S4:E61 🎙️LIVE with COL Fred Stein, U.S. Army (Ret.)

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All right everybody, uh, this is Coach Bizzy. Thank you so much for being here with me today live on LinkedIn. YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. So thank you so much for being here. I have a very, very special guest today. But before we get started, let's have our moment of gratitude. This is where I'm gonna ask you to just close your eyes for one second and put yourself in your happy place and think about one thing, one thing that you are grateful for today. Again, part of the reason why I do this is because in the military, say it's about 21, 22 Veterans every single day commit suicide because of mental health, and I think you cannot be suicidal if you are grateful. So every day I want to be grateful for one and only one thing. So what is that thing for you? Today I am grateful to be an American. I believe America is a great country and it is a blessing to be a U.S. citizen in 2025. So whatever you are grateful for, please type it in the comment, and thank you so much for participating. All right, so, uh, today I'm gonna be, uh, speaking with an incredible person. Uh, let me get his website right here. Colonel Fred Stein, uh, on LinkedIn. So he is a legendary U.S. Army leader, pioneer of network-centric warfare, co-author of the groundbreaking books that reshaped modern military strategy. But, uh, he's commanded the 7th Signal Brigade to helping field Blue Force Striker and teaching the next generation of leaders Colonel Stein's story is one of vision, courage, and transformation. So with no further ado, let me bring Colonel Fred Stein. How are you doing today, Colonel?

I'm fine, thank you very much, BZ. Honored to be on your show.

Thank you so much for being here. Sir, what is one thing about you that most people may not know?

Well, I have a fairly private life, so there's probably a good deal they don't know, but they may not know how bad a golfer I am or how much trouble I have speaking publicly, even though I do it a great deal under stress. So I sometimes hide those, hide the bad golf, and I hopefully hide the nervousness I have when I speak in front of large audiences. So I think it's not knowing those.

That is very interesting because I think the last time I read the statistic, they say most people are afraid to speak in public than to die or pay taxes, which is incredible. But as a colonel, I know as a senior officer in any branch of the military, you kind of have to speak a lot in front of the troops and so forth. I guess that is something that many speakers have had to deal with, just the anxiety to speak publicly. I'm just speaking generally speaking. Do you have some tips or secret things that kind of help you get over the anxiety and speak freely?

Uh, that's a great question, Bizzy, and I would say, and I give all credit to the Army, and I don't know if they still do it or not, but at Command and General Staff College and then later at War College, the Army used a tool called the Myers-Briggs information or personality profile tool. Test is the wrong word. It's really— it gave me great insight into why I function like I do internally. I'm what they call an INTJ, and the audience may wish to look that up. But the key to that is that I tend to draw energy from myself, not others, and I'm stressed when I'm put on a stage. And so knowing about yourself, I think, helps you a great deal in handling the stress. You know why you're under stress rather than just be bemused that you are. Or scared that you are. And so I think knowing about yourself personality-wise was key, and the Army did that fairly early. And that's not the only tool, that's just the one that, that I have used.

Wow, and that is great to know. And also I want to remind everybody who's watching live right now, please let us know where you are tuning in from, what city-state, and if outside of the US, what country. And also if this is going to be helpful to you, please think of someone in your network and tag them so they can join the conversation as well. And most importantly, if you have a question for the Colonel, please type it in the comment and we're gonna make sure to get your question live while we are here. Thank you, thank you so much. So Colonel, can you tell us a little bit about your leadership journey?

Well, it began like most people pretty early. My father was an Air Force veteran of World War II, a navigator bombardier. And then proceeded into Signal. I grew up in high school period during Vietnam era, had an Army ROTC scholarship and went to Georgia Institute of Technology, which has a branch school which was Signal, and I followed in that one pretty much because, if not expected, it was what I wanted to do. Like most people, and I'm sure you were the same, I wasn't sure at all that the Army or any service was this is my career. It turned out to the benefit of myself primarily, and I hope to those who I served and led to be an excellent place. And so it started off, and I can't imagine having not served, frankly. It just was the absolute right thing for me.

And what inspired you to serve as a signal corps officer? Why is that MOS?

Well, that one was predominantly because I was at Georgia Tech in engineering school and my father had had communication experience in the Air Force. And frankly, one is never sure what you're going to do. So it seemed to be, geez, if I go into the Army for 4 years, I'll have something reasonable for industry coming out. It turned out I did use it years later, 27 years later. But I think it was just an idea that it was a technical skill. Yet it was still an area where leadership— and leadership is present throughout all the services in all the areas, whether you're an Air Force crew member or Navy officer or enlisted or Army— leadership is key through all of those. I might add, leadership to me is different than management. We can talk about that perhaps later, but it really is a key difference. That's what motivated me to stay. I like being a leader.

Yes, let's talk about this. How would you differentiate leadership from management, sir?

So management to me is managing or taking care of resources other than people. And so it's taking care of money, fuel, ammunition, whatever other categories of supply. There's 7 to 10 categories of supply. People, however, have to be led. I don't think they're managed. I think they have to be led and they have to be motivated. And so leadership is fundamentally to me different than the management of all the other resources. I'm not suggesting people aren't a resource, but I'm suggesting that they are not managed, they should be led.

Wow, that is very, very fascinating. I think one of my heroes, General Colin Powell, talks about how leadership is key, right? It's not about organization or org chart and all of that, but really dealing and influencing people. I think one way he put it, management may get you to 100% capacity, but leadership will take you to 110%. So it's that motivation. And in my own experience too, you know, I've seen how in the military, compared to the industry, we don't get paid as much. I think many ways we have better benefits, but what would inspire, right, the sailor or the soldier to your right and to your left to take a bullet for you I can tell you that is much more than, you know, just having a job or how much money you make. In the military, we definitely work for a vision, a mission that is much greater than ourselves. So it's almost impossible to replicate in the industry because nobody at Google or Microsoft will ever take a bullet for me. I can guarantee you that. But anyway, so in your leadership journey, looking back, is there a A moment or some moments that you believe in your career that you feel most shaped the leader you became?

Again, a great question, BZ, and a hard one. I will give you two brief stories. They took place when I was in the 93rd Signal Battalion in Darmstadt, Germany, which I went on later to command as a 440th. And it's a funny story, and your leaders will, your followers will understand it. And I think non-military may. But we had an inspection coming up and I was, additional duty was a motor officer. I spent the weekend working upstairs at the battalion or platoon headquarters on paperwork. And the motor sergeant and crew spent the time in the motor pool doing their thing. Monday morning, I arrived back in the motor pool to see how things were going. And the grizzly old sergeant, Staff Sergeant E6, kind of looked at young Lieutenant and said, "Well, I wish you'd have come down for the weekend, sir." Now, I in fact was working that weekend, but I didn't show up where the troops were. And I didn't argue because it was clear that wasn't the thing to do, but it impacted me greatly of saying I should have walked down there. And that was key. The other key event was I had two battalion commanders, one Colonel Parton, he's passed away, and Colonel Barker, and I don't know him. Parton I didn't like originally. He was hardcore. He was dictatorial, I thought. I didn't think he'd listen to people. I thought the rules were too strict. By the way, he was dealing with a unit that was very young. Vietnam was still going on. We had very young officers. He was replaced by Colonel Barker, who was a much friendlier, nicer guy, listened to people, and the unit performed for him. And I came to realize that Colonel Parton When you heard something from Horton, it was what was going to happen. There was no equivocation. With Barker, who was a nicer guy, but he left things indeterminate. And I think leaders need to make things clear. They need to listen. They need to reflect. But the orders and operations need to be clear so that they can be followed out, as you know, in peacetime or in combat, in normal times and in crises. And so Parton was in fact a much better leader, and I tried to model after him, even though Barker was more liked, if you will.

Yes, that is so important, right? The, uh, uh, responsibility of leadership, right? I guess in the Navy, I'm sure you guys say it in the Army too, right? Mission first, people always. But first and foremost, you do have to be competent and you have to accomplish your mission. That's why the Navy or the Army puts you in charge. And if you can accomplish the mission of your organization, then you may be a nice leader, you can be likable, but you failed. And, uh, you know, you need to take care of the mission while taking care of your people too. Actually, what my mentor told me is take care of the people and the people will make sure they take care of the mission. But, uh, wow, that is, that is powerful. So I've read your command philosophy. So you highlight a lot of core values: competence, candor, commitment, courage, competitiveness, compassion, and command climate. And I think that's one big difference between the Army and the Navy. Like, I believe the core values for the Army is like 7 or 9 of them. For the Navy, we only have 3. That's it. Honor, courage, commitment. End of the day, every sailor you ask, enlisted officer, come on, honor, courage, commitment. Until I die, those 3 things will always— I will always be reminded of them. In my opinion, that's just my opinion, 3 to 5 core values is good, but in the Army, going like 7, 9, That is a lot. But anyway, having said all of that, which of these core values do you feel was the hardest to practice consistently as a commander and why?

Well, and you're right, by the way, these were my 7. I think you're probably right, 5 or less is probably a better idea. I think first they're all very important, but the real answer is courage. And courage is, as you know, and your listeners know, is divided into physical courage, the willingness to put yourself in harm's way, which we all hope we have, we all hope we experience, we all hope we exhibit. The second one is moral courage, which I think is tested more frequently and is just as important. And so I would class among those, and I think they're all important, if you're not competent, you really can't be a leader, if you're not candid, etc. If you're not compassionate. But you have to have courage, and you have to have moral and physical courage. A quick example of that was when I took command of the battalion, the higher order commander was very, very emphatic about maintenance, which is vitally important in the organization. Yes. But when I went out to the field, I found that we went to the same place every time in Germany. Frankly, I didn't think we were prepared to go to war. At that time was Warsaw Pact. I changed the focus. I meant to, quote, enlarge the focus. Of course, what happened was I shifted the focus. I shifted the focus to operations rather than maintenance. Frankly, was on the edge of getting a pretty bad report card from my leader. To my mind, it was the right thing to do because the unit wasn't preparing itself to go to war. Now, I'm not suggesting maintenance isn't important. But it was— the operations were suffering. And of course, what you need is a balance. And so I did what I thought was right. I won't tell you the rest of the story unless we have time, but the senior to the guy who was my boss ended up rescuing me from, from that and allowing my career to continue.

Now, that is the story I have seen over and over again. When I was enlisted, that wasn't much of an issue. But as a junior officer, just know, because as a junior officer, one thing I've learned, my mentor told me, is to see everything, hear everything, but keep your big mouth shut, right? So I pay attention and kind of know, uh, I guess analyze the room, especially my skipper, what they do well, what they do wrong, and kind of learn from their leadership. But, uh, it really takes courage for you to do the right thing for your people. Like myself, when I was a commanding officer a couple of times, I really got in trouble because I really, really wanted to take care of my people and my superior didn't see it the same way. So it does, it, it does happen. But however, in the military, where we have so many structures and, uh, you could literally be putting your own promotion, your own future as a leader in the service on the line at times. Uh, so I guess the question I am asking you, sir, how do you I guess, decide which fight, uh, which, which hill to die on, right? Is it really worth it? Or maybe, you know, you keep your strength and you're gonna fight the, uh, the next battle?

Yeah, I think— I know it's a good question.

The—

an example of that was later on with the same unit, uh, we were unmanned undermanned, I suppose is the proper term, which is not infrequent. And I had to determine to put more people— I had to determine to put the full crews on the weapon systems and leave some weapon systems uncrewed. And that reflected in my readiness report, which is signed by a battalion commander and goes all the way up to the Department of Defense. Well, we ended up going into the yellow to the red when everybody else was green. And my boss asked me the question and I said, well, I would rather have 5 of these work properly than 10 of them work improperly. And if that makes me red in Manning or red, then that's the honest reporting. So that's a battle I chose to fight. You're right. There are other battles that you look at and say, well, those are important, but perhaps perhaps not to die on your sword with it. But I guess at 70, almost 77, my memory is probably filled with ones that I did rather than ones that I sort of washed away on. But you're correct, it is a balancing act, certainly.

Well, and another thing you really mentioned I think is very important. I know in the Navy we have all of those dashboards as a CEO on how you are being rated and how your command is going. And most people, I wouldn't say they don't lie, but they like to see everything green. So sometimes they would rather pretend that things are going very, very well so they can get the I marks and stuff, great evaluation, but actually dealing with the actual problem at end. But I think that culture has been changing a little bit, at least in the last 5, 7 years in the Navy for sure, with embracing the red. It's kind of the the new culture that was kind of pushed down to us. I think it's important to be very honest about where you are. And then if there are issues, of course, you definitely want to take care of those issues at the lowest level possible and as soon as possible. But I guess as a leader, I guess there is a balance, right? Again, you say courage was one of your core values. It definitely takes a lot of courage to tell your boss, yes, things are not where they need to be right now, but I know about it, and this is my plan how I'm going to fix this. But I don't know if there is anything you want us to say more about that. But because we do have quite a few aspiring military leaders who watch, this podcast, like even when we talk about command climate, what does that actually mean in practice?

Yeah, it's a great question. So, and command climate, and I think the buzzword now, and again, I have gotten past— I am no longer getting old, I am old. So I guess today we might call it culture. But it's the atmosphere that surrounds the command set by the commander.

Yes.

A story, a brief story to give an example. If you run a staff conference and you're the boss, you're the leader, captain, major, sergeant, whatever level, and ideas are put about and you as a leader suggest an idea and you don't get a response, You should know immediately something's wrong. Either you're the smartest guy in the room, or gal in the room, and that's probably not the case, or, uh, it's really the very best idea around. That may be. Or people don't think you value their opinion enough to share it, or worse, they're scared to share it. But in any case, if you don't get a response, then your clan climate is probably suspect. And if it's suspect in a minor incident of a staff meeting, then it becomes even more suspect in a crisis condition. One of the questions, one of the great questions you had earlier, sent me and said, what happens during a crisis in command climate? It's too late. Your command climate has to be set in those staff rooms so that it works in a crisis. And so if you don't get those responses, you need to look internally and say, is something wrong.

Wow, that is powerful. Yeah, it, it kind of leads into the next question I had for you, talking about crisis. During your deployment in Rwanda and Bosnia, you led communication in an incredibly complex environment. What leadership lesson did you take from those experiences that remain relevant today?

In both cases, uh, but in particular, we'll take Rwanda It was picking the right experts to take with me because you can't take everybody. The Navy is a little bit different. I think you have LDOs, limited duty officers. We have warrant officers. I think they are somewhat the same. I hope I'm not wrong on that. Warrant officers in the Army are technical experts. They're also leaders, but they're technical experts. And I was blessed of having some good ones, and I took the right ones down there. Because we had to end up putting a satellite terminal on a roof in Goma— or in Kigali. And it was a very difficult operation because it wasn't designed to do that at the time. And for those who don't know it, because I didn't, Kigali is almost on the equator, and therefore the satellites move a great deal, figure 8, a much larger figure 8 than they do elsewhere. You get a bit of trivia. So the whole thing revolved around taking the right people with me and also leaving the right people back at home in command. And so there is a case of knowing the competency of the people surrounding you and picking the right ones. And then, of course, allowing them to do their job. I often say, and I'm sure your listeners are fond of hearing, you can delegate authority and you should, but you can never delegate responsibility. And so the ship driver is responsible or the commander is responsible. Uh, you underwrite mistakes some, you don't underwrite them indefinitely. If there are too many mistakes, then you have to take action, but you, you underwrite mistakes. You, you delegate authority and you keep the responsibility for failure on yourself. I'm sorry, a long answer to relative.

No, no, that is, uh, that, that is so important. And, uh, one thing I've learned when I was a CEO. When my team did very, very well, share the credit with everybody. And then when they did very, very bad, take all of the blame. And, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's incredible. So, uh, you were part of the Joint Chief of Staff, JSIX, and you helped develop the network-centric warfare. And that's for not just for the Army, but the entire DOD. And later you co-authored the the book. So for those unfamiliar, how do you explain network-centric warfare in simple terms?

Yeah, I was very fortunate to serve under Admiral Cebrowski, God rest his soul. Brilliant, brilliant individual, certainly the smartest man I ever worked with. I would leave his office hoping I understood 10% of what he had to say, knowing it was all important. But network-centric warfare has to do fundamentally with the concept of information and information sharing. Information superiority, not dominance, and that's important. Information superiority is what you want to gain on the enemy. An example would be air superiority over the channel, English Channel on D-Day. The Germans flew, I think, two missions, two Messerschmitts or two Focke-Wulfs in the whole period. Of strafing, and so the US and British had air dominance and superiority over that. Information superiority, knowing— is knowing more than your enemy knows, certainly about yourself and to a lesser extent about them. Of course, red is often much harder to acquire than blue, so network-centric warfare had to do with establishing the positions of mobile weapon systems on the battlefield, tanks, helicopters, APCs, not individuals yet. And that gave us the idea that, and we've often heard the comment, knowledge is power. I would rephrase that. I would say shared knowledge is power. And only if it's shared. Then NCW allowed you to self-synchronize. That's allowing units to move without direct command in support of each other.— it's actually a mathematical term, but it has to do with movement without direction. That then allowed you the final thing, because you had to have a reason for all this, and that was to get inside the enemy's OODA loop— observe, orient, decide, and act— John Boyd's philosophy or concepts of the Air Force. And that had to do with speed of command. And very briefly, speed of command is probably easily illustrated in a manner of having American football and soccer. American football, which many of us played, obviously is a violent game punctuated by periods of rest or at least passing of knowledge in the huddle and then violent execution. Football, or Fußball, or soccer is a continuous game. There is no huddling. And so if you are playing soccer, when your opponent is playing football, you will get inside their oodle loop.

Wow, that is powerful. Now, today's the age of AI, right? In today's environment with artificial intelligence-driven operation, cyber warfare, and disinformation, what parallel do you see with the early days of NCW?

Yeah, again, great question. So AI, like most technologies, and your audience is familiar with, has those curves of acceptance, over-acceptance, etc. I had originally— I've spoken a good deal on my lectures with senior citizens about using AI, and I've started to use AI to some extent as well. I think AI has great potential. I think obviously it has areas of great concern. Deepfakes and fakes for political reasons or other reasons are a real issue with AI, and just bad information. Sometimes you ask a question and it gives you information But AI is clearly the next thing. Whether— I think we talked a little before we started this, and I mentioned that maybe you will have an AI where you have somebody sitting on your shoulder that you can turn and say, well, this is a situation. What might others have done with it historically? It won't be exact, but it will allow you the guidelines or guide rails, if you will. And so where AI is, It's approaching that. On the other hand, imagination, common sense, and innovation are not AI. Those are human, and so we need to distinguish. We've got to stop arguing about the human brain and the digital brain. They operate fundamentally differently, and AI, as good as it is, is not going to be innovative. It's not going to have common sense, and those are human aspects that need to be married to it.

Wow, that is quite powerful. And definitely for the military, but I think in the industry too, it's important to have human oversight always, because I can't really think of having autonomous drone or things driven by AI alone. And that's going to be a disaster. But anyway, now you are retired. You teach courses on topics like digital natives. Revolution in Military Affairs and Disinformation. What leadership lessons emerge from studying history that young leaders often miss?

Yeah, I have always loved reading history, and we'll discuss books a little bit later, but even historical fiction, I think, is excellent. I think— 3 quick comments. I'm clearly a digital immigrant. I gave a talk in Japan years ago, and the Admiral with simultaneous translation, which I might add is very, very difficult. And he said, Colonel Stein, or Dr. Stein, I'm not a doctor, but they often referred to me as Dr. Stein, I am not a digital immigrant. And I was sort of taken aback and the audience was taken aback. And then he had this little smile on his face. He said, I'm a digital prophet. And so We have to be aware that generations always speak a little bit different language, but I think the language that digital natives speak and the language that digital immigrants speak is increasingly different and the accents are increasingly different. Wow. And so that's a huge impact. Military affairs are being impacted. We see the war in Ukraine, which I follow very closely, as well as the war in Israel. And certainly the use of AI and drones and the combination of drones is revolutionizing warfare. And then finally, in the information/disinformation, I would suggest to the audience, and I'm sure they're aware of it already, it's been around a long time. We've had frauds and schemes since Babylonian times. We've had metals that's been cut and not worth as much. I suspect we've had this, which I call half-truths, which I think bother me the most. That is cherry-picking. For instance, saying unemployment dropped 2% last year, not mentioning that it spiked 10% the year before, and so it's really up 8%. If you don't tell the whole story, you're giving bad information, and you're using, I think, the most worst thing, you're using the truth to tell a lie. And it's gotten easier and easier as we go into the digital technologies. And I'm not even, and again, not going into the VR and IR and deepfakes and cheapfakes, the subject of another discussion. But I think the half-truths bother me the most, and I think that's what we have to be most. So we really do have to ask the probing questions and ask the second and tertiary questions before we sign up for whatever truth it is.

Wow, that is so important. Thank you. Thanks so much. That is really great advice. So we are about to switch over to the second segment of the podcast. Before we do, are there any questions from the first segment you wish I had asked you or you wanted to answer?

No, I have listened to your podcast before and you gave me this list of questions and I went over with my wife and You did fairly poorly, I hope.

Oh no, that is, that's been just fantastic.

They are quite good. You have developed, I'm sure, over time, because none of this comes easy, an excellent set of questions.

Thank you, thank you so much, sir. So for this second segment where we focus strictly on leadership, first category of question I ask is, uh, what is the greatest lesson you have learned so far, sir?

I guess probably over time to become more humble and to have more patience. And in a small sense, I used to be sarcastic, and I recognize that sarcasm, frankly, is the lowest form of humor and isn't beneficial to anybody and picks on people, and it's just wrong. And so as I've aged, I hope I have become more patient. I certainly hope I listen more. And I never meant to make fun of people, but I think I did inadvertently. And those are the lessons that I really have tried to be better about.

That is great. And what do you think, sir, is the secret of your incredible success?

Well, marrying the right woman really helps. Yes. I think without question. She's been wonderful through all my career. The children and grandchildren are nice. This is an idol. I never— I played a little golf in my youth. I didn't play very much. I shifted to tennis because golf frankly took too much time away from the family. Once I retired, and every day's a Saturday, I've taken up golf. And what it's taught me is you have a bad shot, you get angry, and then you move on to the next shot. If you allow it to bug you, your next shot will be bad. So you really do have to say, got it, did it wrong, move on. Learn from it, but move on.

Wow, that is, uh, powerful. And what do you think, sir, is the greatest leadership advice you have ever received?

Probably the old, uh, The old phrase from Canterbury Tales, "Gladly would he learn and gladly would he teach," I think are really useful phrases. And the order of those are important. Learn and then teach. And so learn from others and then be willing to teach. So the old— and I didn't do it in Old English because I can't do it very well, but Canterbury Tales, I think, is probably the Well, that is powerful.

And many times in my own life, I didn't really learn something until I started teaching it. That's when you really get into the minutiae and really actually learn. So talking about learning, as a leader, what are you learning now? I know that leaders are learners. Anything you are reading, learning?

Yeah, well, because I— two things I did upon retirement. One was take up golf and establish a new set of friendships. Served on a couple of not-for-profit boards, interesting and difficult, but then started to teach at what they called Senior University. It's now called Lifelong Learning. And I taught a series of courses, first Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives. But lately I've been teaching ones. I taught 12 Decisive Battles in World History, and now I'm embarking on 12 Decisive or 12 Important Partnerships in World History. And so the book I just finished reading, I actually didn't mention it to you on the other one, called The Partnership between George Marshall and Henry Stimson. And so I do a lot of reading, forcing myself to learn about partnerships that frankly I knew nothing about, some of medieval partnerships. And so that's forcing me to continue to learn. It's a bit stressful sometimes, but stress is good.

Wow, that is fantastic. So How has failure shaped your life? We talked about failure briefly earlier.

Yeah, I have been fortunate that I haven't been challenged the way many, many people have. We haven't lost loved ones that many have. I'm starting to lose friends because I'm getting older. I think the way you deal with failure is to learn from it and then move on. It's too easy to wallow in self-pity, if you will. I was guilty of that briefly, or more than briefly. I was selected but not pinned on for general officer, long story, and for a while that bugged me, and then I realized, no, I move on, and that allowed me to help go off the book and do NCW with MITRE. And in some small way help our nation there. So as it's often, often we've heard, when one door closes, another opens. And that's how you have to deal with failure.

Wow, that is quite powerful. Can you share a moment, sir, when your values were tested as a leader and what you learned from it?

I think I'm not sure values were tested as much as my vision of humanity was tested in Rwanda and in Bosnia. And what I mean by that is when you saw the slaughters that occurred in both, we weren't present during the slaughter, but you saw the results of it. And I remember asking the ambassador in Rwanda who we'd helped out and got communications back to his family. I said, "Sir, we came down here rather quickly. How do you tell a Hutu from a Tutsi?" And he looked at me and he said, "Because they carry ID cards and they knew who they were slaughtering." Wow. Now there are some physical differences in their marriage, but the fact is they knew who they were. They knew who the cockroaches were, as the phrase went.

Yes.

When I flew over the battlefield from Tisza in Hungary to Sarajevo, in a helicopter, I saw the same thing. I saw villages that were completely undestroyed, partially destroyed, and totally destroyed. The only difference was whether you were a Serb, a Croat, or a Muslim living in those villages. And so my faith in humanity, I suppose, was stressed when I saw how thin the veneer of civilization really is. And that's why— and your listeners are part of this— that's why a military, a strong military in all branches, is important, because frankly, the veneer is pretty thin. Wow.

Yes, but I guess we need to keep positive and hope in our humanity. Yeah, I guess there are some, some things in history we just cannot explain, right? Uh, it is, it is sad. I guess that makes me appreciate more, you know, our country, America, the rule of law, and kind of the values we stand for. And, uh, probably part of the reason why after 9/11 when I decided to, to join the Navy, I feel like America is definitely an idea worth fighting for. Uh, it's incredible. Okay, so now I'm gonna ask you about some of your mentors or thought leaders, people dead or alive who have kind of fashion your sense of being, leading, or doing things. Who would you recommend that we follow or learn more about?

Well, it's first for everybody, hopefully, and it's not always the case, it's their parents, certainly your mother and your father. Historically, I believe that George Washington Was an American, Cincinnatus, for those who remember the history. He gave up power as well as saved the nation by giving up power. Was he a great general? He was, he was a great strategist. He wasn't necessarily tactically right all the time, but he held the, held the army together at Valley Forge. He was a great president, and then he gave up power. Abraham Lincoln fought the war that made America what it is, did away with the horrible institution of slavery. Recognized that we were one nation and had a diverse cabinet that, that was frankly not a very nice cabinet, and yet he made it work. And of course he had personal tragedies. His, his younger son died while he was in office. And then Winston Churchill, who sometimes comes and goes with history, but, but at one time I think was sort of considered the, the greatest man alive. His his leadership in England. Uh, did he have flaws? Sure. Was he on the wrong side of the India issue? Probably so. But, uh, comparing him and Gandhi is always a great read. In fact, there's a great book about those two. But Churchill led his nation, uh, through difficult times and always did what he thought was right, and there was no question about that. Uh, and so those are the three, uh, historical figures, uh, that I think are useful for anybody. There are many more, certainly many, many more as well. You just showed a thing with Eric Hoffer. Eric Hoffer, I thought, was a great author. I thought the idea of what constitutes cults and so forth in True Believer was a wonderful book. It's a thin book. It's about mass movements. I don't know if it's read very much anymore, but I just thought he was a brilliant philosopher. He's of course an example of a longshoreman. He didn't have a formal education, taught himself.

Wow.

He's one of the great philosophers of the nation, not read as often as I would like to see him read.

Wow, that is really extraordinary. So we've already mentioned the book by Eric Arthur, The True Believer: A Thought on the Nature of Mass Movement. What other books would you recommend to members of my audience?

Yeah, I think 3 others would be— well, a couple of those would be A Walk in the Sun.

And I guess you also mentioned the partnership earlier.

I'm glad you brought it up. Yeah, it's one I read recently and actually promoted me in my quest to teach another series of 12 classes on essential partnerships. And Stimson and Marshall— people know more about Marshall than Stimson, but their partnership really did change shape the United States. Walk in the Sun has a movie, the book is better, but Walk in the Sun is a thin book that portrays what happens when your, when your company commander is killed, your, your platoon leader is killed, your platoon sergeant is killed, and yet you, and yet you go on and do the mission. Is the mission vital? I don't know. They took the bridge or didn't take the bridge, you have to read the book, but they went on, and they went on in the face of serious issues for them, strafing of enemy aircraft, a guy losing himself because of combat fatigue. A very small but very good book, like True Believer, not a big one to read, doesn't take a lot of time, but takes a lot of thought, I think.

Yeah, and I believe that's probably, in my opinion, one of the biggest difference between the US armed services, which I think is the greatest military in the world. And I think one of the reasons is because of leadership. Even when I joined the Navy 20 years ago, even as an E-1, already my chief were trying to, you know, change my culture, my way of thinking, and really get me to become a leader, even as the lowest-ranked person in the entire unit. Whereas I think in most other militaries, once you take care of the general or the commander or the captain, then everybody's just dispersed, right? I think, was it Alexander the Great who says, "I'd rather be—" something about lion and ship. I am more afraid, right, of ships being led by a lion—

The quote you may be looking for, and it's not one I necessarily agree with, but "lions led by donkeys," and that's a quote from World War I Actually, one of the podcasts that I was going to recommend is Not So Quiet on the Western Front, which is a podcast about World War I. I knew a lot more about World War II, but World War I I didn't. And one of the podcast members is Dr. Spencer Jones, who I've gotten to know. He's come over here and spoken at our small university on Churchill, and he's coming over on World War I. It's a war that needs more study, particularly with the Ukraine situation, which in a manner of speaking has attributes of World War I as well as attributes of, we hope not, World War III, but future warfare. Yes.

Wow.

Other books I recommend, not a particularly easy read, but Linked by Barbosa, is an interesting book that I think gives an idea of what, of how how information spreads in a digital environment and what power laws are. And I actually try to explain that. That's Wikinomics. Wikinomics is also a good one. Wikinomics is everything linked in together, but Linked is actually a separate one. And then a book that I would recommend, it's gotten old in the tooth, but I think people would like it.

Oh, sorry. This is the new one.

The New Science of Networks. Got it. The last one, BZ, I would do is Common Sense Training by Lieutenant General Arthur S. Hodge. Oh, yes. It's a classic. Again, these are older books, but I think leadership is regardless of service. As you properly state, regardless of rank, there have been many, many examples of physical and moral courage and leadership shown at the very lowest ranks. Marshaling forces. It's not an uncommon, not an uncommon one. Yes.

Actually, the exact quote by Alexander the Great, "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a shepherd.

I'm afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." And that one's a better quote. Yeah. The other one is one that they used after World War I in England to criticize the general officers, but that's a better quote. You're right. Absolutely.

Yes. And so we've already mentioned for podcasts, so, uh, World War I: Not So Quiet. Uh, any other podcasts you would recommend? I, I kind of sample a number.

Uh, Talking Strategy. RUSI is the, is, is the British Institute. It has really professional people speaking on that one. And then West Point. I didn't go to West Point, but West Point has a number of them. War on the Rocks. In particular is very good. I try to make sure that I listen to ones that are as apolitical as you can be. Obviously everybody has their own political slant, but these are ones that I find try to present as much of the whole story and don't use that— don't use the half-truths on it. So I find those to be particularly good. I'll sometimes listen to some of the technological ones, techie ones. They're okay, But I think the ones mentioned are good ones that may not be— World War I was simply a war that I didn't know as much about, and so I found it fascinating. I'll put a teaser out there. Does any of your audience know anything about Q-ships? Because I didn't until recently. I'll leave it at that.

Joe, I've read a lot of books, probably more than 2,500 books since I was 17 years old. Most of the books you mentioned, I had already read, but this one I've never read, The General. Can you tell me a little bit about this? I believe this was a British general.

So that's fascinating. You probably are familiar with the Hornblower series by C.S. Forester. Yes. That's the famous one. Great series. I love the series. I love Captain Hornblower. Lots of leadership stories and lessons. But C.S. Forester—

He actually inspired me to John Boon movie too.

Great story. In a way. Great series. But he also wrote The General. The General was about an officer that went through the ranks of the British from the Boer Wars through World War I, and he ended up not performing particularly well in World War I, which was not— which was often the case. What I found fascinating about the book was that Hitler made all of his general staff read it. And remember, Hitler was, uh, was, had an Iron Cross and was, was in fact courageous. And I don't like Hitler, obviously, but it was courageous in World War I as a runner, uh, and, and, and of course it was injured with poisonous gas, uh, and that's when the surrender took place. And then it went off on a totally stupid tangent. But The General by C.S. Forester is worth a read, uh, and it's so different than the Hornblower series, but it is an excellent read.

Wow, that is, that is fantastic. We have about, uh, 8 minutes left. I think we can do this. I was— okay, I think I need to ask this one. If you could choose 3 people to have dinner with, who would you choose and why?

Well, then that's a toughie.

Uh, I am thinking probably this.

Yeah, I was going to say it would either be Washington or Lincoln. It would be one of those two, uh, simply because of their their tremendous intellect and their influence on the United States. A question that you posed early, and it's, I think, proper to bring it up now with Lincoln, is if you woke up one morning, what is one problem you'd like to solve? And I couldn't solve it, but I have always been both incredibly confused and angered by any form of discrimination based upon race or religion. I don't understand it. It seems stupid to me. I just don't get it. I know it exists. I'm not stupid enough not to understand that it exists, and you have to fight against it. And certainly both Washington and Lincoln— Washington freed his slaves. He couldn't free Martha Washington's slaves, but he understood slavery was wrong. Tremendously wrong. It's not an American problem, it's a worldwide problem. It's gone on through history, but it's wrong in any case. And any form of discrimination weakens organizations, and I just— I'm both confused and angered by it. So that would be the problem to solve. I'm afraid, like world hunger, it's probably not likely to be solved.

Yes, so who would be your third guest? So we have President Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and who else?

Oh, I guess it probably would be Churchill or Gandhi. Yeah. And Gandhi would be the other. I almost, I tend to link because I read a book that linked Churchill and Gandhi and they may have had more in common than not. Gandhi, I did get to go to India and talk on network-centric warfare and we did get to go through where Gandhi was assassinated. By a Hindu, as you recall, because he didn't want— he didn't want no discrimination, which was Gandhi's wish. But certainly those two. There are lots of others, but it's hard in history.

That would be a fascinating dinner for sure. I'd like to be a fly on the wall at that one. So what is one song, book, or movie that would be your last theme? Yeah.

And I have to admit, one is, uh, one is always influenced by what is one seen or done lately, so guilty of that as charged. I happen to like Westerns, Westerns as movies. I love the series Gunsmoke. I thought it was a very dark series, frankly. There are a lot of really tough questions that Gunsmoke attempts to answer. And so in that vein, I would probably do High Noon, the classic Western. Where the heroine has the moral courage to stay and fight for the city or the town when the bad guys are coming in and is not supported by the people as he should be. In fact, John Wayne didn't like High Noon because of that. I like John Wayne as well. But I thought High Noon was just an excellent example of moral and physical courage. And seeing your way clear to do what is right at the risk of your own life. So, and there are lots of them, but I like High Noon.

Now, part of the reason why I started asking about movies, I think it's only this season of my podcast, is because when I was a Lieutenant JG, one of the best commanding officers I've ever had, I asked him about leadership and he took me back to the movies. It's like you can actually watch a whole bunch of movies and get a lot of leadership lessons out of it. And It really completely changed the way I look at entertainment, always looking for a lesson or something to do good or positive on negative leadership. So that's why I like to ask those questions just to see. Thanks so much. So we have about 4 minutes left. I think we can make it. One question I want to ask is, if you had one and only one day to live, sir, what would you have liked your final contribution to be?

Well, probably to pass on the love of learning and teaching to others, because I think if you are willing to learn and willing to pass on knowledge, then you will, you will contribute. And in the final analysis, the only legacy any of us leave other than our children are those who we've had the honor of serving with and have gone on, probably many cases, to better and bigger things. And so that's our legacy. And so I think that that would be the answer to a very difficult question.

Thanks, Joe. And we are coming to the end of the podcast. How could we make a difference for you? You've added so much value to us.

I think you've already done that by inviting me on the show. I'm an old guy. As I say, I'm not getting old, I am old. I'm always honored to be asked anything anymore. Just to be— to try to continue to be relevant is, is all that I would ask. And so I just appreciate the opportunity to be with you and your guests.

Thank you so much. But I know the book you wrote on NCW is available to those who are in the service now. I don't, I don't think that's publicly available. I don't know if there is an unclassified version.

Oh yeah, yeah, NCW is In fact, I always kid— let me get it.

It's a, uh, uh, because I, I remember seeing a secret version. Uh, okay, I guess I'm sure they can just Google it.

It's a free book. Uh, I actually have copies left if anybody wants to send them. I have two copies left.

I, I will make sure to add it to the show notes.

I will say if I autograph it, it goes down in value and it All right, so, uh, now to end the show, we have a couple of minutes left.

I think we can do this. If you could, uh, go back and give a piece of advice to your 17-year-old self standing at the edge of this incredible, uh, career you've had in the military, what would you say to the 17-year-old?

To be more humble, more patient, and understand that humans may be on the top of the feeding trough of animals, but animals have a lot to teach us. And, and we ought to look around and understand that— the loyalty from dogs, uh, the way elephants protect their young. Uh, there are lots of lessons in nature that I wish I had taken more time to understand. And so I would say do that. We went on a safari, it was a wonderful adventure, and you can learn a lot from the animals around that you simply don't think about. That would probably be my thought. Makes sense.

Okay, all right, very, very quickly, sir, uh, 3 adjectives describing you as a child. Don't think too much.

Oh, enthusiastic, impatient, And I hope honest.

As an adult?

As an adult, still impatient, trying to be a better person, and again, having more friends and just being a better person. I think that's a part.

All right, so we are almost at the hour. Is there a question I should have asked you that I have not asked yet?

You've done an excellent job on the questions. I don't think so. I probably— I think I have answered them poorly. You've asked good questions, and I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, sir.

Okay, the very, very last question, and I think we are right on time, is, uh, what is one word that represents our shared experience in this podcast? Today. Communications. And I think I'm just, uh, humble and grateful. I guess that's two words, but I am. You've mentioned, I think, humility or humble at least 5 or 6 times for at least this hour. It's definitely something I need to work on more. And, uh, just, uh, being able to learn from your experience, it is amazing. I'm hoping, sir, you're gonna be writing an actual book, non-fiction book, and share all of your wisdom. I think the next generation needs it. It's just amazing to me how you can spend $20, $30 for a book. That's why I love reading autobiography and really get the knowledge and the wisdom of great people like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. They are dead, but you can read about their story and get the good and the bad and make up your own mind, but definitely use it to live a better life today in 2025. It's just Amazing how powerful that technology is. But anyway, thanks again for your time today, sir, and we really, really appreciate it. Thank you.

Good luck. Thank you.

All right, everyone, you've got it. This was Colonel Fred Stein. I'm so grateful that he took the time to speak with us today. So, uh, I believe it's gonna be tomorrow or day after tomorrow, I will have a 10-minute summary of the podcast for those who are too busy to spend an hour. But I encourage everybody to please listen to this podcast over again. It will be immediately available on LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok once we close the program. And in about an hour or two, it should be available on all of the other major podcast platforms. So I'm gonna be back here tomorrow, 6:30 Pacific time, 9:30 AM Eastern time. And I think tomorrow I'm gonna be talking about leadership in the tech environment. But anyway, I will have a post in the next hour or two about specifically what I'm gonna be talking about. Thanks again for being with us again. I didn't see any question in the chat, but even after the show, if you have a leadership question, type it in and I'm gonna answer it tomorrow. And thanks again for being with us, and I will see you here, uh, tomorrow.

Thank you for listening to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to our channels and come back for more wisdom nuggets on how you may develop into a better leader and achieve greater levels of success. Leadership is the most critical skill. The world will always need leaders to lead others, deploy the next disruptive technology or execute a business strategy. You may as well decide on counting yourself among the 21st century leaders. See you right here next time on the Leadership and Success Podcast with Coach