own justification, their own right and wrong. So, yep.
But if I, as long as I based it on respect and relationships and having everybody's everybody's best at the work. at my heart, I felt I was doing the right thing. It wasn't mission over people. It was people and mission. That's very, very important because we've seen people go too far one way or the other.
And what I will say is I'm sure a lot of people say, well, You know, anyone can be a leader. And the military makes so many people leaders that aren't leaders. And you know, what good is a leader? It doesn't matter. We just need someone to be a form of communication. But if you look at the entertainment industry's examples and historical examples of how a leader Can make a huge difference in terms of morale, in terms of work productivity you know, not anyone can give an inspiring speech, you could have multiple people talk to the same group going through the same circumstances, and each person, each leader is going to have a different effect one way or the other.
So it's so important, you know, and I want to say, like you said, everyone deserves to be led well, and I think everyone should be a leader at least at one point in their life, no matter the size or medium because it's, it's important and really the public education system, I have a negative opinion of, and you know, I talk about it all the time, but one thing they should implement for sure is Having a rotation because we talked in a previous episode about how.
What happens is the teacher will just be like, all right, little Susie, you're in charge because you're my favorite or something. And then it's not based on skill or actual meeting the job criteria. And then let's say little Susie's in charge for the year. What the schools really need to do is everyone will serve a leadership position once, maybe you do a kid per week or whatever it may be and teach them about respect, about trust, about, you know, all these different assets of it and all these different aspects of it.
So super important. And Donna, one thing I got to ask, of course, is what's one of the funniest things that happens to you in a service? You got 20 sets. I mean there's so much, so many humorous things that happen in the service, and the beauty of it and the sorrow of it is that so many of them are like, I know I talked about everything being relatable, but there are certain military experiences that you know you just, you know.
You had a, you know, you had to be in the military to understand it, you know, and I do love those little, you know, I go online, they have like a Navy nuke page and a reactor is critical mean page and all that stuff. I'm sure for civil engineering, you've got your civil engineering only jokes, the same civilian side, you know, whatever industry you're in, there's those little jokes that only you get, but they're also just experiences, especially when you've got a bunch of.
You know, high schoolers in the military because most people are 18 to 25 unless you're like Don and you're older, but you're an officer. So you get paid five times more, you know, I know. So the funniest thing. So my first base, K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan at 855 every morning on the local radio show, they would play Happy Trails.
I can't remember the name of the singer, but happy trails to you until we meet again. So we were doing a, getting ready for a dining in, which is a formal for those not familiar with the military, right? Just a formal dinner, military only, no spouses, dining out would be spouses, dining in is military only and myself and several of my squadron peers, all, all lieutenants, we got called up to the group commander's office and about.
About the dining in. So we didn't know what he was going to ask. And he said, we're going to do a competition in singing a song. And I want you to sing happy trails. So get cowboy boots, get bandanas, get hats. You know, when we announce you. Yeah, I love that hat. We're going to call you up on stage. And come on up and sing happy trails.
So we, we've been, we, we wrote it out. We're practicing. We got the music. We met at my house an hour before the dining in, we're going through it. We're singing it. My wife is judging us. So we're really taking this seriously, right? We want to win this competition. So we're sitting there in the dining in and the wing commander says, okay, it's time for our competition, singing the air force song and mission support group.
You're up first. We looked at each other and said, air force song. We're ready for happy trails. So we just said we're going to go with what we practiced. So we ran in the back room. We put on cowboy boots. We, we get up to the front and we start and we had music and we start singing happy trails and people are booing at us and they're throwing biscuits at us.
And it set the tone of fun for the entire night. And we were, we were in the club until one or two in the morning. And there's, there's, there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes with that, but it just set, and that's the, the group commander walked over to me later and he goes, you know, that could be, you could be really mad at me.
He says, but I knew you guys would be willing just to get up there and do what it took. And you set the toad. And this was one of the most fun and successful dining inns I've ever been at. So thank you. Wow. I took that, I took that lesson with me. So, that was, it was a fun night. Could have been frustrating, but we just, we just ran with it.
And that developed a relationship with us in the group commander. Yeah. He was able to call down to us and ask us to do things. And we didn't think he was against us. He was for us. And he. Yeah, I ended up becoming, before I, when I got selected to captain, I got selected as a regular officer, which usually only the Air Force Academy and top 10 percent of ROTC or OTS get, I got selected for regular, which made a huge difference in my career because of those extra duties and that fun event.
Wow. I think you, you cultivated a great lesson there, which is so many people would have been infuriated, embarrassed, you know, could have been a really bad time I don't know if you want to say, you know, going with the flow in life sometimes, and you know, be, I mean, such a funny story, but such a great lesson there because like you said, things just change like that.
And I know plenty of people who would have been. Not having it. I, I, I know I could, I won't give their names, but I could, I have a list of people who would have taken that a very different way. I'm sure everyone listening, you're thinking right now, like so and so would not have liked that. But Don, you're, you're a good man.
And your whole group there went with it. And like, yeah, it's not all bad. And I think, I think that's a great story. And so I know we talked about, you've got all these lessons from over 27 years. And a lot of us want to know, Don, you know, and by a lot of us, I mean, specifically the active duty and the veterans who didn't stay in to do the full 20, right, because at 20 is when the, the big benefits come in, right.
Most people leave by then. Yet you stayed in past that. So a lot of people are scratching their head saying, now, why would he do that? Did he love it or something? So tell us about what kept you past that 20 year mark. Oh, man, there's a lot, there's lots into that. I'm going to, I'm going to couch it all by, I was given opportunities in the Air Force that I would not have had outside of the Air Force.
Right. Six months, six months into my career. That first summer I came back to Madison, Wisconsin, where I grew up. Yeah. And I met with several of the people. They were, they were home and we had a beer and we started talking and the things that I was already doing far and it succeeded what most people in corporate were doing, right?
They were still kind of following somebody getting mentored, getting training. I was out leading teams. I was, we were doing deployment exercises. We I was leading ground water. Investigation surveys, the stuff I was doing was just bar and above. So immediately within six months, it was like, wow, I'm giving opera.
I've been given opportunities here to do things that my counterparts wouldn't. Yeah, I carried that carried on. And when I, my third assignment, when I got to Germany. I got to be in charge of the readiness section. So we were preparing the, the squadron, and this is the second time I've already done that job.
The things we got to do there, just step out to, to learn rapid runway repair and go down and get SHAPE certified. SHAPE is the Supreme Headquarters Allied Forces Europe. So it's all of the militaries within Europe. Came together under shape, under NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to be ready for the Russians come and fall through the folded gap, right over the, over the gap to attack Europe.
And we had to be ready. So there was a standard and we got to go down and train and then do that certification. So the thing that just goes on and on, the things I got to do. At the 24 year point, just as I got to pin on, just before I pinned on Colonel, I got to go to Baghdad and lead the programming of projects, 12 billion worth of projects.
Wow. For the reconstruction of Iraq after Operation Iraqi Freedom. So we were, we were working with, I had 400 people on my team. We were doing, You know, revamping the oil sector, the electrical sector, the water and waste sector, the security and justice, the tele telecommunications and transportation system, the building health and education.
Those are the six sectors. So we're, we're renovating hospitals, clinics, schools, you know, anything you can think of, we're renovating and repairing from the war and getting Iraq back on its feet. It was the biggest reconstruction since the Marshall plan after World War II when we reconstructed Germany.
And it was Awesome to be a part of that. So I just continued to get opportunities to step forward into leadership roles. And in some way, some ways I failed in some ways I succeeded, but my success, my successes went greater than my, my failures. And I was able to continue to progress. And I built relationships with my leaders and I was open and honest with them.
Like at one point boss called me, I was, I'd been on the ground less than a week. The three star civilian equivalent. He calls me in and says, he was there three weeks longer than me. He goes, Don, I need to baseline this program, 12 billion reconstruction program. I need to baseline it in terms of where the money's going and how I can get more money into the reconstruction and less into overhead.
I need you to lead that team. And I was like wouldn't that be a contract thing? Wouldn't that be a finance thing? He goes, no, sir. I want you to do that. And I said, okay, I'm going to need somebody, some other people. Well, I said, how long do we have? And he goes in five days, I have to leave to go back to the United States to brief the secretary of the army on the program.
And then the next day I'm briefing Congress. So I need all of that in about three days. So I can have two days to ask questions and change things and then I'm off. We saved about 1. 2 billion dollars of just things that people were saying, why are we doing that? And we made some changes. We put 1. 2 billion back, 10 percent back into the program.
How did I know how to do that? You know, it's just getting a team together. We figured it out and we move forward. Right. So, just opportunities like that. Again, somebody could be pissed off. I mean, I, you know, they could slow roll it. I don't know how to do this. That's not my job. No, just get out and figure it out.
Yeah, for sure. And so Don, we've talked a lot about these 27 years of, of growing of learning and of leadership. And now, well, after you retired, you're still working in all those, you know, aspects of life, but in a different way. Could you please tell us about what you're doing nowadays? Yeah, in several different ways, right?
I'm involved in so I got my personal business, but I'm going to talk a little bit about volunteering, right? About giving back. Did 27 years Air Force, nine years corporate. I've been an entrepreneur now for seven years, and I just learned one thing. It's about giving back. So I'm about involved in, I always wanted to be involved in some boards, you know, corporate boards, nonprofit boards.
So I worked my way from the initial person on the, on the Red Cross San Antonio chapter board up to the board chair. Never envisioned myself being the board chair, but all of a sudden there I was as the next guy to take the board chair. And I said, Yeah, let's, let's figure it out. And I got to lead that effort.
And I got to be on the board for the Alamo project management Institute. I'm got on the board for society of American military engineers. You can see the banner behind me. So giving back and helping with SAME, I got to be director of the leadership lab for four years, helping leaders and organizations learn the right
material, right. Lessons, the right foundation to be a strong leader in their organization. So making an impact, that's been my volunteer side. And that's been a lot of fun seeing people grow and step into it. On my own nonprofit side, what I've seen is that a lot of people are not happy in the job they're in.
Correct. You know, they, they talk about military when they get out of the service, 45 percent leave that first job within 12 months, 65 percent within 24 months. That's huge. So more than half are not happy the first job they get and they leave. So good thing they leave. How can I help them find that right job so they don't have to go through that process again?
Some people just say, Oh, you got to do it. I'm not of that mindset that you have to go through the pain. I think you can go through the work early on. So in 2007 and 2005, 6, 7, when I was getting ready to retire, I really focused in on what did I want to do? And I went all the way back through my life from the fifth grade, the first Earth Day.
I wanted to be an environmental engineer. I wanted to clean America's waters. I got my bachelor's degree in that. I got to do some really neat things in the military doing that, and I wanted to go back and do that again. So Booz Allen as a consultant allowed me to do that. And so I found the right company that would let me have the right role.
Had the right leadership. I got to interview them. It had the right culture. They're 35 percent military, military, ex military, retired military, separated military, however you want to say that, right? Military veterans. And But then I found out that so many people don't do that work and they get out and they struggle and it leads to frustration, depression, and suicide.
It's the number one cause for suicide among military and veterans is that job transition. Not, not having that purpose anymore. You know, feeling like I'm part of the corporate sector that's all about money and profit and greed and, and poor leadership. And I don't, I don't like that. That's it. And they opt to end their life, 20 to a day, you know, I don't know what that number is that's related to career transition.
I don't know if anybody knows you can't serve him after they commit suicide, right? Why did you do it? But but you just have to talk to spouses and stuff, families about what was their struggle. And that's where career transition keeps coming up. So. Being going back to my foundation and leadership. I'm smiling and laughing here because I do that when I just have a aha moment I've been finding a lot lately that the statement everyone deserves a chance to live their best life and you just made me realize something that when I was Thinking about that, those people committing suicide or frustrated, depressed and my leadership foundation of respect and helping people grow and being their best self.
That's connected. You just helped me realize that. Thank you. But I can't turn my back on that. It's not that I won't. It's not that I don't want to. I tried. I tried to move into other areas of being a leadership trainer, leadership, you know, just a coach helping non military. I tried to do a number of things and A, it wasn't as successful as I wanted.
And B, I kept feeling like military, cause it was military people who were asking me for help. And the area I was most successful was helping the military. And I'm not, not necessarily making as much as I want to out of that, but I'm giving back and helping. And that's, I'm going to, I'm going to place it in my life.
Financially that I don't need to work. So I'm giving back and helping people. And so what I am as a career, so put all that together. I'm a career transition coach, helping particularly military spouses, veterans, but also non military find that job that energizes them understanding inside of themselves, what it is they want to do for a role that motivates them, what kind of leadership inspires them.
What kind of culture helps them to be the best. I think I've said that those words about five times during this interview and help helping them think into that and then be able to express their experience in ways that show that they are the best candidate. You have to get out of the people pile.
When I was a squadron commander, we had 65 civil engineer squadron commanders in the air force. Every one of us had the exact same job description, maintain facilities and utilities to support the Wing mission, but there was a top 10% that did the job differently. And I've been exploring what did they do differently?
I've talked to 'em and it's about their mindset and about their attitude. Right? I was just below that top 10%. I was probably the second 10%. Mm-Hmm. So, made Colonel didn't make general but. Understanding that and now applying that back to career transition to job search about how to leverage all that knowledge and experience to to express how you did the work to get out of the people pile to show why you're the top 10 percent or second 10%.
And you get a job quicker and you're happier. You find the right job. That was a long answer. I apologize, but no, no, by all means. I agree with what you said that you can see it's a passion thing, right? Well, some people think, oh, it's just inevitable that you're going to get out of the military, get a job, not like it.
And then find the one in your life. I don't agree with that at all. You know, I think what plays into it, unfortunately. Is that the military's program, at least from what I experienced Navy side, and, you know, I don't know how it is in other branches. I'm sure they would agree with me. People who I served is that the career transition phase you go through when you're separating is very lacking.
Again, it could be different now from when it was when I got out from when you got out and from when people get out later and, you know, five to six months from now. But there isn't this Big, heavy meeting where you're sitting down and they're really going over when you're getting out how to leverage, you know, your military skills.
Like you said, these resumes, and I've talked about it in previous episodes some of them are very specific to just military stuff. How do we leverage what we learned? How can we apply that to the civilian world with all these people who have the same exact resume as us? How can we stand out and, you know, leverage it?
How do we communicate and ladies and gentlemen, something we talked about in an episode with Canada's greatest resume whisperer, Joseph Stetter, one of my favorite episodes. I mean, honestly, it was a very interesting episode to think about a resumes that much detail. It's never been at the forefront of my mind.
He talked about making those skills, translating them to measurable to saying, not just, Hey, I answered phone calls. You know, I was. You know, whatever role you played in the military. And I answered phone calls that tells me nothing. What was the frequency? How many phone calls, what kind of people were you talking with?
He talks about making it measurable you know, cause he goes, especially military, you're saying you're answering phone calls in the engineering room or space, what does that mean? Are these what kind of phone calls are these? So that's just an example, right? And I'm sure Don has plenty of examples from the military resumes.
He's worked with point being that there's no one except now you got people like Don and my show and other resources, right? When you get out or to listen to while you're in that can help you, right? But the military itself is very lacking. In that transition coaching both financial side of it, right?
You're supposed to have a financial advisement meeting, a career transition meeting. But the thing is no one cares about your separation as much as you number one that the people assigned to this have a hundred other jobs in the military, right? This, this is not a dedicated career coach or financial expert.
This is the command finance guy or gal who is also doing their job, doing this job, doing that job. And that's not to say you're not important, right? Balancing the mission in people and then having, there's a lot of people separating, right? So this one financial experts got like 50 people separating in a month and he's just checking to make sure you meet the basic requirements to get out because his number one priority is, can he get you out?
Right? If they're making sure you're financially stable, right? It's not making sure you're rich. It's making sure you meet the requirement to leave. So it's important to think about that and realize that and if you're active duty, right, a lot of us, no matter how long you stay in the military, we all think about the day we get out, you know, whether it's 20 years from now or a few years from now, we all have that thought of one day I'm going to leave all of this and what's going to happen then.
And our main thought is the, we're leaving. It's not, I'm going to do this. I know so many people in the military. I don't care what I do. I'll go work at McDonald's as a cashier. I'll, I'll go, you know, bus tables. I'll go work. Blue collar doesn't matter as long as it's not the military and understandable.
Right. So I think a lot of people get this mindset of it doesn't matter as long as it's not here. But then, I mean, you shared those statistics. I was part of that. I know plenty of people who are a part of that, who quit their first job within six months or 12 months. You know? And so I think it's really important if you're active duty to start thinking about that stuff.
And Don, I mean, tell us about your transition. I know, I mean, like 27 years. I know you, and you said, like, you were thinking about what you really wanted to do in life, which I think people lose that. I think you're a great example of someone who kept that or rediscovered it, but a lot of people lose what they want to do prior to the service during their time in the service, whether their, their, you know, dream was unrealistic or they just think that because they were in the military, they have to do blue collar, they have to do something military.
Or that they have to do something related to their skills in the military. Don, tell us a little bit about that reality. Yeah, it's I think you're spot on. I think each of us have a, it's always, sorry, I'm laughing again. I was in a networking meeting this morning and the speaker talked about the number one networking question.
She loves to. To ask questions, people to share when they're meeting each other is what, what is your dream? And I'm convinced that everybody has a dream. Everybody has something they want to be as a kid. And for some reason, one or another, it changes. For me, it just happened to be that I, from fifth grade, first birthday, I wanted to work in the environmental area.
I was really good at math and science. In seventh grade, I was doing eighth grade math. Eighth grade, I was doing ninth grade math. So I was always good at math, always good at science. So it just fit. I had that passion for environmental. So I carried it all the way through to my bachelor's degree. Loved what I was doing there and got the opportunity to do some neat things in the air force.
So carried it with, and I always regretted in some respects being a commander because I didn't get to do the environmental stuff that as long as I wanted, but, but I learned that next skill, which is leadership and leading teams. So my transition, you said something important. We're all going to get out of the service, right?
Just like on the civilian side, we're all going to retire at some point. Don't come to that retirement on the last day and say, huh, now what do I do? Right. Same way within the military, whether you separate it four years, eight years, 12 years, 25, 40 years, right? At some point you're going to get out. Don't let it be, huh?
What am I going to do now? Leads to a dark path sometimes. Yeah. Be thinking. So in December of 2005, the executive TAP program came to Omaha. I was still three years away from retiring and I went through it. And it was really good. It got me thinking about certain things. But I took that course again in July of 2008, almost what, two and a half years later, now a year out from separate from retiring.
And that really impacted me because now I'm getting close, right? I'm getting really serious. And I had already been, I had an office upstairs in my townhouse out in, uh, not Springfield, Virginia, but can you think of any other city? Alexandria had a an office and I would go up there, you know, for an hour every night and I'd go on up there on Saturday mornings and I would go to military.
com and I would read about interviewing and dressing for success and writing a resume and finding what you wanted to do. I'd be going through all those different. Articles and saving them and reading them and creating an action plan of what I needed to do. So I went through tap. It just gave me the next level.
If you go into tap without doing any of that beforehand, there's so much stuff, you're going to feel like they're not hitting the right stuff for you because you're not mentally ready for it. I think because you haven't been thinking about it, but I had been thinking about it for several years. So I already, I knew what kind of job I wanted.
I was already active in this SAME, Society of American Military Engineers, we talked earlier. I've been talking to different companies. I've been understanding what they do. I've been learning about their companies, learning about their culture, learning about the jobs they were doing. So I was already ready.
Planning, I was that much farther ahead when I actually retired in 2009 than a lot of my peers who hadn't worked with SAME, didn't understand the outside, hadn't been thinking into what they wanted to do. And now it was like, I'm going to retire in two months. What do I do? And now it's right in the face where I already had a plan.
So the best advice I can give people is start early, be anticipating. At some point, I'm going to go backwards. At some point. We're finally going to, we're probably going to find a partner in life and get married. Just the averages, right? So be planning on what kind of partner you want. What do they look like?
How do they act? What's important to them? What kind of activities? Be thinking about those things. Why do so many people get divorced? Because they find somebody that looks pretty. I'll say it from a guy's perspective, it looks pretty, you want to go out with them, they're good at arm candy, but then you find out if you get married, you know, maybe, maybe the sex is good, I'll leave that alone, right?
But all of a sudden you find out after a while that you don't have anything in common, you don't get along, so you separate, you get divorced. Yeah. If they would have thought about what they wanted in a partner, they could have avoided that. I did that as well. I wanted somebody who loved the outdoors, who loved to go camping, who loved to, she loves birdwatching.
I started, I've learned to birdwatch, right? It's all part of my nature perspective. We get along. We had, we, we we're both kind of flexible. We, we, we went to Europe for seven years. I wanted, I got somebody who enjoyed traveling, right? So we fit, we've been married 42 years. So. Plan on what kind of spouse you want.
Plan on what kind of retirement you want, right? Plan on that next job. I'm just a planner. You know, not everybody's a planner by personality, but in some respects you got to be thinking about that. So if you don't, you're going to hit that. So I guess the answer to your question is I did that work up front.
And I think too often, as I said earlier, they realize, I think it was in this, this interview, you know, the first thing they say is, Oh, I need a job. And they open up the newspaper or they open up the internet. What can I do? I think I'll apply for that one. No, they don't know anything about the company.
Don't know anything about the role. Don't know anything about the leadership. Don't know anything about the culture. And they think that that's the job they want and they might get it and it doesn't work. You've got to do the research to figure it out, you know, is that a job I want to work for? Is that a company I want to work for?
Is that a job I want to do? Is that a, you know, what kind of leaders do I want? You walk in and you see the, I love this statement I heard from oh, I listened to him on podcast. Now I can't think of his name. Anyway, he said, his quote was when somebody shows you who they are, believe them. You're going to get in an interview and somebody's going to say something and it's going to give you an impression.
And then you may ask them, Hey, tell me a little bit more about what you just said. Oh, I misspoke. So you dismiss it. Well, they spoke honest when they spoke it. I had a partner in my nonprofit. He showed me in multiple times who he was and then he, and I challenged him, he would deny it. Ends up by then after three years, I left the nonprofit when I found it because I couldn't work with somebody that showed me who they were.
I should have believed him right up front. Would have saved me a lot of grief. So, so when you interview, you see something that's not right. Believe them. It's not right. I did an interview with a company in DC and I walked in and the environment wasn't right. It was kind of dark. It was dirty. And when I interviewed with the guy I was going to work for, he, you know, it was an interview.
He spoke 98 percent of the time. He would ask a question and I would try to jump in and answer it. And he would cut me off and give a 10 minute dissertation. And I'm like, I can't deal with a guy like this. So I didn't take the job. It would have been a great company. I've been thinking about working for that company for 20 years, but I, it just didn't fit right.
And I went to Booz Allen. I walked into Booz Allen. It was light. It was clean. The people were friendly. They welcomed me. I had eight interviews in one day to eight hours, an hour per interview. Just had a fantastic time talking to the people. We were talking about the work. I just saw myself being there and I stayed for nine years.
Well, gotta pay attention to that again. Long answer. Sorry. No, I I discussed this concept the other day. In regards to the 2 recruiting offices I had gone to. And how the first impression I got from them was the right one. And I, you know, God has really blessed me and guided my life in ways. So I know that it's, it's all right that I didn't listen to that first impression, but I think it is important to notice on that stuff.
And you mentioned something, you and I actually spoke about it the other day offline and then in my episode with Ian Shemandy, we also talked about it, which is, I don't know what the actual term is I'll just call it like serial job applying. You sent out hundreds of applications. Not a sponsor, indeed a great job site, in my opinion but it really enables you to have that ability to just apply, apply, apply, apply, apply, right?
Spray and pray. Yeah, exactly. You know, and if it's all jobs that you want to do, then great. But oftentimes the, you know, you're just sending out your resume into the wind to a hundred companies, hoping that one will pick you, you don't care about. The company morals or their purpose or the job, right?
If you're in a desperate situation. You may not even qualify for that job. Yeah. I, yeah, I've applied for a couple of jobs. It's like, you're missing one or two things from your resume. I'm like, I'm sure it's optional. And you know, there are certain things that are negotiable, but point being that. You and I, Don, talked about how, sure, that's great if they hire you, but if you quit in a few weeks or a few months because you actually don't like it, that just was a waste of time for any of y'all who haven't done taxes yet, for whatever reason having multiple jobs makes your taxes more complicated, in my opinion, the, the more papers you have for your taxes, the, the, the worst time you're going to have, so, among other things, right?
I mean, it just really does. You can't fully establish your life if you're hopping in and out of jobs, and sometimes you gotta take that break, and if you can afford to do so, right, take a step back and actually put in that time and effort to get the right job that you're gonna stay steady for for a while and enjoy.
So it's like, it's like money, right? You got to put some investment capital, you know, down deposit, whatever, however you want to phrase it it might hurt you for the time being but it's going to have great benefits, exponential benefits, in fact, or as Don said earlier, compounding interest. So yeah.
So don i really so you asked me i don't wanna go back to your question i think you asked me what do i want what am i doing now right now i went to a long explanation about the problem i didn't say exactly what i'm doing i help people. Write the story in their resume of how they stand out from the crowd that's probably a big piece right i want to help them find the job that energizes them is the right role the right leader the right culture but they have to be able to express.
What they do and you hit on it right it's not just. I answered phone calls. I answered 25 phone calls, which puts a number next to it. It's give me an example of a problem that you solved by answering the phone call. Oh, well, so on such and such a day, this problem, this person called with this problem. I said, so what'd you do?
I was able to connect them to this person. So how did you know how to do that? I had been doing some research on that subject and I had. Had found these resources. Okay, great. Right. What was the benefit of that? What did you do for the individual? It's more than just, I answered 50 phone calls in a day.
You know, in that problem, I, I don't know, I'm just talking off the top of my head, right? Help them, you know, save 50, 000. What, I don't know what it would be. So, you know, I'll go back to an example. When I was a squadron commander, I got to Great Falls, Montana, and my deployment team deployed. So 50 of my men and women deployed to Southwest Asia for four months, I think it was.
So at Thanksgiving, we got together. with the spouses and families of the deployed for Thanksgiving dinner, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Well, the night before the temperature, the cold front came through, the temperature dropped below zero. It was windy. And I was talking to this one spouse and she, something in her eye told me that something wasn't right.
And I said, ma'am, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. And one thing about military, they don't tell you their spouses. They take that. We're not going to tell you that there's any problem. So I I said, are you sure something tells me that you have something that I can help you with? No, no, I'm fine.
You don't need to do anything for me, sir. I'm good. I'm good. So I sent my wife over to talk to her, sent my first sergeant over to talk to her. I sent my chief, chief mass sergeant over to talk to her. She got the same answers. And after dinner I was standing at the dessert table because I love desserts.
And I was getting a piece of pumpkin pie. And I heard her talking that when her husband left it was in the 90s. You know, upper 80s, 90s. And they had window air conditioning units in because we didn't have central air. And the night before when that wind came through the cold freeze sub, Freezing was coming right through the windows, through the air conditioners, 'cause they were still there.
The heat went out. So the day it was like 45, 50 degrees in the house, the kids were all sick. She didn't get any sleep. I turned around and said, now I can help you. And it wasn't just that I, you know, took care of, you know, I could say during the, during the 120 day deployment of 45 of my people, I took care of the organization, took care of the spouses.
What I could write was. had a specific spouse who had no longer any heat. The kids were sick. The windows formed a team, which I did. The first sergeant, the chief, a couple of other guys, we went over and we took out the, so here I am standing there later on taking these window air conditioners out. I'd only been on the ground as a commander for about four months.
And people were like, sir, sir, sir, you don't have to do that. I can do that. I was like, no, I want to do this. I, this is the thing I love is helping people. Right. So I'm taking those things out. And I called up to the heat shop and got them out there. We got the heat. Going again in the house and it was running good before we left.
I called the medical commander who lived across the street from me. I said, ma'am, can you help me tomorrow? Can you help me get these kids in and get some medicine? And I'm sure they don't have appointments. So yeah, well, we'll take care of that. And so I got a reputation. We're helping people, but it's, it's, it's all those things that I did to take care of that family is, is what typifies me as the commander.
It wasn't just Don was there leading, you know, 339 people, you know, maintaining the facilities and utilities. There was specific challenges and I could go through story after story of that right years. And that's the kind of stuff that goes into the resume and people don't think about it that way. You know, because we, because we teach them in the military, there's no I in team, right?
It's not about you. It's about the team. And but there is things that you are a part of, or you led that made a difference. We got to pull those stories out and get them into the resume and that separates you from the people pile. Not just a resume, but the interview too. Exactly. Yeah. The elevator pitch, your LinkedIn, your resume, the interview, the negotiation, right?
You may get a, you may get a you may want 80, 000 or 120, 000 and you get a job offer. That's 10, 20 percent below that. You got to be able to articulate why you deserve that higher salary. Yeah. That is some stories that make the difference. I call it the storytelling strategy. framework for career transition.
So that's what I'm really love helping people with. And there's a whole bunch of other stuff in there, but that's the career transition coaching is helping them tell that story. And I'm writing a digital course to help people really walk through that and understand it. And I'm going to do group coaching and one on one coaching that goes with it because I want everybody to be able to tell that story, but you have to work together with them.
That makes sense. Yes, sir. And I know now I've not only had the Canada's greatest resume whisperer on my show, but America's greatest resume whisperer, Don Gleeson, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to go back and read Joseph Steader. I'm going to go back and read that. Listen to that. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely found some ideas off each other.
Yeah. Yeah. And It's interesting. In fact, I know this morning, in fact, I just saw on your Facebook, you were researching and reaching out to people about AI and resume tools. And so it's going to be, the game's going to be changing a little bit soon, but I know you're already on top of it. Cause I saw your Facebook and your research and that stuff, but I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing all of this wisdom with us.
And, you know, your website and your information will be in the description below for whoever wants to, you know, have you not only as, you know, a You know, that transition and that career advice, but anyone who wants to connect with you on leadership, on military stuff, have you as a podcast guest or what have you, maybe a speaker at a college, feel free to have him, I'm sure he would love that, you know, I would love that too, feel free to reach out to me, get us both together.
Well, I love it. Yeah. But ladies and gentlemen, be sure to check out Don Gleason in the description below LinkedIn, Facebook, all that good stuff. And Don, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a great time, man. Well, thanks, Mark. I really appreciate the opportunity and and I always offer.
Anybody who hears this here, just send me a note on LinkedIn, you know, at Don L, the middle initial L Gleason, cause I'm the only Don L there's like 56 Don Gleason's. So, just send me a note and say, Hey, so I hear on a couple of nukes with Mark whiskey, I'd love to have a complimentary conversation with you, take you up on your offer.
I give 30 minutes and I will connect you to people. I will help you find resources. You will get value out of that conversation. And if you want more, we can talk about that, but there's not going to be a high pressure. It's about helping you. Oh yeah, thank you Don. Yeah, thanks Mark, really appreciate it.
