GA 097 | How to Apply Lean to the Military with Samuel Selay

You're listening to episode 97 with Samuel Saleh.

Welcome to the Gemba Academy Podcast, the show that's focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota Del Monte and the U.S. department of Defense. And now, here's your host, Ron Pereira.

Hey there. This is Ron Perera with Gemba Academy, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy Podcast. As always, thank you, sir. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day and your week to listen to the show and for watching our Lean and Six Sigma training videos over at Gembaacademy.com we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now, today, I am very excited to introduce Samuel Saleh to the show. Now, Samuel, as you'll hear, works for the US Marines, and Samuel works in their supply chain organization. But as you're going to hear, this gentleman is doing some incredible work, and the Marines in particular are doing some incredible work, as the entire Department of Defense does with Lean and Six Sigma. But what we're really going to talk about today is Samuel's journey, really with continuous improvement, how he first got introduced to it in the Marines, and then, you know, what he's done with it. Some of the projects that they've led are quite incredible. We get into two in particular, he talks about some of the improvements. Just to give you a quick sneak peek, he did a disposition service project, resulted in reducing damage stock inventory from 1200 line items to 10. And then he reduced processing time of some change request processes from 235 hours to 11 hours. So they're doing some real continuous improvement in the US Military, which is fantastic to know for Americans who are depending on the military to defend our freedom. And they're doing, they're doing fantastic work. Now, Samuel also kind of talks about, you know, some of the more vulnerable moments of his journey, in particular some of the mistakes that he's personally made. And as you're going to hear, he doesn't hold back. He really tells you what he's done wrong and, you know, really how he's countered some of those mistakes. I was so inspired by Samuel. We hope to possibly one day go out and visit with those guys. Maybe we'll even have our video cameras if that gets approved. But, man, we would just love to be able to share their story with the world even beyond this podcast. So show notes for this episode, which are going to include links to everything we talk about, including Samuel's LinkedIn account. And everyone really needs to connect with Samuel on LinkedIn because just reading through some of the achievements that they've done, pretty, pretty eye opening to. To see what they've done, all you gotta do is go to gembapodcast.com and then look for episode 97. So again, gembapodcast.com look for episode 97. All right, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, Samuel, well, thank you so much for taking time to visit with us. Where are you calling in from?

I'm calling in from Marietta, California.

Marietta, California. Beautiful. We've had like a string of California folks and somebody lean something in the water out there. Everybody's practicing lean in California. That's great. All right, so, well, Samuel, let's go ahead and just kind of start with. Tell us a little bit about your background, maybe how you first came to learn about continuous improvement, and then obviously what you're up to these days.

All right, so I've been in the marine Corps since 2003. I'm in the field of supply chain and logistics. I've been in California. I lived in Japan for two years doing warehousing and logistics out there. Six years ago, I had the opportunity to interview for a position which I really didn't know anything about, this thing called Lean and Six Sigma. And I thought it was something out of Star Wars. I interviewed for it and I was like, you mean there's a formal to improve? I didn't know that because I was always kind of hardwired, got into it, and I just kind of fell in love with it. So I've been practicing Lean and Six Sigma within the Marine Corps for six years. There's an umbrella approach called continuous browser improvement consisting of Lean, Six Sigma and theory constraints. So I teach, I mentor, I coach, and I facilitate. Been doing that. I think that's the way I serve. I think that is the way I contribute and give back. And I love it.

Yeah, we're gonna dig. I want to dig really into the Marines journey and how you guys kind of get started and your experience with it later in the show. But as you know, Samuel, we like to start all of our episodes with our guests sharing a quotation or two that possibly inspires them. So do you have one?

I do. My quote is by John Maxwell, and he said, success is to know your purpose in life, grow to reach your maximum potential and sow seeds so that others may benefit. And really digging into that a little bit more purpose, start with why. Right. So I've boiled It down. Distilled it down to six words. And that is to serve others, to develop people, and to pursue excellence both professionally and personally. If you guess my wife, I have a long way to go, but it's a journey, right? So that's what I've kind of. That's my inspiration. I could have shared other quotes by Taichi Ono or Shingo or Deming, but I figured, let's share something that hasn't been shared before.

Yes. Love it. Very good. All right, well, let's get back into the journey, your journey with continuous improvement in the Marines. And so how did it start, really? I mean, I know you went, you know, you heard about it, you went through some training, but, like, what did you feel like? Did you like it immediately? Did. Were you skeptical? You know, and how was it kind of laid out to you there in the Marines?

Okay, so back in late 2009, 2010, I kind of, I interviewed for this position. And within. I work in the supply chain, and essentially it's the largest supply chain in the Marine Corps. All of our customers are west of the Mississippi. So think of us as an Amazon. However, we don't have any competition. Our customers only have us.

Yes.

We're called the supply management unit. So we have 21,000 line items, I think seven warehouses. So we're full supply chain. So we procure, we store, we warehouse, we distribute, and we do all the logistical support. And I do the continuous improvement within that, looking at how can we improve and better support our customers. So kind of the journey to continuous improvement. It really started out, I was told, you're going to do this thing called quality management system. You're going to develop it from the ground up. So I started out with that, really standardizing every process. And really we stood up our quality system. We set an enterprise wide standard in the Marine Corps. And really that was my introduction because we had to standardize it as we know that there could be no improvement without standardization. As a result of that, we saw a 20% reduction in shipping defects. And I was like, this is crazy. All we did was standardize. We made people follow one standard. We did monthly audits, process audits, and we're seeing these significant results. And I was like, that's, that's. And it kind of. And then so kind of, kind of during the same time, I went through greenbelt training, and I was like. And I was really interested because I've always had a knack for. For analysis. I didn't know what I was going to do before I kind of came into this position, I had switched my major several times and I was, I think law enforcement and sociology and different things and I really found my, my purpose, if you want to put it like that. So after we got our quality system established, I went through Graham Belt training. I'm like, you know what, let's look at how can we improve our system that we put in place. So I kind of used continuous process improvement as that platform to look at improving the system that we had established. So I started out doing, doing, doing small improvements. I led a couple rapper pompoon events and then it kind of just grew from there and it's grown and I've just, I've been on this journey and I've loved it.

So I mean I'm curious and don't share anything that, that you're not supposed to but our, you know, you mentioned Amazon, right? And pretty good company as far as warehousing and, and they also have a, you know, strong continuous improvement program. How do you guys stack up, you know, against an Amazon?

All right, so I mean I don't have, I don't have a balanced scorecard sitting in front of me, but we have our drivers, our key performance indicators are pretty, I mean we measure essentially the same things. We measure our defect rate and I think the last time we checked last month we were at.01% our lead time. We're looking at a 72 hour lead time and the last time I checked we were under that. So we're meeting our on time delivery, our fill rate, we're meeting our fill rate. So I think last time I checked it's, it's lower than others because we're limited on resources and there's so much variability. I think it's like in the 70s or 80s because our customers, their demands change so frequently. It's based off what contingencies, what exercises they're doing. So essentially the type of things we supply are anything for repairable parts, such as a weapon, such as some type of weapon system, such as a vehicle, such as any communication equipment.

Do you have just huge vehicles sitting in a warehouse ready to ship?

We ship all the repairable parts. So for an example, there's a Humvee that there's a unit our customers are using and they need a battery. So they submit a service request or a requisition through us, through our supply chain, through our system and we, within 72 hours we'll get it to them. So that's kind of what we have. We don't have those end Items, those large vehicles or weapons. But we have repairable items.

I gotcha. I gotcha. All right, well, I'm gonna. I was looking at your LinkedIn profile, and you've done some rather incredible improvements, and I want to kind of call a few of those out here in a bit, but I want to kind of start on the other end of it, and I think it's good. And we've talked about this offline about failures and some of the things that we can learn from them. So I'm curious, like, if you had to, you know, if you're looking back on your journey since, you know, I don't know, the last five years or so, what's gone wrong and what did you learn from it?

Everything. Everything. But let's. I kind of boil it down to a couple that we can kind of wrap our hands around. So the first is being a tool head, which I think we're all go down that road. Yes. I went through Greenville training, and we use the dmaic. Define measure, analyze, improve, control, problem solving, scientific methodology. And when I first started, literally, this is how my approach was. I got this roadmap. I want to use every single tool, every single time.

Yep.

I wasted my team's time. I wasted my time frustrated everyone around me.

They probably ran when they saw you come around the corner. Right.

So I think that's when I first started, was just using as many tools and I was wasting time. And since then, I've learned I'm almost the opposite. I'm like, let's use the least amount of tools to yield the largest results, the biggest impact. So I have simplified it so much, and that's kind of my approach now. So that's one lesson learned. Number two is my lack of respect for others. I didn't listen to people. People came to me with a problem. I was supposed to be mentoring them. And I'm like, you know what? Just give me your problem and I'll take care of it and you'll get the credit. I don't care, but let's get this over with. Don't worry about your input. I'll just take care of it. I was really disrespectful. And so that was my second one is just lack of respect. And I didn't listen. I just kind of. All I wanted to do is get results. I thought that's all that mattered. I didn't know any better. So that was number two. My third one that I can kind of point out is I was really arrogant. I thought I knew it all. I was number one in my class, voted number one in my black belt class. And I was very young. I had a master's at a young age, and I had these young Marines. I was supposed to be mentoring and coaching and teaching. And when I first started teaching at the Greenbelt level, I heard over and over, quit trying to sell us your resume. And my mentor's like, hey, Sam, this is not about you. This is about them. And then I finally kind of came to the realization that if the student doesn't learn, the teacher hasn't taught. And all that they were learning was about my resume and what I've accomplished and that it was really humbling. So those are three big failures, being a tool head, just lack of respect, of being arrogant. Since then, I've come. I would hope to think I've come a long ways, but I think I have a long way still to go.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think all of us that have been on a journey can say that we've dabbled on all three of those. In all three of those areas. I do want to circle back onto the tool head one, because sometimes I like to play the contrarian. And I too, was a tool head when I went through all of my training and I would try to invent ways to use tools. And on one side of the coin, you're right, it's. That's not always helpful, right? But I also think that had we not been tool heads, we may not have learned the tools, right? And so sometimes I think we have to be a little bit careful. Like if someone's just brand new, right? And they're just going through some training and they're like, oh, yeah, don't be a tool head. Just, you know, let's. Let's respect people. Which of course we need to do that, always need to do that. But you do need to learn the tools, right? And you do need to understand what, you know, 5s is and how to implement one piece flow and, you know, different things like that. So I think there's. I guess it's just that balance, right, of not going overboard. And my problem when I went through training was, you know, my certification in particular. Unfortunately, I was, like, forced to use certain tools. So I remember thinking about, I had to invent ways to use multiple regression, right? That's nonsense. Right? So I think that's a very. And that's a very six sigma oriented kind of mindset, right? And so I think that's. That's unhealthy. And so people, I think I Think that's kind of dead now. Most, most companies that do certification. Well, it's a few out there that still force you to use certain tools, but we definitely don't at Gemba Academy because. But we want you to understand the tools. Right. Because you got to pass an exam. Right. So yeah, I guess it's a balance. Right. Of those things.

I agree. I would say the Marine Corps is structured. There's a lot of the remnants of twi and within our, within our CPI program, we have a checklist that you have to kind of follow in order to kind of go down the road of certification. Certain tools that you have to use, which I agree with. I mean you got to have a charter, you got to show flow.

Yeah.

So there's. It makes sense. It's just a matter of people think you have to use every tool on that checklist.

Yes.

And it's not like that. It's like what tool do you need to solve the problem? And I didn't know that. I was like, well, how can I use all the tools? That was my approach when I first started. Let's use the tools to improve opex.

Yes.

Let's use the tools to solve, not just do.

Yes. Well, yeah. You know, the other thing that wears me out is when you'll get a hardcore, you know, Six Sigma person who thinks all things lean are ridiculous and common sense. Or you'll also get the lean purest who thinks all things kind of statistical or whatever are nonsense and so called Six Sigma. I think you got to learn it all right. And, and then wield the correct tool when it's. When it's needed. Right.

So yeah.

Sounds like that's what you've done so well. When I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and we'll link to that in the show notes, I encourage everyone to go out and check Samuel's background. It's pretty impressive. I want to call out, not to make your head big or arrogant or anything like that. I'm trying to feed the lion here. But I want to just call a few things out because they just kind of blew me away. So one bullet point on there was that you facilitated a disposition service project that resulted in reducing damage stock inventory from 1200 line items to 10. 1200 to 10?

Yeah.

That's pretty crazy.

It is pretty crazy. That was actually my black belt project and it was, that was, that's where I really was able to convince senior leadership that this stuff works.

Tell us about that. Like just elevator speech on that, that project.

So disposition. These Are items that either are damaged. Number one, there's, number two, there's no longer demand or the shelf life has expired. So these are items that we have to remove from our inventory. So what was happening was these items that were being removed and they were just being put in the lot and being managed. So essentially we're managing waste. We're managing no demand inventory, that's what we call it instead of getting it processed. And we have DLA Disposition Services, Defense Logistics Agency is who we're supposed to be turning these into so they can do their process. And what we're doing was putting them in a lot and we were assigning individuals to manage this wasted inventory. So I went to the senior leader within that manages the warehousing and I asked him, okay, I'm going through training, I need a project. And I came with him. I came up with several ideas. He's like no, this is what I want you to focus in on. And so I kind of went through the problem solving process and got a team together and we mapped the process. And what we saw was there was a lot of over processing. Essentially our system, our supply chain produces a document that the individuals were reproducing and it was like eight minutes per line item that it took to produce this one document to turn it in. So essentially we really remove that step and voila. And it streamlined. We removed the backlog. We streamlined the process. We set up these meal trains essentially they're like go kart like carts that we were able to we able to turn in masses and masses amount of our backlog instead of before. It was only about 5 items per week. We were able to do several hundred per week just to clear our black backlog. We redesigned the process so no longer is it going to be before was taking around 119 days. I found items old like 119 days. They were put in this lot essentially once we cleared that we set up a small shelf in a warehouse. So it's pulled from the inventory, the data is scheduled and it's literally turned in. So we went from 119 days to like five days. We streamlined that process carrying cost obviously. And that's kind of one of a metric that's used in supply chain. There's different measures around 15%. So has some pretty high carrying cost reduction by doing that as well. Because we didn't have to have individuals manage it. We didn't have to have a whole lot. We essentially cleared a whole lot, very large lot. We didn't have to have to have Equipment to manage it. We didn't have to have the racking. So we were able to kind of make those improvements. And more than anything, yes, we saw some really significant, measurable improvements. Right. Improvements can't just feel better, they have to be measured better. We were definitely measurably better. But number one, leadership, senior leadership was like, this stuff is amazing. Sam, how did you do that? I'm like, no fairy dust. It was just problem solving. It was simple problem solving. I used the Marines and we kind of figured out the best way to do it. My mentor, I have to give her credit as well because she kind of kept pointing back to the step. It kept coming up that we were over processing. And she's like, can we remove that? I'm like, I don't know. And we really challenged it. And we spent some time getting several stakeholders together and we kind of figured out that, yes, we can remove that step. So it was a very collaborative effort. So leadership. We gained their support by doing this project. Those that do the work, they were changed too because they saw that the frustration that they were experiencing was eliminated, essentially. So we made their lives better and easier. It was so easy for them now. Now they're doing more value added work and they feel more accomplished. And I'm glad to say I can see we're still, after several years later, we're still sustaining that project. Yeah. So I'm pretty excited. And the third thing is we taught problem solving to those young Marines. They're very impressionable and they grew a passion for it. And some of them are the people that are really practicing continuous improvement with my organization now. So great successful success story.

So the second one I got to ask you about, you facilitated a new document change request process, Kaizen event, which resulted in reducing the average processing time from 235 hours, 2, 3, 5 hours to 11 hours. That's pretty crazy. A Kaizen event.

Yeah. So we have our quality management system. So in order to make sure that we're with an organization, we're all using the same documents. There's a change request process, if anyone wants to change. So we don't. So we were looking at that process and we saw there was some huge outliers. There was documents requests that were sitting out there for long time and that's spiked the numbers. It was. And those outliers. And what we did is we looked at what's going on there. We drilled down, we ran a Kaizen event, me and a couple other individuals, we really streamlined that. We put standard work in place, we put up a PDF, a drop down PDF so that no longer can people fill in the fields that they only have. They have to select. So I think that was our big win on that one was mistake proofing it. So people can only have several options. So we prevent errors from even occurring. So I think what was happening was on that one was people would put the information wrong incorrectly. And then my department was taking a long time to follow up with them, or that we did follow up with them and it took a long time for the resubmission. There's a lot of rework, that whole rework cycle. So what we did was we essentially eliminated that from even happening. Do it right the first time. Right. So we streamlined it, we standardized the process and we yielded those results. So that was pretty incredible as well.

Fantastic. Well, I want everybody that's listening to. Soon as you're done with this episode, go to LinkedIn and look up Samuel Saleh. Samuel is S A M U E L and then Salay is S E L A Y. Correct.

Yes.

Yeah. So Samuel Salay, go ahead and connect with him on LinkedIn and then go ahead and read all the other bullet points because it's pretty incredible. So very well done. It's great to know that our country is being defended and protected by folks like you who are truly, you know, carrying the continuous improvement torch and making us better. So well done.

Yeah. And if I can add one thing, and this is really pretty exciting. So a couple months ago I was able, I had the opportunity to teach the Marine Corps Special Operations Command. That's essentially our Special Ops. I know you have had Sam McPherson on doing recon. So I had the opportunity and my mentor has been doing some follow up work with them and, and doing some lean initiatives with them. And it's pretty exciting. So it was like several weeks ago, I was teaching a Greenbelt course. My mentor came up to me, she's like, sam, I just got off the phone with the commander down at Coronado. Seal Team 5, they want us to run us, they want us to run a green belt course. I'm like, kim, did you tell her that we're busy with Seal Team 6 right now?

Wow.

Yeah. So I'm pretty excited. So my message to the terrorists, you think we're, we're bad now, just wait until we deploy? Lane? No.

Okay. I gotta ask you, what's it like standing up in front of Navy seals telling them how to do a psych?

You know, I have it taught down there. That was, that was the call from SEAL Team 5. We taught MARSOC, the Marine Corps Special Operations Command.

Okay.

It was mainly the support. The support team. Okay. So it was there. There was. Some of the guys were pretty intimidating. These are the guys that. That can kill you with their hands tied behind their back with the blindfold on. Yeah, but they're just humans like anyone else. But these guys are incredible at planning and executing. Yeah, it's incredible. And I was like. So I thought I would learn more than I taught them when I taught at the Marsh Talk. And I was like, pretty incredible. But I don't do that pretty regularly. My focus is within my organization, our supply chain. Not the sexiest job, but it's the nuts and bolts of our logistical support. So it's got to be done. Wow.

Well, fantastic. Man. That's so incredible. We've talked offline. I desperately want to come to visit the Marines with our video cameras and do a Gemba Academy live episode. So if we could make that happen, you'd be my life hero. All right, well, the last question I have just in this section is like, what's next? What are you doing to kind of really further this culture of continuous supreme? And you've obviously got a strong one right now, but what's going on into the future?

Okay, so we're kind of really working on this bottom up approach. So what I mean by that is we're really trying to. We developed an idea board. Mark Graben wrote Lean Hospitals and Alan Robinson the Idea Driven Organization. We're really kind of taking some of those ideas and really engaging the front lines. And it's incredible. Incredible the kind of the response we're getting because people are so pounded on and they're told what to do. But now it's flipping and like, how can I help you? What problems do you have? How can we reduce your frustration? How can I make your job easier? We have this idea system that we're putting in place visual. It's not a box on the wall that no one sees that's locked up. Literally. You submit an idea and I'll follow up with you or my team will follow up with you and we'll kind of run a pilot, see if we can put that in place. So we're trying to develop this bottom up approach. Doing daily Kaizen. Maybe they'll turn into rapid prune events. But the goal is, it's not me or these large projects or events, but small improvements. We're a long way to get there. There's organizations that are incredible at it, but it's one thing we're doing, we're also from a top down perspective, we're doing a modified version of strategy deployment. So that's kind of something else we're working. So between a bottom up approach and a top down approach, we're trying to develop a culture of continuous improvement. It's hard. One of the struggles that we face that is kind of unique to our organization is we have a very high turnover. We have within three years we have a greater than 95% turnover.

Meaning why is that? They just move on to different.

Because of the fact that complacency, the kind of the, the ideology and the view is people have to be worldwide deployable. Number one, they have to be exposed to different environments. Number two, number three, they can't get complacent and be in the same area because they have to be. They have to have a worldwide view.

Yes.

So very high turnover. And it's a struggle because we're constantly having new people come in and they don't understand what we're trying to do. And I turn my eyes towards this is what we've accomplished. It wasn't me. The process that you're managing now is a result of a rabic event or some type of improvement. And I can show you the project file. How did we get there, our current state, how do we progress to our state that we're at now? And then that's really all I got to do is I point to the results. It's not me. I'm not telling you I've got to do this. It was actually the Marines that came before you that developed, redesigned that process. So that's really all I got to do. Wow.

Well done. Keep going and super proud of everything that you guys are doing. All right, Sam. Well, let's go ahead and transition now into what we call a reflection section. So, you know, we spend a lot of time and lean talking about the two pillars, right? Continuous improvement, the tools, the things that we do. But the second pillar is respect for people. And that can be harder to define. So I'm curious, what does respect for people mean to you?

It took me a long time to really come to this because I didn't know what it meant. I was never exposed to respect for people in any of my training. I was trained both in the Marine Corps and then outside of the Marine Corps. I went to the University of San Diego. And it wasn't until I kind of stumbled across some different works, but I realized that respect for people is being able to develop them through Problems solving, leading with questions, using a Socratic method to kind of coach them through the whole problem solving process. No longer is people come to me with a problem and I was like, okay, let me take it. Now it's like they come to me with a problem and I'm like, number one, what problem are you trying to solve? Number two, let's go see. Let's go to the gambit. Let's go check it out. And then from there we just kind of developed the whole depending on what kind of improvement. If it's just do it a little simple, Kaizen, then we kind of. I talk with the management there and we figure that out. If it's bigger, if it needs to be a rapid improvement, then I coach them through the whole chartering process. So that's really the respect for people is enabling them to solve their own problems because there's the whole intrinsic motivation. People want to see their work improve, they want to have autonomy, they want to be able to master, and they need to have a sense of purpose.

Yes.

And I think that's really what we're trying to do with respecting people is giving them those three things through the whole problem solving process.

What's the best advice you've ever received?

Best advice I've ever received. Well, when I was younger, I was told to never stop learning. I don't know who said it specifically junior high, elementary school. Probably before that it was teachers, parents, close friends of my family. And I didn't pay attention to it. Then I came into the Marine Corps and kind of was still arrogant. And it wasn't until. It wasn't until I kind of realized that I don't know it. Huh? There's a lot I need to learn. So that's kind of. I went back and I started learning and I was like, man, there's so much I need to learn. And so I think that's really is you got to continue learning personal development. I think Einstein once said, the day you stop learning is the day you start dying. So I. For me, that's what I could say is you got to continue to learn. So if you stop, you're kind of. You'll start to deteriorate. And because I was realizing, you know what? I hadn't learned anything in a while. And so I started picking up some books and I started reading after I finished my mba and I had to relearn, literally relearn everything I learned. I know that sounds strange. Yeah, I think that's. That. That is some really good advice.

Yeah, no, I Totally agree. Do you have a personal productivity habit that others might benefit from?

Yeah, I got two. Okay. So the first one is, you got to learn how to say no. There's a lot of different people that have kind of rephrased this, but what separates good from great is focusing on what you're really skilled at and how you can deliver value, max value to the organization or your customers. So I used to say, I'll go there. I'll go to this meeting. But I realized I was sitting in these long meetings, and for what? Now it's like, okay, I need to be in this meeting. Okay. So the reason of me being in there is to share for five minutes on some type of project I'm involved with or mentoring. So this. My response now is either here, how about I give you the information, number one up front, or I'll send someone else and they can sit in my place. So I just saved myself two hours where I can be out on the Gamba coaching someone instead of being stuck in a meeting somewhere.

Yes.

So that's. That's my first. And then number two, this may sound like a plug for. For Paul Akers, but practicing lean Hell, I stumbled across his book and. And you know what? People around me can validate this. I've lost £40. I feel incredible.

Well, I was going to ask you because, you know, we had our cameras on earlier, and I could see a pretty fit dude, man.

So I wasn't always like that. Yeah, I've had four surgeries, and last May, I had spine surgery. I had an anterior cervical dystopian infusion between C5 and C6 in my spine. And then May, I had my second knee surgery. So it was like, August, September, I got up to £215. That was the heaviest I've ever been. And I was like, I got to do something. So I started. I've had a modified version of what kind of he establishes. But so I started that. And then I think it was around Christmas time frame is when I listened to his book on your podcast. And this is incredible. I was like. And that really inspired me. I'll be honest. It's worked. It works for itself. And it's funny because now I go around places and people, what's going on? And I have to sit down or I don't sit down. I don't like sitting now. But I teach them what I do. It's simple. It's fruits and vegetables. Lean meats. Yeah, lean meats and nuts and seeds. I essentially leaned out my fitness strategy if you want to put it that way.

Did you stop eating bread?

I stopped eating everything that's not fruits and vegetables, lean meats, nuts and seeds essentially. People think I'm insane, but I tell them, if you can't grow it or if you can't kill it, I'm not eating it.

Yes, yes. Hey, listen, I've done the same things and I've been at it for about 60 days and I've lost 20 pounds. I did 160 pushups this morning in 15 minutes. So I feel better than I ever have in my life. So good on you and everybody else that hasn't kind of adopted that approach to lean health. You don't have to go all berserk like we are, but our bodies are all we got. Right. So if you don't take care of it, then it doesn't really matter how good you are at lean or anything, you're not going to be around or be effective. Right? So, yeah, Very good, very good. Hey, so is there anything that surprised you this past year as you've been practicing and implementing continuous improvement?

Yeah, there's definitely. So kind of. One key thing is what I found is when you engage the front lines from like a curiosity perspective, improvement ideas, the possibilities are endless. You, when you just ask what problems do you have? They'll open up. They'll really open up and engage them. And it's like, and this is a true story, I finished teaching, I think I taught a yellow belt course and there was a young Marine, 19, 20, and she came to me in tears and she's like, I've never seen someone at your level teach and respect the class like you did. And it means a lot to me. I'm mentoring kind of one of the persons that's working under me. He's much younger and I treat him as an equal. I kind of have a, I try to model a servant leadership kind of style. Just follow me and we'll figure this out together. And he taught the majority of the class. And so it was kind of, I think that's really what inspires me is when I see people being moved and wanting to improve simply by me not saying you have to do it this way because let's face it, I serve in a top down command and control organization institution. But it's designed that way because on the battlefield direct obedience to orders could be the difference between life or death. But when it comes to continuous improvement, it's counterintuitive. So it's difficult. We've had to kind of restructure thought process. I've had to others. We're struggling through that. But I think that's. That's one of the big things that I've kind of come to realize over the last year.

So if things aren't going well for you, having a bad day and you need to recharge and refocus, do you have a routine or ritual yet you follow?

Yeah, I do. So first thing I do is I kind of have to get away from the area. If it's like if I'm leading a team or involved in a team, mentoring a team, that I got to get away and just kind of do some reflection, see what's really going on. I like to walk, so I kind of just get away for a little bit, go do some walking and then just pray about it as well. Kind of, hey, God, what's going on here? So that's kind of my thing is those three is reflection, prayer, and just getting away and walking. So I am in California. I could say that I go to the beach, which I do every now and then.

Yeah.

But it's more than that. It's really trying to understand what's going on. Am I not connecting with these people or am I just. So it's. It's about doing some deep reflection. Yeah. Doing prayer and just. And trying to understand. Yes.

Love it. Love it. Do you have a knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve in order to become a better lean thinker?

There's a lot of areas, but I would say every area. But to drill it down, I think I really need to get better at coaching and mentoring and teaching. So it's about the people. I'm pretty good at the tools, I would say, but it's about how can I make the others good at using the tools, be continuous, improvement minded. So I think that's an area and I'm working through it. I'm daily trying to. Trying to improve on that area. So I say that was my area.

Yes. Got it. Wow. Fantastic episode. Samuel, one last thing before I ask you to share some final words of wisdom. I know you recently written a chapter in Mark Graben's Lean Pub ebook. Tell us about that.

It's a great work. And essentially what happened. I do some writing and it wasn't about publicity or nothing like that. I do writing to share with my Marines so that I can teach them some lessons I've learned over the last six years. And I just got inspired one day and I reached out to several people that really influenced me and Mark Graben is one of them. And I said, hey Mark, thanks for all the work you do. I've been listening to your podcast and reading your blog. I shared with him an article that I wrote for my Marines, kind of just reflections over the last six years. And then I heard back from him and he really liked it and he wanted to put in his book. And I was kind of skeptical at first. And then I realized all the funds are going to a non profit patient safety organization. I was like, I'm all for that. So, so I got, I got my work published. It's chapter nine in the book Practicing Lean. I think it's leanpub.com practicing lean. So the two really, really quick. The premise of the book is, number one is you practice lean, you don't implement, you don't think, you don't do lean. You practice lean. Doctors or physicians practice medicine, medicine, lawyers practice law. We should be practicing continuous improvement. And that kind of goes to show for that kind of. In my organization, I refer to myself as a continuous process improvement practitioner. Right. My team, I refer to us, we're CPI practitioners. So I think that's the one premise. And the other premise is it's trying to be written from a perspective of humility, of saying, what lessons have we learned to make us better, others better. Right. Early on in our journey. And I'm probably the youngest or the least experienced, so I don't even feel like I even come close to the others that are in there. I mean, one of my guys, one of the people that I look up to, I'm being published with, and I'm like, that is incredible.

Yeah. But none of those people are protecting our freedom, so don't sell yourself short. Well, fantastic. Yeah. Mark's a great guy, great friend of mine, and highly encourage everybody to go check. We'll link to it in the show notes how to get that leanpub book. All right, Tamon, well, let's go ahead and wrap this show up with you sharing some final words of wisdom. And then why don't you tell people how they can best connect with you?

Okay, so first off, I want to say thank you to some people, groups of people. It's really quick. It's not by name, but number one is thanking God for putting me in a position to learn what I've learned and be exposed to continuous improvement and be able to stay where I'm at for so long and learn and practice. So that's number one. And number two is thanking my family for supporting me on my Crazy habits. And in Christmas time, I don't get typical gifts. I get books related to continuous improvement, Toyota and leadership and these. That's just the thing that he does. And then finally, my mentors thanking my mentors, they know who they are that have really developed me and coached me over the years and sometimes just kicked me in the butt when I needed to be kicked in the butt. So they know who they are. All these people know who they are. So just thank those three groups. Yes. So kind of my last words, I'm going to kind of leave with a quote. And I think this is really the heart of continuous improvement and I don't think it's ever been out there on your show. But Babe Ruth once said, don't let the fear of striking out get in the way. So I think we have to get away from thinking about it. We just need to go do we need to experiment and we need to learn how to fail and fail fast. So I think that's my last words of advice. And I've only been doing continuous program for six years and I enjoy this journey and I'm transitioning from the Marine Corps and I'm excited about it. So I think that's kind of my words of advice. And it's just been an honor. I've been listening to you and I never would have thought that I'd be on the show. I never thought that I'd get to talk to Mark Graben. I've never thought that I get to be able to communicate with Paul Akers. And it's incredible, incredible this, this lean community. It's a sharing community. And I just, I want to thank, thank you to you and everyone around that has made this happen. Wow.

It's our pleasure and it's fantastic hearing from folks like you who are, who are really doing it and again, protecting our freedom. So I don't know any American really listening to this that doesn't genuinely appreciate all of your efforts is a little crazy.

So.

All right, well. And to connect with you. Is LinkedIn the best way that is.

I don't have a Twitter, but maybe one day, eventually. LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn.

Okay. And again, it's Samuel. S A M U E L S E L A y. Go to LinkedIn and connect with him and you won't be sorry. Great guy. All right, Samuel, well, listen, thanks again and hopefully we can meet up and find person one day and we can go do some, some lean, lean health workout or something. All right, take care, my friend.

All right. Thank you.

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