Adopting The Navy SEAL Mindset Everyday With Jonathan Cleck - Entrepreneur | Navy SEAL | Speaker | Comedian | Podcaster | Author | Waxer Of Things Philosophic

In a world full of turmoil, despair and darkness, you need to carry the light. Season three of the Get Attitude podcast is where we will ignite your mind, your heart and your attitude. And welcome to the Gap, the Get Attitude podcast. We are in season three. Our theme is Carry the Light. And we have a fantastic opportunity to learn from Mr. Jonathan Kleck. Today, Jonathan is a serial entrepreneur. He is a speaker, a stand up comedian, an author, and a waxer of all things philosophic. A husband, dad. And that list is in the order of what pays his accounts to what drains his accounts. But perhaps one of the most wonderful things about Jonathan is He is a 25 year veteran of the Navy SEAL teams, Director at Greencastle Consulting, 100% veteran operated consulting firm CxO at Concierge, we're gonna have to do that. So let's get. Let's bring up our 25 year Navy Seal General D.O. gooder. Found my card on the floor of a TGI Fridays and said, hey bro, I think this is yours. We became fast friends. He's a speaker and man, he carries the light. Jonathan Kleck, welcome to the Get Attitude podcast.

Thank you, Glenn. It's good to connect with you again. It is a funny story about how we met. I just happened to be leaving in the Dallas airport, saw the credit card on the floor and was like, hey, brother. And you're like, yeah. And a friendship was born. It was meant to be.

There's no doubt, no doubt. I'm happy and honored that you're on here. And I just always like to open our interviews, as I'm sure you know, because you sound like you've watched a few of ours as well. What's your definition of attitude? And who was your first attitude coach? And I also want to ask a third question of you. What's your definition of attitude as a civilian? And does your definition of attitude change when you were in Navy SEAL operations?

Well, that's an interesting thing. I had lunch with some of my SEAL buddies the other day. I'll answer the second question first. No, it doesn't change. But the, you can't turn off that, you know, what's been embedded in you in the SEAL teams, you just don't turn that off. It's, in fact, it's part of what has made us. Not only makes you successful in the SEAL teams, but when you carry it out into the civilian world, it's what allows us to be pretty successful. Although, and that's where I'm going with the story is I had lunch with a couple SEAL buddies the other day, and we were jokingly talking about how coming out of the teams sets you up for absolute frustration in the civilian world because you, you're surrounded by just, you know, otherwise good people who just haven't been blessed with the same exposure to what, what you're made of, like what we're all made of. And, and, and, and when you get out there, people are running around with their hair on fire and, and you know, people are throwing up their hands saying, oh, we can't solve this. And, and the rest of us are looking around being like, I, I don't even know what, I don't even know what I can't means. Like literally, it's, that's never been in the SEAL mantra. It's, I can, I will, I'll figure it out some way, by God, we will get this done. And so that's sort of the definition of, of attitude, at least in, and it's a very specific niche definition, but it's, it's specific to the, to the SEAL culture. Any of your listeners can go on and they can Google Navy SEAL ethos and it's five or six paragraphs that set the, it's the bible by which we make decisions. We judge our own actions, we judge our teammates actions. It's the standard to which we hold ourselves and our teammates accountable. But it's all about attitude. In fact, it doesn't say like I'm going to pump weights more than my adversary or I'm going to study harder. It simply says I will get it done in the face of adversity, I will never surrender. I'll simply find a way to keep pushing. And that's really the definition of, of attitude that I've carried and been so lucky to, to have found way back years ago, 2020 now, 26 years ago when I joined the Navy, that's.

So are you retired Navy seal? Are you still an active seal?

I am reserved seal. I'm, I'm, I'm at the twilight of my career. I've always, well, not always for the last few years I've said it's a, it's a young man's game and, and I'm not such a young man anymore. So I will be retiring soon, but I still got, still got a little bit left in the tank.

So if absolute shit hits the fan and we need a bunch of seals, you could be on the list to go get into action. I mean, is that possible? If something really bad. Let's say that, you know, things Go crazy with Russia and we commit half a million ground troops. Does that mean you might be back in the game?

It does. And I, and let me say that for me to be back in the game, it would be in an operations center. One of the, your military listeners will laugh. I'm a rem, the rear echelon mfer, the guy who's sitting at the back trying to work at the OP center, trying to make sure the left hand knows what the right hand's doing. Cool. And yeah, I've always joked like if, if the flag goes up and the Pentagon says, you know, who would be critical for this mission? A 47 year old, part time, half broken Navy Seal. Like if that's the case, the war is already over, we've already lost. But, but that I could find myself caught up to at least support the, the operations.

Now, were you ever actively engaged in conflict, front lines, if you will, or were you ever in operations where your life was at stake or on the back end?

Yeah, for sure. I don't think it's, it's interesting. I think probably most seals, so, yes, I've been, I've deployed to combat zones twice now, you know, in 26 years that you just can't. And every, every SEAL starts out active duty and they get at least one deployment, if not multiple deployments over a career. You know, full disclosure, not all my deployments were combat zones. But in fact, of all the times I've been overseas, probably very few of them in scale were actually in deployment or combat zones. I came in in 19, so the first five years in, we weren't even at war. So there was, it was Europe and Africa and South America and it's been a good run, I think. Has my life ever been in danger? For sure. Have I ever been on the brink of death? Not, not, not in combat. In fact, it's funny, I was just telling the story the other day. There's a lot of seals who probably can relate and, and just military folks. I mean, you know, you train, train, train for years and years and then you find it. And that's where you build that attitude, you build that resilience and that, that tenacity and the ability to believe that you can get through anything. And then you deploy for a handful of months and then you come back and you go back into training and you're, they try and create training environments that are as close to real as you can get, which means that you're jumping out of planes, you're, you're diving, you're you're going through what we call kill houses where you're doing essentially like SWAT teamwork and you're using live ammunition to go down these hallways and a guy has a live gun right behind you, and you guys go into, into the same room and you peel off separate ways and you're both shooting live ammunition. So there are some very hairy situations that guys get into in training. I was assigned to our miniature submarine team. We were out over the Atlantic somewhere up off the coast of Maine or New Hampshire, and we were over, out and out pretty far off the ocean. And we were in water that was thousands of feet deep. And we lost control of our submarine and we started careening towards, towards the bottom. We weren't, weren't really in a position to be able to bail out. And so that's not a combat situation, but that's a situation where you're going, oh, my God, is this, is this the one? This is not how I thought it was going to go, but thankfully I was with better, better trained and just, just smooth operating seals who were able to salvage it and get us back to the surface. But certainly there's been a variety of hairy situations.

That is crazy. So you were literally 1,000 or a couple thousand feet below sea below the surface?

No, no, we were not. We were just a few meters below the surface. We lost control. We were in a miniature submarine. It's only a couple dozen feet long, and we lost control of it. I think the prop got fouled and something and, and we lost control of it and then one of the air tanks bled out or something. Like I forgot the exact problem. This was back in 1998. 99. And we're in water that's thousands of feet deep. We're only just below the surface.

Oh, okay.

But, but we started doing this. Yeah, and when you start doing this, you know, as, without geeking out on the physics of diving, as you start going down, the air starts compressing when you start rapidly decel or descending down into the water. So it's a matter of not being worried about. And that's part of that SEAL mindset that they, that they, you know, help you harness in the course of training. It's, don't worry about the fact that you're plummeting down to the bottom of the ocean in thousands of water. Just, just stay laser focused on the problem. Your only problem right now is not worrying. Your problem is fixing this submarine and getting it back to the surface. And, and thankfully I just, I was just lucky to be with really Good, smooth operating seals who were able to work us through the problem and get us back to the surface.

I love it. So when I think about the folks that are listening to us today, they may feel that their life, whether it's their relationships, their business, their career, their faith, who knows, they may feel like they're on a one way jet or one way sub down to the abyss. And so obviously you said we needed to really focus on the solution. What would your advice be to those people that feel in despair, that don't have the training that you have? Do you have an antidote for them? Like the people that are out there listening to us right now that feel helpless, that feel like they're out of control. If you were one of those people, right, and you have the training, like what would your step 1, 2, 3 be? To redirect them and redirect their life and get them, you know, back on the right path and get them to bridge the gap.

Well, there's two things that I think anybody, and let me, let me preface this by saying I always say when I give a lot of speeches talking about my SEAL experience and just my business experience, sort of fusing them all together. And I say, listen, barring some minor genetic differences, there's nothing different about me from anybody else in this room. So sometimes I, you know, I geek out on the psychology of what makes us successful. And sometimes they say, well, you need to develop this or, you know, or you need to, you know, if you're lucky enough to have this character trait. And certainly there are, there is some minor elements to that, but by and large there's very little difference between Glenn, you and I or any of the listeners. I have just been lucky and I always use the word find. Finding that tenacity, finding that mental fortitude inside you, finding the ability to persevere because there's nothing special about me, anybody else could have made it through SEAL training that, that had the right mindset. I just happened to be lucky enough to, in this world to, to go in there and either bring it in there or, or discover it inside myself. And that's what I talk about is, is first thing is, is the attitude that, that, that allowed me to make it through SEAL training or any of my, my comrades or anybody who makes it through anything very arduous is, it's, it's just a, it's, it's a matter of somebody else finding that inside them. That's my true sincere belief that we all have it inside of us. And that's not A touchy feely thing. It's just an honest belief that there's nothing special about me other than I've just been blessed to be able to find that inside of me. And so that's what I carry into anything I do. So let me bring it back full circle. To answer your question. For those who feel like they're in that submarine plummeting down and there's no way to blow the tanks to bring it back to the surface, there's two things that I offer when I, when I do some executive coaching or some leadership talks and there's two things that come to mind. The first thing is, is the way we eat an elephant and that's one bite at a time. If your boss says to you, hey, I need you to do this project by the end of the month and it, and it has, you need to bring together these 10 divisions and it has these 15 components, you're going to be overwhelmed just trying to do it. You're going to be overwhelmed. I always use the analogy I get on a treadmill and run, I hate running on a treadmill. Why? Because you're, you're not getting anywhere and it's very mentally deflating. So if I try and to go for a 5k run, it's very deflating from the minute I get on that, on that treadmill. However, if I try and take a bite size element of that and what, and what I mean by it, it's not just saying, okay, I'm just going to focus on this and focus and focus on this. What I do when I get on treadmill and it's something that your listeners can start to condition themselves to, to do right now. It's not something that you can do when you're in a dire situation. You start to condition yourself now to think about how to set micro goals. And so I go back to my, my treadmill analogy. When I get on a treadmill, I start to run and I say, you know what, I'm just going to run until the 1 minute mark. And then at the 1 minute mark, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to run till the end of this song. And then at the end of that song I look on the wall on the clock and it's the second hands at the 45. He said, you know, I'm just going to run it till it hits the, hits the 62nd mark. And then, oh, you know what? I now I'm gonna run until the little, the little arrow on my treadmill until it Gets to the, to the 1k mark. And now I'm, now I'm gonna find, I set these micro goals. It's a little bit of a distraction.

Cool.

It allows me to achieve a longer term goal without feeling overwhelmed. If I get on the treadmill, I go, I'm Gonna run a 5K, man. I'm deflated after like five minutes. But if I set micro goals and just find different ways to allow myself to get through that, that's one of the ways that your listeners can do it. The other very quick one I'll offer is you forgive me, I'm actually having a brain fart.

That's okay. It happened.

We'll come back to it.

Yeah, that's okay. I have been off the treadmill for two weeks. I just had just a minor surgery, nothing big. And they said, don't do anything for two weeks. And I literally was like gripping today going, oh man, I really don't want to do this. So you literally just helped me and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Tomorrow morning. I'm going to be thinking of you, Jonathan. That's going good.

When the universe has something special in store for us, buddy.

Yeah, I'm telling you, bro, I'm telling you. When, when, when we do talk about, you know, your active service, I always am so intrigued with like, well, first of all, you said I found it inside myself. Did somebody bring something out of you or did you find it in yourself? I mean, like, I, I, I started and this could be two different answers. Who brought that out of you? But who was your first attitude coach and who like, shaped your attitude before you were a seal?

And I appreciate you going back to that question because I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to my mom. And that's a very cliche answer, but my mom was Canadian by birth, raised in Montreal, moved down here, met my dad when he was stationed up in the Air Force, had just come back from Vietnam. She met him when he was stationed upstate New York. Went across the border, like on like a guy's weekend. Met my mom in Montreal, brought her down to the States. So here she is, she's an immigrant, not moving across the world, but still in a foreign country. My brothers and I were the perfect, like nuclear family, cat, dog, everything. My dad unfortunately passes away from a heart attack when I was nine years old. Oh my, my mom, my mom's down here. Three boys who are 12, nine and seven. She's a stay at home mom. My My dad had been, had just started a new, his own company like a year before. So here we are. Like my mom's truly in, in that dire straight situation and, and, and she never, she never complained. She never, you know, I'm sure internally she, she probably had a lot of turmoil she's dealing with, but, but we didn't see it. All we saw was the grind. Like she just got. After she went back to college, she, she worked odd jobs to help, you know, pay the bills. She went back to college, she ended up getting her master's, she got a teaching job, spent 25 years teaching. But all along the way, in fact, it's funny is I, I was like, I was a high school senior, I think, and I came home with like, you know, like the typical doofus that I was, you know, I came home like C's and D's and she's like, what do you, what do you, what are you, what are you getting? Cs and Ds, like, Mom, you don't understand how hard it is. And in high school, like I'm, you know, I'm taking AP Bio and she like holds up her, her, her transcripts from Penn State when she had, while she was raising three boys, right, and, and going to college and she got like a four out. She's like, don't ever tell me about, about how hard it is being an 18 year old kid. And so that was my first one and my second. My, my second attitude coach was my, my coach, my wrestling coach, John Bartnik. He made me wear a T shirt or he made us T shirts. It simply said no excuses. And I firmly believe that setting that tone, setting that mindset, my, all of my years wrestling in high school set the tone for me to go into, into the SEAL teams and go into buds, what we call SEAL training buds, and go in there and not have any excuse for why I couldn't make it or not be able to say, well, my, my ankle was hurt or I was too tired, I didn't eat enough. It was just, it was just truly, there's no excuse. You either. It's like that Yoda saying, there is no try. There is either do or do not. And I went in, said, you know, I'll be damned if I'm going to only try. I'm going to do. And that's what's carried me through since.

And what's your mother's name?

Joanne Kleck.

All right, Joanne, this is for you. Is she still with us or she is not?

She, she Passed away. Cancer. Like her fourth bout of cancer. I think she finally. Yeah, but she had a good run. She. She stuck around to see all of her grandkids born. And we're, we're, we were very, we're very thankful for the time we did have with her.

Sounds like a tough, tough lady.

Yeah. Yeah.

I always like to even go back a generation. Were you exposed to your grandparents? Did you meet her parents? And what's the greatest attitude lesson you got from that generation?

Geez, that's a good question. You know what? My, My grandmother came over from London. My mom's mom came over from London when she was just a young kid and she was, you know, her mom went to work in the factory or something. She was left at home alone and she was just. I think she sort of set the tone for my mom. My mom had two brothers, two sisters, but she set the tone like, again, it's just sort of. I don't know if it's in my DNA or what it is, but, but hey, there's, there's no excuses. You're just going to get through the grind and, and make it work.

So my son is, I think maybe we talked about, or maybe he didn't, was a Division 1 wrestler at Central Michigan. And we know this, the boys from Penn are a problem when you draw them. And so you wrestled in Pennsylvania high school wrestling?

I did. And it's funny, I did not know how hard Pennsylvania wrestling was. I just knew that it was hard. And I didn't know until we would go to tournaments in other states and be like, oh my gosh, it really is a high caliber State. Now, full disclosure, I was a really good high school wrestler. I was not of the caliber to wrestle at Central Michigan or certainly at Penn State or any of these other places. I may have been able to make it to like a mediocre D3 school, but even being really good in Pennsylvania, there was still. Kids were a lot, lot better than me out there.

Yeah, it's in. Penn State's doing great stuff. And do you still, still enjoy watching Penn State and those guys?

Go.

I mean, it's, you know, I'm a little biased.

I am a Penn State kid and I'm a little biased. But I mean, Kale's just doing unbelievable stuff up there, you know, since he came in. I mean, we. I grew up with Wade Chalice and, and Iowa being the teams to beat. Dan Gable, those names and, and what, what Kale has done is just. It's unbelievable. Right? It's really Just taken that. That mantra of winning and no excuses and. And no, no quit. And he's just put it on a different level now.

Is coaches at batter check? Is that what his name was? Coach John, your coach at Penn State?

Oh, no, Bartnick. John Bart. Yeah.

Yes. Is Coach Bartnick still coaching? Is he around? Is he alive? Do you ever check in with him? And besides him giving you an awesome shirt, what else did he teach you?

You know, it's just. Just that no excuses mindset. And it was. I mean, obviously he molded me into a wrestler to become, you know, pretty good at the high school ranks. Yeah, he's still around. He's still. He's still very involved in. In central or in high school wrestling in Central Pennsylvania.

Cool.

But yes, and just. I mean, he was a guy just. He. He didn't give a. About what. What your problems were or. Or what your, you know, what. What ails you had. He only cared.

He.

He measured your. He measured you in outcome, not in. Not in. Not an effort. And I learned that very early.

That's cool. That's cool. So you're obviously the middle of three boys, and I, you know, I think siblings have an impact on your attitude. I'd love to know, because you never know. Your bros may be listening to this someday. What was the attitude lesson from your older brother? What's the attitude lesson you learned from your younger brother? They had to teach us something.

Oh, for sure, man. Boy, it's hard to whittle it down to just one. There's so many. But, you know, what did I learn from both of those guys? There's so much. I mean, humility, just finding a passion. My older brother went into the Air Force. My older brother was maybe the smartest guy I've ever met in my life. He took a long time to. To figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up because he just. He had this. This great brain. And everybody would say, oh, you should be doing this, you should be doing that. It just. He just wasn't content where he was like. And he found his way into law enforcement. After 9 11. He got laid off from US Airways when. When the furloughs happened after an immediate aftermath of 9 11. Wow. He said, you know what? This is time to hit the reset button. He went and became a cop. And here it is today, 22 years. He's still a cop.

Awesome.

He found. He found his way back into the Air Force. He is an Air Force reservist. He's a firefighter in the Air Force and a cop in his day job. He's a cop and a fighter. He's like literally every kid's dream of what they say they want to be when they grow up.

Yeah, he's like a superhero. That's freaking awesome, man. And what's it. And what's his name?

My older brother Jason. And I'll tell you, I got to give a shout out. That's probably one of the cool lessons is. Is you're never too old to teach, you know, or to learn something new. He went back. He has four kids. The oldest is a junior in college right now, and his youngest is 8th grader. But he left the Air Force and was working in the civilian world. And he always wanted to go back. He always wanted to finish his service, finish his time in service. And he has four kids. His wife's busy working. He was going for his PhD. He had all kinds of other things going on. And finally at. I want to say it was like 43, he said, you know what? I'm going back. And here, you know, Most guys at 43 are either retiring out, and that's that lesson. And one is one, you know, if you have a dream, you're never too old, do it. But the other thing was the humility that came with it. He went back into the air Force at 43 years old, when other guys have reached the end of their career at his age. And so he's going back in, and the Air Force said, you know, we're not. We're not bringing you in at a senior rank. You're coming into junior ranks. And I appreciate the humility that he brought to that to say, you know what? I'm going to. I didn't earn a higher rank. So he came making it at 43 years old as a. As a junior enlisted guy, and now he's a senior guy seven years later. He's. He's worked his way up pretty. With a pretty meteoric rise. But. But he's brought that, you know, the. He's got his. He's got his doctorate, he's got. He's experienced, he's got whatever, 25, 30 years of life, you know, lessons in the workforce behind him. And. And he's doing great things as an Air Force reservist now. And my younger brother, I'll tell you, one of the lessons that has stuck with me is my younger brother was a local. He was in the Air Force. Then he became a local police officer. He joined the air Marshal Service, did that for 10 years, and then at some point just said, I mean, they pay you pretty well in the federal system for a cop salary. It's pretty good pay. And at one point my younger brother said, the money, the all of this, none of it's worth it because I just, it's not where my passion, it's not where my heart lies. And he left. He left a good paying job to go back to become a local cop. He had to start as at a junior level. But again, it's that humility and also the taking a risk and leaving a good paying job to set a good example for your kids that. Amen. It's not just about the money in the world. It's not about fame or status. It's just about going to work every day and finding a job you love where you feel a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose. And my younger brother is still a local cop today, doing great things in York Penns. So shout out to Brad and Jason, both of you, for sharing those and imparting those lessons on me when you didn't even know it.

That's so cool. And I think for all of our listeners who are listening in, hey, look, there's no doubt 70% of our workforce is disenchanted with what they're doing. And when we talk about bridging the gap from who you are to who you want to become, those are two real stories from Jonathan Kleck about his brothers. You know, it's heartbreaking to think about, especially, you know, the older one when your father dies at such a young age and the burdens that that sets. Obviously, I'm guessing you guys were pretty close. What was that like to, you know, lose a parent and fight through that? And did you, you know, maybe there's people again listening that are going through this. I lost both my parents. We are both now orphans together. We have that in common. But if you can go back to that time and think about that and speak to maybe somebody who went through that earlier that maybe hasn't reconciled that, or maybe somebody who has a nephew or niece or whatever, what's that like? What did you learn about how to push on from that? Any antidotes that maybe somebody helped you with to say, hey, this is probably the worst thing that could happen to three young boys. What was the solution or what was the answer to that?

You know, what your question, the timing of this question and of this, you know, of being on again. The universe seems to have a plan in place for you. And I, Glenn, if you had asked me a year Ago, maybe even two years ago, I would not have had the same clarity of thought that I do now. And what I mean by that is, at 47 years old, I went to see a counselor. I don't know, maybe a year and a half, two years ago, went back and I've been going on and off just to. Just to clear my head. And she said to me, I was just talking about being a dad. I have three kids of my own. They're 13, 12 or 14 12, and almost 1412 and nine. And we're just talking about the struggles of being a parent today and trying to do what's right, when to allow them on social media, when to not. How to counsel them and, and how to let them free, but not too free, so, you know, but. And how to trust in their decision making. And she asked me a very poignant question, and it caught me off guard. She said, where did you learn to be a dad? And it was such a profound question for me that I had never stopped to think about. And I said, well, I don't know. And I just stumbled over my words just like that. I said, I don't, I don't know. She said, well, think back. Like most young men would say that they learned, they emulated what their dad was doing. She's like, you didn't have that. Your mom never got remarried. So, so where did you learn to be a dad? And I thought, oh, man, that's like, wow, that's profound. I said, I don't know. She goes, maybe you didn't actually learn, so maybe, maybe you can give yourself a little bit of a hall pass because you didn't have maybe the benefit of what other people had. And so, so one, that, that was I. When I, when I share that story with other folks, because I say, hey, that's something that maybe they could learn, is just imparting those lessons that. Just little bits of wisdom on them. The other thing that I would share is, is that we got right back into life. And you know, my mom, you know, she, she didn't have time to. And I didn't know that this was happening and I didn't know happening with me or with them. And this is something I discovered through therapy is she said, well, like, tell me about the grieving process. My, my, my. My therapist says, tell me about the grieving process when your dad died. And, you know, we reconstructed these scenes in my head, and none of them involved grieving. Like, literally, my dad passed away on a Saturday, I believe, and I was off from school that week, and I went back to school the following Monday. And we got right back into it, like, you know, like, what are you gonna do? My mom can't be like, well, I'm not gonna grocery shop for a month while we, you know, while we grieve.

Interesting.

And my mom was like, I can't. You know, there's. There's insurance. My life insurance. There's. There's other. My kids have. They're in sports. I can't just be like, sorry, my kids aren't doing anything this season, you know? So she tried to create some normalcy.

Wow.

We tried to get back in normalcy. And it wasn't until I was in my mid-40s that she said, have you ever grieved about the loss of your dad? And I was like, I don't know. When we talk through that. And so when I think about how other people. Losing a parent or just losing a loved one or something, and I say so often, we jump right back into it because that's demands of life. Life doesn't allow us the time to process sadness and stuff like that. If one of your listeners could. If they could do just one thing for somebody who's experiencing that and maybe just have a conversation, maybe draw out those tears.

Yeah.

Let them. Let them talk through the emotions. Not that everybody's me, but I went 35 years without doing that and not even knowing that. And I mean, and. And the waterworks came out, you know, in my mid-40s when she asked me to start, like, describing, like, the loss of my dad. And I'm just like. I'm bawling and I'm like. I'm like, I guess this had been bottled up for 35 years and I didn't know it.

Wow.

So something that I've only been sharing the last two years is, hey, man, I didn't even know. I didn't even know. The demands of life put me right back into the grind. But if I can offer a tidbit for somebody else, maybe somebody else is dealing with that, and maybe the best thing you can offer them is just an opportunity to process the grief.

Yeah. That's so good. Look at. Everybody that's listening to this has suffered loss. Right. I would say 90% of the people that suffer loss don't necessarily deal with it. Right. Because they don't seek out a therapist or a counselor to help them, and they just get back in and they go, so. I mean, that was just pure gold, Jonathan. That was vulnerable and really good. And that is going to Help us get people from where they are to where they want to be. There's no doubt about it. Can you tell me a little bit? I know that you're on the speaking trail. What do you love to do your keynotes on? What are your main points of the keynotes? And I think. Have you written a book too? And is that available?

I've written a children's book. So I wrote a children's book years ago and I did not have the right attitude about it because I let it sit on the shelf until my wife helped stick that attitude back in. She's like, what are you doing? You took all this time to write it. You got an illustrator. So I am in the process right now of self publishing. That cool? It is out there. But I'm actually finishing my own doctorate and I have started converting my dissertation, which, by the way, is not good reading. It's 150 pages of want to hang yourself awfulness. But not to the Wilmington professors, of course. It's nothing but pure gold.

Yes.

But I'm in the process of converting that and the lessons from that into a book on leadership. And, and it's really, I'm super excited about it because it's, it's about leadership and it's about using humor. That's what my dissertation is for is on, in my doctorate. It's about how organizational leaders use humor to address sensitive subjects. So the 800 pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about, how do organizational leaders use humor to do that? And I'm in the midst of doing my study now, and I'm able to take my, my dissertation. The goal is to take it and to turn it into some, some tangible, real world lessons that leaders can look and go, hey, I've always said humor is the most underrated and underutilized skill set. Skill set of a, of a leader. It can level the playing field. It can diminish tensions. It is such an awesome tactic to use to be able to talk to people. So that's one thing. So that's kind of a good segue. What do I talk about? My speeches, obviously, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about mental fortitude. Persistence, grit, tenacity, all those things. Persistence and perseverance through tough times. Drawing on a lot of the lessons that I've been so fortunate to experience and learn from the SEAL teams. I've been both a. An observer of mental fortitude. I've experienced mental fortitude. I've struggled with mental fortitude and Now I'm so lucky to share the lessons of mental fortitude with audiences. And then the other thing that I love to talk about is just humor and I love to inject humor. You said during my intro, I am an amateur standup comedian. I do love, I joke with my wife. Some guys go around and, and do. Some guys go and play poker on Saturday nights. Some guys are in a bowling league. I go out on Thursday nights and get heckled for fun. And it's a great creative outlet but it does help me on stage then be a little quicker on my feet and bring some of that comedy to the audiences. So I'm able to inject a little humor while I'm also trying to dispense leadership lessons.

And last question before we go to knowledge through the decades. We got nine minutes. I'm going to try to make things happen. I'd just like to know a little bit about Greencastle Consulting. Is that still active in your life? Is things still happening and, and how can people reach you? What's your website and that type of thing?

Sure. So I'm, I'm big on LinkedIn. I have an Instagram. My Instagram is, is jlcleck but LinkedIn is the best way to get ahold of me. I'm Jonathan Kleck. I am the only Jonathan Kleck on LinkedIn. So it's, it's not hard to find. C L E C K I think I'm the only. Think I'm the only cleck on there or one of a few collects on there. My brother is my wife but there's, there's only a handful of us on there.

Cool.

There. There he is. Look at that guy.

Oh yeah.

And. But I still am with the Greencastle. It is a, it is the largest all veteran company in the country. It's. It's run by, it's just coincidentally just run. The, the CEO and the owner is a SEAL and but I mean we've got Space Force, we've got Coast Guard, Marines, Army, Air Force, other sailors. It's a fantastic organization. You can see right there we get stuff done that's literally our secret sauce for why we do things better than the competition is. It's just that veteran mindset and it's everything I've talked about in the early part of this interview is we simply get it done. When everyone else is running around with their head cut off and they don't know how to solve the problems. We're the ones as the calming beacon, the steadfast light in the room saying, hey, nobody's shooting at us. We got this right now. We're going to do it. We're going to problem solve, we're going to get creative. We're going to sit down on the whiteboard and come up with some creative solutions. We're going to make sure that the right people are in the room, that everybody's voice is being heard, and we're going to solve this unsolvable problem.

That's so cool. We may need to get that CEO on the Get Attitude podcast. I think that would be a really good thing. So I'll get with you on there. So let's go ahead and do knowledge through the decades. If you've listened to a few of mine, you know that I like to take you through your life and learn get the attitude lessons at certain life events, certain ages in your life. You've had three sons. You may or may not be remember being born. But when you think about the attitude lesson of being born or a newborn baby, what's the attitude lesson of birth?

Can I pass and come back?

Yeah, you can pass. That's fine.

I'm kidding. What's the attitude lesson at birth? Oh, boy, that's a tough one. And I've listened to several of the podcasts. I don't want to repeat what everyone else said. I'm trying to come up with something original.

Well, you know, whatever comes in your head is usually the best answer.

Yeah. The lesson at birth is adapting to change. Right. And they always say that's why we swaddle babies, is because they are, you know, you're inside the womb and you're, you're cuddled up and all of a sudden you're, you come out and it's cold, it's light, it's, it's not warm, and, and, and it's not your wooby. And that. I think adapting to change, I think that's the first thing we learn in every animal learns when they're born, is adapting to changing environments.

That's great. And we've been. I want to thank everybody. They love knowledge through the decades. The dms, the text, the notes, the emails, they're like, I love this. And the reason they do is because it really, when you look at all of these attitude lessons, they are really a step by step process to help you bridge the gap from who you are to who you want to be. So adapting to change, certainly if you guys want to bridge the gap, being able to adapt to change, to think of that newborn baby is good. I want you to go to 10 years old now. Do you remember being in third or fourth grade? Just curious, if anything happened to you, what was the attitude lesson? What did you learn at 10 years old?

You know, it's interesting. I was right after my, my dad passed away. I was 9. Just a few months away from turning 10 and tapping into, into your team, finding your tribe and using the strengths of your tribe. For me, that was my immediate family. I remember very clearly. I mean, we were all boys and we, you know, we were boys. We wrestled like boys, we fought, we got along. You know, we fought some more, we got along. We were like just regular boys. But in the aftermath of my dad's death, we were a very, very tight knit group. And I learned and I still carry that today. I think that's why I was drawn to the seal teams because of how tight knit they are. And it became my new tribe and now my own family now is my tribe. But I've drawn on the strengths so of my tribe for such a long time.

That is powerful. So, so good. All right, now you're 20. You're in college at Penn State, partying. Who knows what you're doing at 20. What was your attitude lesson at 20?

Boy was the lesson. Duh. There's a lot of them there. Boy, if I could go back and punch that knucklehead in the, in the head and, and shake some sense into him.

That's the next book, bro.

Yeah. Yeah. If I could go back and punch myself in the head, right? That probably is a chapter of the book. You know what it is? Don't sweat the small stuff. And again, very cliche. But at 20 years old, I, I felt, I went into the SEAL teams. I left college after my sophomore year because I felt like, oh, man, I'm, I'm, I've changed my major twice. Like, I don't know what I want to do. If I had to go back right now and tell that guy again, I'm glad he did what he did, but if I had to go back and tell him, hey, listen, you're 19 years old and they're trying to ask you what you want to do for the rest of your life. If you don't have a good answer, it's okay, buddy. Yeah, don't sweat it. And I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep up with my peers who were being successful and they were in nursing programs and they were in engineering and they knew what they want to do. A laser focus.

Wow.

I didn't know in College. And I'm so fortunate. I'm so grateful for the way everything turned out. But I left to go into the Navy because I was like, I don't know what I want to do. And I think being a SEAL is what I've been called to do. So maybe that's a good lesson. Maybe it's not because it turned out it worked out in my favor.

Well, so you were 20. So you went into the Navy and started your journey as a SEAL at 20 years old.

Yep.

Right. So that's. Yeah, I would say, like, the attitude lesson there is like, blind faith or something. Right. Or blind stupidity or who knows?

Probably a little bit of both.

Yeah. But I mean, I guess the thing is, no fear. I'm just gonna go do it right. Or don't be worrying about what everybody else is doing or don't make decisions based on everybody else path or speed or whatever. So a lot of good lessons in there, just like you said.

Last one I would add to that is. Is don't be. You know, you miss all of the balls you don't swing at. And I was so afraid to go to the Navy because what if I fail? And one day. And there's a longer story, I'll tell you the next time I have you on our podcast.

Yeah.

I got called out by the recruiter, said, hey, man, you keep coming back and seeing me either shit or get off the pot. Like, you're either in or you're out. Stop wasting my time. And that was it. That was. That was an awakening for me. I tell you, Glenn, it was a seminal moment in my life where he called me out for being. For being a punk about wishy washy. And I went home that night, I slept on it. I came back the next day and enlisted in the Navy because he's like, he's right. Either stop being afraid to pull the trigger or don't. I don't care. But if you're gonna pull the trigger, you know, cowboy up and do it. And that's exactly what I did.

I love it. We got one minute left. What about 30 attitude lesson at 30? Do you remember what was going on with you at 30? Do you remember your third birth attitude lesson there?

Yeah, man. I'll tell you, I was a young dad at the time, and this is a lesson that every dad knows, especially dads who are even older than me. And I get these lessons. Is the last thing I'll impart, especially in the 30 for the young dads, is the days are long, but the years are short. And you got to embrace those moments, man. Don't be too tough to embrace those little baby snuggles. My kids are a little bit older now. I would give anything, go back for those moments and I still try to with my 12 year old boy, bring him in and cuddle with him. But man, the years are short, the days are long, but embrace every moment.

You've been so great. I'm not going to do 40 because we're out of time, but we always like to end with just your sincere hope, your sincere best 30 second motivational speech to those people that are listening to you now, what is your message of hope? What is your message of attitude for those who have sat in on this podcast? And Jonathan, I can't thank you enough for your time.

Glenn, thank you so much, man. I'll just close it out by saying, hey, we're coming out of COVID If you are, if you are stressing or if you are worried about how, how you haven't navigated Covid correctly or you boy, you go boy. If there's things I could have done differently, this is the great opportunity in life. This is a perfect moment to just give yourself a little bit of grace and hit the, hit the reset button right, right now and start with that new attitude starting today.

All right. Jonathan Kleck, he is a 25 year Navy Seal. He's a speaker, he's a comedian, he's an author. He's just a pretty damn nice, cool dude. So Jonathan, thanks for being on the Get Attitude podcast, bro. We will be back in touch for sure.

Thank you so much.