Lead with Your WHY

This episode of beyond you'd why is brought to you by our why App. Head over to yinstitute.com to take the why app so you can discover your why today. Knowing your why is the essential first step in having the clarity to move forward faster and have a bigger impact.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. And if you've been on the podcast or listen to the podcast, you know that what I do is talk about a particular why and then bring somebody on that has that why. And so today we're going to be talking about the why of trust to create relationships based upon trust. Now, people with this why believe that trust is the most important thing and will work hard to create it. They will become educated as experts in a particular subject and demonstrate that expertise as a way of establishing trust. They will do things right in order to demonstrate that they are trustworthy. They want to know that you believe in them and will go the extra mile to demonstrate that with their actions, words and deeds in communication with someone with this why, you might hear words along the lines of, you can count on me. People with this why include accountants, support staff, and those in service oriented professions such as chiropractic, physical therapy, caregivers and nurses. So you just heard a Harley Davidson take off and so you're probably wondering now, how the heck did you have that happen? So my guest I met a while back, I don't even know how long it's been now, but a couple of years, probably two years ago at a brewery with another good friend of mine. And so right now I am sitting outside at a brewery and we are going to have our podcast interview here at the brewery. Now, I've never done this before, so we're trying this for the first time. It's a very casual environment. I've got a beer, he's got a beer. But I want to read you his bio so you know who we're talking to today. We are talking with Colonel Matthew Magnus. Now, he has served over 27 years in in the United States Air Force and is currently Vice Commander of the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation center in Kirtland Air Force Base here in New Mexico. The Center's mission is to independently test and evaluate new capabilities in operationally realistic environments to inform war fighters and influence national resource decisions and is comprised of over 70 military, civilian and contractor personnel working at operating test locations across the U.S. now, prior to this position, Colonel Magnus was the Center's Director of Operations. Other posts include serving a year in Afghanistan as the 9th Air Force or 9th Air Expeditionary Task Force Director of Operations, helping lead more than 1800 special ops airmen and nine squadron as the deputy commander of first special operations, as well as being the Commander of the 550th Special Operations Squadron, where he led and oversaw the flying, operations and training of 350 special operations and rescue students annually. Colonel Magnus has flown Special Op C130 operationally in the United States, Europe, and Middle east, as well as flying 10 different aircraft throughout his career. He holds Master's degrees in Strategic Studies and Military Arts and Science. That was a mouthful, and I am so excited to have you here, Colonel Magnus. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Thanks, my friend, very much. Appreciate it. And I love this new format that you're introducing here, this man in the street concept. I think it's perfect. I think you need to run with it. I think it's a lot of value to the listeners because it adds another dimension to this.

Why, that's perfect because this is where we met. You remember, we were sitting at a. At a different brewery and we were with a. With a good friend of both of ours. And I remember he said, hey, Gary, have you told Matt what you do? And I remember saying, you know what? Instead of me telling you what. What I do, let me have you take the Y app and then we can have a conversation about it. And I remember you took the Y app right there in the brewery. And what was your reaction? How did that feel for you?

About two minutes took me to take the app and, you know, it came out with trust. You know, there was my why. And within two minutes after that, you were explaining basically everything I've been experiencing and a feeling for the rest, for my life, for my entire being. Yeah, that describes me. And every time you said something, yeah, that describes me. You know, when someone violates your trust, it feels like a gut punch, you know, a sharp stab to the chest. Like, yeah, I feel that way when someone does not follow through with their words. Yeah, I got it immediately.

And then you went specifically to a situation that was happening with you. You said, man, that explains why I'm feeling like I'm feeling. And I know you don't probably want to go into a lot of detail, but kind of give everybody an overview of what was going on and then how that made you feel.

Sure. And I just want to get up to your listeners here. I am just representing myself. This is not a position of the air Force. This is a presentation of how I took the Y app and how I came about with trust. So as a result, here I am.

I took what Y did and I actually brought it to the Air Force which was tremendously helpful and actually took my organization through the Y and had I do a small test group, 20 people because I thought we could be a better organization because I saw how fast the WAI app could be. But then quickly discover what makes people tick within my organization. I could be a more effective leader as a result of that. And I did it again. I think what four or five months later I brought you back and had to do another 20 people. And as that I'm still thinking, you know what? Because I saw an 80 person organization like man, I wish I brought everybody in on this. But you know, it is what it is. I got half my organization done on the wiat. I encourage them to take it, but it became again a more effective leader. But back to the situation you're talking about. Yeah, my superintendent, my senior ranking enlisted member within the organization got a small infraction on base and as a result got a ticket. You know, and you know it's a non fineable ticket. It's not like you, you know, are have to go appear in front of anybody but you have to notify your senior supervisor that you got a ticket from one of the security police officers on base. No big deal, right? Yep. Well, big deal for me because he didn't really paint that full picture when he came and told me that he got a ticket and what he got a ticket for, you know. And I wasn't until I had another member of my organization. She was what we call the section commander in the army, they call it the garrison commander. The person is basically in charge of all discipline within the organization. Right. You know, UCMJ authority. And she came to tell me that so and so got a ticket for, you know, X reason. Right. And I'm like that's not what he told me. Completely different. He only gave me partial a part of the story. And so then I felt like why didn't he give me the full story? What was the trust aspect on why he didn't want to give that and it really did impinge on relationship. So yes, I brought them in, I had a. I sit down with him and I explained to him what the rules were and took it very seriously. But it wasn't until I think he came and he actually took the why app. Well, I think he took the class when he realized that my why was trust. And then he went, oh, my gosh. I realized what I did where I valued relationships with folks. This is where I saw it.

You know, what was really interesting to me is after you discovered your why is trust, and you looked up at me and I started talking to you about it, about the characteristics of that why I saw you nodding a lot and you were. I could see you were just thinking and there was something going on. And I know now, I know that it was that story that you were just talking about where he gave you part of the information, but really left out some pretty darn important parts of it, which put you in a bad spot, which made you look like you don't know what you're talking about, which obviously didn't feel good to you.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that I told you, if you remember, was so, and this is for everybody else on this, listening to this podcast, who has the why of trust. If that is your why, and you don't let people know that trust is a big deal to you, how important trust is to you, then that's also on you, because there's no way that they would know that unless you articulate that to them. If you don't sit down and say, hey, you know, trust me. For me, trust is the most important thing. If I can trust you and you can trust me, sky's the limit. But if I can't trust you, then we really shouldn't have a relationship. Once you articulate that to people, then it's out there and they can say, yeah, I believe the same thing. I'm in, and I won't let you down.

And that's an essential part of making sure you communicate that with folks and the folks with the trustwide. Make sure you tell folks what you value.

Because sometimes can be very hard when someone questions your integrity. And just the other day, you know, I'm at that point in life where I'm re evaluating life insurance, right? And talking to the agents over the phone, and you go through the litany of questions they're going to ask you, and do you do this, do you do that? Have you gotten any speeding tickets in the past five years? Or car accidents? Because they're trying to assess the risk on you. And when you tell them no as the truth, but then they say, well, can we have your driver's license number? I'm like, I just said I didn't get anything accidents. And now you want accidents or infractions, and now you want to question it by looking that up. And it really does impinge on that. Not that she would know that it's over the phone, but the whole point of that was trying to, I guess, get beyond that. She no longer trusts me. This relationship is already starting off on a bad foot.

You know what's interesting about that is if they had asked me for that, I wouldn't have thought that way. I would have said, okay, here. Yeah, I would have happily given it to her. But you saw it totally differently.

I know, right? And it comes back to a story of a fellow airman I was serving with over in England about 20 years ago. Believe it or not, probably 22 years ago, we're both over there. And he had a situation with his landlord. His landlord got in a lot of trouble with the magistrate over there in England and had to be called into court. And he was actually called into court as one of the witnesses to what the infractions of what the landlord was doing. And he wore his military service dress, you know, with the medals and the rank and the tie and all throughout the proceedings. You know, he watched people go up and put their hand on the Bible and swear they'll tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Then when his turn to Cain says, no, you don't need to swear in your word is your bond, recognizing that he was a military member. And that kind of summed it up right there. And so as a military member, you know, where the military is viewed always within the top, you know, five professions of having the most integrity, it consistently always ranks up there. And that kind of really just epitomizes exactly how I felt. But when you go home to your neighbors, when you go home in the community, you take the uniform off, but you still have that high level of integrity. And yet they don't know that. But if they saw you in the uniform, they would think differently. So someone with a why of trust, particularly with the uniform, it's like being cursed twice, right? You already have the trust and you wear the uniform and you take it off. People then start questioning your integrity. But if you have the uniform on, they look at you in a different light. And that's the hard part. With people with trust who's also in the uniform, who also wear the uniform, police officer, a fireman, you always see those public figures at a high level of trust. And when the uniform comes off, that trust is still there. You know, whether they do a post on social media apps, you know, the integrity is at the highest. And as I told you in the past, you know, trust, I think in the future is going to be more valuable than money because people can always go back and look at your history, you know, because of social media and the way that works. Once it's on the Internet, it's on there forever. They can look. And if you ever misrepresented yourself and infringed on your trust, someone can call you out on that. And it's so hard to come back from that. So people with trust are always making sure.

That they keep it at such a pure level that no one could ever come back and point them to them and say, well, you weren't truly honest at that point. In fact, people with trust with this why.

Often repeat conversations, past conversations, repeat with individuals that they had to show that they were listening to them and they were paying attention and recall certain aspects of.

Yeah, you've done that with me.

I do that with a lot of people. And then I started thinking about that over the past couple months. You know, I do that a lot. Why is that? Because I want them to trust me that I was listening to them, that I care about what happens in their life as well. So that's something you might notice with people with the trustwise that will repeat conversations that you may have had many months ago, but they want to show you they remember and that they care.

So, Matt, when did trust become an important thing for you? I mean, when did you, if you were to look back in your life and you say, okay, this stage in my life, something happened, something I noticed, something went on that really made trust important to me. Can you go back to that time.

Or it wasn't always like one. You think one main event, ah, trust is so important to me. It was always part of who you were. And growing up as a kid in a military family.

Well, your dad was in the military.

When my dad was in the military for a short time.

Not in the military, just a housewife and cousins and uncles in the military and going to functions on base. You just saw the uniform and you saw that the high level of respect that carried with it, particularly that just the high esteem the general public put with the military. And that's why when you see the particularly the service academies have a cheating scandal happen, it just grates on those of us in the military, particularly those with the why of trust, saying, oh my gosh, how can you guys be doing that? How can you really be tarnishing the military? Because it just kind of chips away with public Persona of who we are. You know, we see in the military, it just kind of whittles Away at that. But again, that aspect I told you about kind of personified it for me, was that, hey, you don't need to swear on the Bible. You're in the military, your word is your bond.

And then before that, you, high school, middle school, I mean, I can imagine you were somebody who did what they said they were going to do.

You just want to be. Your word is your bond.

What made you realize that? What was it that made you say, I got to do what I say I'm going to do?

Because I just wanted people to believe in me, that I was one who would follow through with what they said.

Was there a time when they didn't?

Not a particular event. Just thinking back, was there one event and something that sometimes comes to mind, and obviously it did, because I'm remembering it obviously when I was five years old. And we're talking about 45 years ago, right? Almost a half century ago, was I just got this first aid kit, little kid, first aid kit, band aids.

Probably little wraps, maybe stethoscope, that type of stuff. And I left the room and I told my brother, don't touch any of that. And he had a friend over and I forget who the friend's name was, but I left and I came back. And it's kind of a funny story if you think about it. Every single band aid was undone and placed on this big teddy bear we called Hubert. I know for those that are in the older generation, remember the Huberts. And so just band aids all over them. And I remember that saying, I told you not to do that, but now you took all my band aids and used every single one up, right? There wasn't a single.

Band aid left. And put it on this basically big stuffed bear, probably three feet big, right? All over them. For whatever reason, I'm like, you know, so that's one of those things, you know, where my brother did that, you know, still love him to death. But it's just one of the things, really. You had to use every band aid. You couldn't save any band aids. For me, that's kind of a funny story. But you remember stuff like that. Yeah. You know, not that it was bad, but you just remember that event that, you know, you, you were leaving the room, you were going, you know, parents were calling you or whatever, and you tell them, don't touch my first aid kit, don't use my band aids or whatever. I don't know what I said. It was kind of a funny story like that. And he uses every single band aid boy. And you come back, there's a shock, right? Yeah. So that kind of funny in that respect.

Usually there's something that played out in your life where you realize that being true to your word is important to you, that being true to your word means everything and not being true to your word, letting somebody down really hurts, really makes a.

And honestly, we've all done things in our past we're not particularly proud of, but a scenario that comes to mind that I wasn't very proud of and I let down my parents, I let down my friends when I got arrested when I was 17 year old for possession of alcohol by a minor. And interestingly enough, the arresting officer who is now the chief of police of Albuquerque, New Mexico, who we've seen each other to and laughed about it blows.

Me away that he would remember you.

Yeah, oh yeah.

30 years ago.

Remembers my family's name and stuff like that. And he knew I was in Albuquerque, which was great. But I saw him at a function a while ago, we exchanged pleasantries, it was great to catch up with him. But whole point of it is I let my family down by doing something in violation of the law before that.

Was it important for you?

So think back. It was because I know you never want to let anybody down with but the people with the Y of trust, you never want to let anybody down because it really hurts you if you do. If you give them your word that you're going to be somewhere, you're going to do something for them and you don't, you will continue to dwell on it until you do. And so even today when I tell someone I'm going to do something, it's almost like you put it on a permanent pad of paper in your brain and until you check it off that you did it for them, you will think about it. I can't explain it, it's just there. And you remember it at the weirdest times with the Y of trust that oh yeah, I told someone I was going to do something for them. Whether it be passing a phone number, simple things like that, some people might just blow that off. Other people would probably be so, well, it was no big deal. Just because you forgot to pass a phone number or an email address, you know something, hey, I'll pass you that phone, I'll give you that email address, I'll put you in contact with so and so, which happens a lot at our level now, which is basically connecting with folks. And until you do, you think about it. Within the past week I wanted to connect two friends within the Test organization, one who's trying to get in a test, one who's already a part of test looking for a future job opportunity. I tell you what, I've been thinking about it for the past seven days until I actually sent them an email and connected them to on the email where there's a three way email conversation. Until I did it, it was mental checklist and I could not get rid of it. It was just the weirdest thing because I wanted him to trust me. I was gonna follow through on my word. Those with the lie of trust can probably understand what I'm telling them. When you say, when you tell people something that you're gonna do, you will continue to think about it until you do it. And so you wanna do it right away with this because it gets it off your mental checklist. Yeah. So you want to be proactive and you want to be quick. And so a lot of times the people at the YF Trust will make sure they want make sure they accomplish something very quickly for that person. They told them that they would, you know, support, do something for.

When did you realize you wanted to go into the military? How old were you?

Oh, I was probably five or six.

Five or six years old?

Yeah, it goes back that far because my dad had just gotten out of the military. I had two uncles that were both in the military active duty at that time and my grandfather was retired military and then my mom's dad was a marine in World War II. So it was just that aspect to serve, to serve other people. And so people with the trust wise, they want to make sure that they are following through with what they said they were going to do. And I guess I said probably a long time ago that I wanted to go in the military and gosh darn it, I was going to follow through on my word.

Why did you say you wanted to do it? What about it was attractive to you? What about it did you see? Why did you say I want to do that?

The respect of those with the military, the commitment to serve something greater than yourself.

Why did you care at age 5, think back to age 5 and said I'm gonna go in the military. Why did you care what was going on with you that says I'm gonna do that? Because you could have picked anything, right? You'd said, but you wanted to be in the military.

I wanted to finish probably what my dad didn't finish. My dad got out when I was five, you know, so I have never really experienced the military life. And then I kind of sort of Experienced it with the other military uncles and their sons went in the military, you know what I mean? And so it was kind of drawn that way as I saw everybody kind of going that way.

What do you mean, your dad didn't finish?

I think he wanted to stay in the military. Honestly, if you think back to it, I think my mom really kind of forced him to get out of the military. She kind of wanted that stability with the family aspect to that. And I think my dad had a strong desire to continue to serve, and he got out for my. For my mom and for the family aspect. Not that I knew any difference. I was five, my brother was four. So it didn't really make a difference to us. We experienced a little bit. You know, he did Korea, then Fort Eustis, and next thing you know, we were out and he's selling insurance in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Right.

Why did that make you want to go in the military?

Because I wanted to see it all the way through of what the military lifestyle was like and the bond that those that serve share.

What do you mean by that?

The bond that I will be there for that person. When you've seen the Band of Brothers, you've probably seen other movies to that extent where you can trust those of which you served. And I tell you what, to those I've served downrange with on multiple occasions, whether it be in the Horn of Africa or in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, Brothers in arms. We had each other's backs. We supported each other. And to this day, I tell you what, if the phone rang and so. And so said they were in town, it would be one of those things you'd drop anything you would do that was going on to go meet them. Because I guess the bond you share, the trust that you share together, did.

You feel like you didn't have that at home?

I'm not sure. You know, it's a good question. You know, parents got divorced when I was a teenager. You know, I went to live with my mom and her parents out in Chicago. You never really saw that family aspect continue past when I was 13. So maybe the trust and the bond is even that much more important to me with my family, you know, to be there for them. Because my family kind of disintegrated a little bit with when I was a teenage years for aspects that are very complicated at this point. But you kind of understand it as you get older, as an adult.

What are the odds of this? We're in the middle of a conversation.

And the wind picks up and the.

Wind picks up out of nowhere. There's been no wind all day, and.

We'Re essentially down a tunnel right here because we have buildings on either side of us, so it's only accelerating.

So I don't know if you can hear this on the podcast, but suddenly there's like this massive gust of wind shooting through here, and papers are flying everywhere.

Well, that's what you get with the man on the street aspect. Man on the street, you got the environment with the. All elements of what the interview. Not just in a closed environment, but you got the pizza plates, the beer.

The kids screaming, the people talking, the.

Harleys going by, the music in the background. But you know what makes it for a perfect atmosphere for some of these conversations with a good friend who's also willing to trust you.

Yeah, exactly. So you got into the military, and where all did that take you? So you got in at what age?

Right out of college. ROTC. 22. Graduated from college, was commissioned, and was given a pilot training date, and the career started from there. It was 1992. Right. A long time ago.

Why Air Force?

Probably for the diversification of things. To fly. My whole family was pilots, but they were army pilots, so it was basically rotary wing.

How'd they feel about you going to Air Force?

They were proud. But it also comes with its own ribbing because they're all Army. Seriously, they're all army? 100%. Until I went into the Air Force. But I guess all is forgiven because obviously the Air Force is a cousin of the army, and it didn't really become. I wasn't completely off the hook until this past year when my nephew graduated. Well, actually, cousins graduated from Annapolis and now he's in the Navy. So now I. At least I'm a cousin. Right. To the Army. He is the Navy. Right. So it goes back to the. Can't support the Navy, can you go army beat Navy, Right.

Yeah.

So at this point, I am completely forgiven because I did not go Navy. And. And they finally realize it. And there's been some light banter on the emails and Facebook chatter that. Matt, you're forgiven. Now, you know cousin John Michael, he really went astray.

Yeah, no kidding.

He's going to the Navy. But you know what? Soon I'll be forgiven because you know where he's going? Navy flight school here in a few short months, I think in October.

So he'll be flying for the Navy.

So he's gonna be fine for the Navy. So continuing the pilot tradition of the family, just going to the Navy. So you gotta get a tip of the hat saying, alright, at least you're gonna be a pirate.

Yeah. So what? What? Tell everybody a little bit about afotech. What is afotech? I find it fascinating.

It's the, it does the operational test for what the Air Force is buying. You have a thing that you know you're looking to acquire. Does it perform a certain way? Does it perform in a manner of which is predictable? Yes. But then you take that in an environment that has heat, rain.

Dust, combat, and we test it in those environments because not everything behaves the same way in a controlled environment. What we call developmental test versus an operational environment, which is basically real life of what's happening out there. So we take things into real life and test them in that aspect. And will it behave in the same way that the development testers behaved in their way?

So you take a new product and figure out how it actually works and is it viable, is it going to work? Do we want it?

Well, I mean we both fit, you know, the developmental testers, which are the people that help with the acquisitions of it, they determine yes, it will work. But then we put it under stressful conditions and that might be a way to think of it as operational test puts it under those stressful conditions. Will it still work when it's, you know, when you, when you're trying to make it to perform in a certain way?

Every aircraft will probably fly straight and level.

Yeah.

But can the aircraft fly at a high degree of bank and be able to shoot a missile at the same time? That's an operational environment versus flying straight and level, which is a developmental environment.

You test some pretty serious machines and some pretty serious stuff.

The center does, yeah, the center does, yeah.

You just tell them what to test.

And so one of the things, the unique thing about the operational test of the Air Force are what does Afrotech stand for? Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center.

Okay.

And what it does is it provides, and this is our mission statement, operational truth to the warfighter. What better place for a guy with a Y of trust? Right. And so just the other day I was out at Khadup, which is the Naval Operational Test Evaluation Force out in Norfolk. Their mission statement was provide operational truth to the Navy. It's like, wait a minute, we got the same mission statement. That is so cool. Who knew until they just. You know, I've been in the apotech here for what, four years and I just learned what our sister services mission statement was. It's very much providing truth. And sometimes when you say, well, we'll provide the operational truth. Well, was everybody else not providing that truth? No, they were providing that truth. And it's an interesting thing to say because in the military you just want to make sure you're providing all the data you can to the people that are going to make the decisions on whether to field it or not field it, whether to buy 10 or 15,000, and you just want to give them that information. When you provide the operational truth of this is how it behaves, this is how it operates, these realistic environments.

So you're not a thumbs up, thumbs down. This is what we found. If this is what you want, then great.

If it's not what you found, if.

It'S not what you want, then great.

This is the level of risk that we see. Are you willing to accept that level of risk or not? I got you. So that's when you're providing that insight to them. They make a better informed decision. Yeah. And that's all we really do is provide a level of decision that makes it more accurate of if you want to continue to apply it, or maybe you never. Another aspect is I never thought about using it this way, but it provides so much value. If I put it this way, I wouldn't have known that if you guys didn't run your operational test on it, you know.

So what's next for you? You've been doing this for 27 years. 27 years. How many more years?

Another year left in the gas tank. And then I'd like to get on something a little bit different. I'd really like to help this country, this great country of ours, get back into the space race, of finding new and new ways of exploring our solar system, our universe. I know the Moon is back in play. I know the Mars is back in play. I'd love to take what I've learned in the Air Force testing and bring that to the civilian world or even back into government work to figure out how can we go back to something that's very appropriate, the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, to try to get back into exploring our horizons. And that kind of gets me excited. And I know there's plenty of opportunities out there, whether it be in California with SpaceX or Atlantic coast there with NASA, of opportunities to say, I've got some testing background. I know how to put things under a strain and be able to think things critically. I'd love to try to give you a hand and see if you can get us back towards a mission to Mars. If you Want or a mission back to the moon and see that again in our lifetime? Because I was born in 1969. The last time we were on the moon was 1972. Wow. I don't know how much you remember. I don't remember any of it. I was 10. Yeah. So to think back to those aspects and say, you know what? We're back out there and we're doing it again. Wow.

What's the secret to testing something? You've got a new something that you're going to test. How do you know how to test it?

Well, we have some very smart people that have been doing this for decades, if you will. And we learn from them, the sages of the organization, but also talking to the warfighter. How do you want us to test this? It should not just necessarily be in a vacuum, but how we think, but we also care about what the warfighter thinks and the things that you want us to test that we're not thinking about. So we also ask those questions to them before we start testing. What are the three things you want to know about this before you buy it? Which is very informative. And that actually shapes a lot of our decisions about what we're going to test. Because you can't test everything. There's not enough time or money to be able to test everything. But we can test certain aspects within what we call design of experiments, within that box of. Of design about. We can test over here, we can test a little bit down here, but after that we run out of money. Will that help you? Or they say no. Test a little bit over here, a little bit over here, and a little bit over here. And that veteran forms our design to get the answers they want to know about. It shouldn't be just care what we know. We want to know because we all take an operational aspect to how we think it should be tested. But we want to make sure. We're asking the war fighter, if you will, the operator who's actually employing this, because many of us have been out of the operating world for 10, 12, 15 years. So we're getting a little bit dated, getting a little bit longer than the tooth. So we want to make sure we're reaching back to those captains.

So you interview, interview you design, budget and go exactly.

Write a report. And the big thing with that report is we follow through with our report when our report's going to be delivered. On this day, usually 45 days after the last test event, our report will be delivered and it usually meets a milestone event before a major purchasing Decision is made right before they say we're going to buy 10,000 of these. We make sure our report is out in front of that so they can look at it and say, yep, that is the right call. Let's buy. Or maybe we want to do a little bit more testing or maybe there's some follow on test towards. We call in the afotech f o tne follow on testing that we want to know more information. We're gonna buy it. But you know what, test it some more and tell us what else we can do with it.

Interesting.

Yeah. So I really enjoy with that and that's why I say I have a little more fuel left in the tank because I really love what I do. I really see the long term investment and the reward. Going to work every morning to see.

Too young to be putting all this experience to bed.

I know, but I'm shaping the Air Force to long after I get out and that's rewarding. It's not like I'm shaping the air Force for the next year and I get to see that bang for the buck. I'm shaping The Air Force 10, 15 years down the road where I'll be out of the Air Force. But the satisfaction will become reading about something in a news article or on an online web saying, you know what? I helped that as small as it might be, I helped shape that, I helped push that, I helped influence that. And that's what reward is when you see that 15 years. Because I still feel like I'm still in the Air Force. A little bit of me is still in the air Force and still participating. Even though I might be long out and working in the civilian world, to see that aspect is still. That's very much what job satisfaction is.

Awesome. Matt, thank you so much for being on today. I'm excited. I'm just glad that we finally got to sit and talk.

Yeah. And I hope that. Hope the wind wasn't too bad at the end of the interview here. I'm glad we're mic'd up the way we are. I hope that this is a new aspect you will continue to explore without the wind, without the. Well, you know, bring others with the. With the why and what brought them about to how they discovered their why.

And I'm sure we'll be working together more in the future. So, Matt, thank you so much. If there's somebody here listening to this that says, you know what, I want to connect with Matt because I know in a year he's going to be somebody that I would like to have part of my organization. Is there any way that they can get a hold of you, or how would something like that work?

They sure can. I'm on LinkedIn, so Matthew Magnus, you can find me very easily. Or you can also email me if you prefer at AF mags air force mags right@aol.com I think I'm one of the only few still out there still have an AOL address. But I will answer you and I appreciate just reaching out if you if you heard about this interview and if you also have the trust of Y and want a further chat.

Sounds great. Matt, thanks again for being here.

You're welcome. Sam.