Gratitude and Grit: Leading Through Uncertainty (Holiday theme)

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We get back and they're like, hey, you need to go to Lansing. You need to go to this place. So we get, we get in the car, we race up to Lansing, we go into this apartment complex. There's the whole thing going on with guns, booze, drugs, and there was actually a 45 discharge in the room while I was in the room.

From others over self. It's hardcore and at ease. A show about people who are keeping their edge without going over the edge. I'm host Shelley Rude. Get ready for a conversation that will leave you with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Today we're on life's adventure with chaplain Brian Webb, who's mastered staying present in impossible moments. 79 casualty notifications and over 40 suicide interventions. He now leads Michigan's Walking with Warriors program A that's doing this sacred work without destroying themselves. If the weight of life and leadership is heavy right now, well, this conversation will give you the tools and the headspace to refocus on what really matters. This is hardcore and at ease. Picture it being 11:30 at night and your phone rings. There's a young soldier at a forward operating post with a loaded weapon and she is ready to end her life. She just gave birth three weeks earlier and and her mother isn't returning her calls. Everything inside of her is telling her she's supposed to be home protecting her baby, but instead she's on guard duty in 95 degree heat and all she wants is for the pain to stop. You're 40 minutes away and you know when you arrive, you have one chance to say the right thing or picture standing outside of a home and inside there's a mother who has no idea that her son will never cross the threshold again. You knock, she opens the door and the words you say bring her to her knees. Now imagine another scenario. It's just Tuesday morning and it's your staff meeting. The airman sitting across from you, he just found out that his spouse is being unfaithful. Now their team needs him to show up and lead, but inside he's raw and you know it. How do you help him hold it together when everything feels like it's just coming undone? This is the day to day work of a military chaplain. Crisis intervention, yes, but also marriage counseling. Team dynamics. Helping people navigate impossible tension between personal devastation and professional duty. Chaplains deal with the most reverent and difficult people. Work that exists. Standing with humans in our most vulnerable moments. Chaplain Brian Webb has done this for over two decades. 79 casualty notifications, over 40 suicide interventions, countless marriages teams and leaders that he's walked with through darkness. And today he continues to lead with a team of people doing this sacred, impossible work for veterans across Michigan. What he's learned about staying grounded when everyone else is losing it, about this single word that can save a life, about leading a team through work that redefines hard. Well, this isn't theory. This is survival knowledge from someone who stood in the fire and didn't burn out. Well, he almost did once, and he shares that story with us today. Fair warning. Brian is a chaplain, and faith is his story. But what he knows about leading teams through work that breaks most people. Every leader carrying weight needs to hear this. Get ready for a conversation that will leave you with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Here's Chaplain Brian Webb.

You came from a really solid background as an army officer, had your own challenges. You know, you weren't just, you know, smoothing through everything, and everything was going like you had planned all along and that you had to be resilient in that process. You know, you had gone through a previous life of struggles and, and, and work through that and kind of come out to the other side. And I think I see that a lot across the breadth of my life of people who have been through some really hard struggles. A lot of times they're in. I mentioned this before, they're in kind of recovery. They're not recovered. And you were strong, really strong female veteran. And we needed someone like that in this role, someone we didn't have to watch over, someone that didn't need all the instruction, the guidance. We kind of like, here's the task, here's the objectives. Go get it. How you do that and what you do. Hey, we'll figure that part out.

You bring so much depth to this conversation right out of the gate, sir. Because our listeners need to hear that whatever battles that they have faced, maybe in the past, or that they're still going through, they're not going to be forever marked by whatever this is. Right. If they stay in that battle and they can't figure out how to move through it, then if you have an understanding of eternal consequence, then yes, there is that opportunity or that possibility that you may be forever marked. But by and large, what I'm hearing you say is that you are looking and witnessing people that are going through things on a regular basis. And it's not bad. It actually was a catalyst to helping us start working together straight from the Beginning we have a.

A viewpoint that we should remove people from struggle. And I think that's a fault, a faulty view. You know, we walk with them through the struggle. You know, and what we do with Walking with warriors, we're walking with people in the midst of the struggle. We're not taking them out of the struggle. For the most part, we can't. You know, we can be that the struggle just created itself by a series of decisions in life or things that happen to them in life. And so now we're in it with them. We're in the struggle. When people go through a struggle and they come out the other side eventually, it creates a better. A better rounded person.

We're going to get to your work that you're doing now with Walking with warriors and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. I'm. I'm absolutely floored that there's even somebody like you, that there's a position that exists in our country and in our, you know, at the state level to represent the needs and the battles of mental wellness as it relates to our veteran population. But before I get into all of that goodness, sir, I want to know more about you. Can you walk me through your decision to join the military and what that looked like?

Yeah. Wow. That goes way back. I'll try to keep it brief. So I had two uncles that served World War II. My mom's twin brother served in France and was killed in action on August 29, 1944, as they were making a push against the Germans in France. And he lost his life. So I had another uncle that was another set of twins in my mom's family that actually served in England. And so I heard the stories, I saw the letters read to me from my mother about their experiences and some of the things that happen around that and a lot of pride in what occurred. And so that's kind of where that began, I think, long, long term. I get involved in ministry. I'm involved in all kinds of ministries from the late 80s all the way through early 2000s, after 9, 11, the army, out of the blue, called me. In the 90s, I called. This is an interesting story. It's kind of funny, actually. So in 95, I called the army and said, hey, I'd like to be an army chaplain. I was wrapping up my master degree working on that. And they were like, hey, you're too old. And I was 30. You're too old.

Oh, stop it. Too old at 30.

Yeah, too old at 30. So here we are. Now we're seven years later, May of 2002. And out of the blue in May, they call me and they're like, hey, we need army chaplains. We've got a lot going on now. Would you consider the possibility? And I said, you know, I called you guys seven years ago, and I was too old then. Now I'm really old.

You got that call. Brian Webb, your country needs you. You had that decision to make.37.

It was from Fort Valley, Kansas. It was a major Dan King. Out of the blue, out of nowhere, this guy calls me. I'm like, what is this? And so he said, well, go down to Maps on Thursday, this was Tuesday, and at least get a physical. At least you get a free physical out of it. I said, okay. So seven months later, I found myself at Fort Jackson at Chaplain Basic Officer Leadership Course.

Walk me through that a little bit. What was behind that decision to. To leave what seems like the comfort of small town ministry? You've got things figured out. You've got a master's degree, you're married, you're pretty established. Why would you leave that?

Yeah, I think it's just it, part of my personality that wanted to stretch for something further. I mean, that whole military thing was still back there, the whole desire to serve, and I was already serving people, but that desire to serve more. I had spent a decade in the 90s while I was getting my master's degree, serving youthful offenders on a ranch. So I'd had a lot of time to work with individuals and people and young people in particular, and felt like I had really served my purpose in that area. And then I was involved in ministry as well, as well as going to school, wrapping up Bible college, and going to seminary. And so this gave me one more opportunity to serve in an even. I, I saw it as a larger capacity and, and to serve in a kind of a unique way. There's something about church ministry that is rewarding and at the same time super challenging. In America, it's. It is a real struggle. What we see in a pastor up on a pulpit, that's the easy part, that's the fun part. The everyday grind in ministry is very challenging. The hours spent, the lack of support, I mean, so you go down that road, then look at the road of, okay, I've got a chance to do something very unique in ministry. Very positive, very. And in the middle of wartime. So we jumped in. I jumped in with both feet. Once I got to go, I was still in pretty good shape. I was out at that time. I could still run, workout. I was still doing that. I was 38.

Let's give our leaders, our listeners, the true picture of who you are. You have horses, you live on land. I mean, you are a very, very fit gentleman that continues to work and use his body the way that you're made. And it's. It's very humbling to hear you say that at that time in your life, you were so much more physically capable than you are now.

I'm in the last two weeks of my 59th year of life. I'll be 60. And so that's just a number to me. But I. But it is in the back of my head, like, every day is vital to me. Every day is an opportunity to serve God, to pray for people that are lost, to care for them, to, you know, help people see kind of their own potential moving forward. And I think the older you get, at least from where I'm at, and I don't feel old, but I realize the clock is ticking and I can't stop it.

Could you take me deeper into the heart of a military chaplain? You. You are a person of faith. You have openly professed that you are a Christian. Walking into the military, you're walking into a secular organization that does not put faith first. Can you share with our listeners what that process is like? And it's my understanding that in military chaplain training, you're actually sitting down and receiving briefings, and you're being taught how to engage with your faith with people of other faiths. Walk us through that a little bit, if you don't mind.

Yeah, I think I had a little advantage because I was a little older than some, and it had quite a bit of experience in ministry. So I think that helped me. But you do go in. It is a plurality of religions that are in the. In the military chaplaincy. And so you run into all different theological backgrounds, all different denominations. And so what you do is. So there's this. There's this work that you do amongst your soldiers and your officers. You work for the commander. So your job is to be a voice to the commander from the unit on all issues of morals, morale, and religion. And those are the areas you have to learn to kind of stay in your lane on.

Say that one more time for me. Morals, Morale.

Morale. And religion.

And religion.

You're the voice from the soldiers to the commander. So the chaplain sits outside the chain of command so that soldiers can come to us and come to us with confidentiality and privileged communication and share with us the deepest struggles of their life. They have to be Kept confidential. And so you work that part of it at the same time looking at making sure that you're taking care of the unit and taking care of your commander so that he has the best view of how best to move the mission forward. Because it is very mission centric, and the military is. Is mission centric. It should be. I mean, the United States military exists to defend the nation against all enemies. And so you have to realize that, you have to take that into account that when this is really about a mission, but at the same time, you get the ability to care for, you know, those who are hurting, you know, care for the wounded, honor the dead, nurture the living. Those are the three basic components of what a chaplain does. And that. That encompasses so much just to know three, you know, three small ideas. Nurture, loving, care for the wounded, honor the dead. And they bring such great impact and opportunity to further that ministry of presence, because those all demand presence. And that is really what the Chaplain Corps is about.

There's a nationwide shortage of chaplains for those listening that are not aware of this. And that's not a new thing. Right? I mean, that's since they called you up, right, sir, and they said, hey, we need you now, you old Timer. Can you. At 37.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I mean, there's only 1700 military chaplains in the whole military corps. That's Army, Navy, Air Force. There are none in the Marines. The Navy chaplains serve the Marines. And so you have none in the Coast Guard as well at this time. So you have. It's a very small corps of individuals serving. And you can serve anywhere from, you know, 350 to 5,000, depending upon where you're at. I've been in every level, battalion, brigade, division, installation, across the spectrum of all different backgrounds, from medical to aviation to military police.

This is a very bittersweet conversation for you and I to have from my side because, as you know, when. When we first, you know, came into each other's worlds, I was in the process of transitioning. I was still in the service, and I was in the process of transitioning from being an intelligence officer into the Chaplain Corps. That was what I truly believed was God's calling on my life. And I didn't come into my faith until I was into my 30s. So I am not. I do not have your background. I am not, you know, a church baby. I'm not somebody that lived and breathed youth group. I was. Went to church with my parents. But my. My true individual faith in my relationship with Christ did not exist until I was in my 30s. So knowing that, you know, I felt like it was my. My honor and my path to transition into the Chaplain Corps. And as you know, that didn't happen. And you walked with me through that process, and you were the first person to be on the other end of a call with me. When I realized that, not only did I get a no, I got a final no, it took me four years of fighting because of a paperwork administrative issue, why I could not join the Chaplain Corps. And you were such a source of strength for me, even as a civilian, even on the outside. And so I'm a direct recipient of the care that you're talking about. When people feel like their lives and paths are redirected away from what they genuinely feel like they're supposed to be serving. Could you speak to me about that a little bit, sir? For those of us that feel like opportunity is there but we can't quite get it, or there's a path that we're supposed to be on, and if I keep fighting harder, I'm going to get that path. That sense of unfulfillment and restlessness that I see amongst entrepreneurs and just ambitious people.

I come back to kind of where God has people in life. So a lot of times God will say yes or no or wait. And I think when it comes to where you're at in life, you have to find some way to be content, even though you're going through those. Those tough moments and kind of be in that staying in the present, like, not letting past. I always tell people, like, we have a tendency, especially as Western American, Western civilization, we. We don't live in the present very well. We live in the past, and we carry all the baggage with us, or we live too far in the future, and we're hoping that we're eventually going to get there, and we miss the. The present where we're at. And that actually can create a problem for the future when we do that, because we get our eyes off of what's happening right now. I think one of the things we need to realize. It was interesting. I was thinking about in the book of Esther, in the Bible, when Esther's not sure what she's supposed to do to try to save the Jews. And. And Mordecai is telling her, you, you've got to go see the king. You've got to go tell him this. And she said, like, he could kill me. I could die there. And he said, for such a time as this, you were brought into this world. Whether you do it or not, God is going to protect the Jews whether you're involved or not. But you have a time for such a time as this. And I think where we miss it is that we need to remember where God has us. Not where he might have us, where we want to be, but where does he have us? And so there's a song for such a time as this. I was placed upon the earth to hear the voice of God and do his will, whatever it is. And I. I remember this was sung by a guy named Wayne Watson years ago. And I think if we remember that, it'll help us to be grounded. Like, okay, Lord, I'm here. Isaiah said in the. In the book of Isaiah, God said, who will go for me? And who will I send to the people to tell them? And Isaiah merely said, here am I, Lord, send me. And without much guidance, just, here I am. How many of us are willing to be like, here am I? I heard that early on in my ministry, and I had declared that to God to say, okay, Lord, here I'm. Here am I. Send me. And for the most part, I think I've been obedient to that calling as a. As a man with a lot of faults, a lot of inadequacies. I don't. I don't. It's. What's really cool is that I see so many people who I think have so much more potential than I even had. I do. I see it, and I'm like, if you only knew. Where I came from and where I'm at today is only by the grace of God. Because this. I couldn't do this. This is a young boy who got up on a stage at a Christmas special and cried. My mother had to come get me because I was that afraid of being in front of people as a small boy. And here I am today. And I. I couldn't do that six days of the week and twice on Sunday. I. God did that in me, and only he gets the credit and the glory for that. Because I. There's no way that I saw myself here back then or in high school. I flunked. I flunked speech class in high school. I was petrified to be in front of people until. Until I became a believer at 16. Even though I was 17, I was still. That didn't have that ability to get in front of people. But that kind of opened me up, and I think I got opportunity to do some things, and God shaped that. I said, God does not call the equipped.

God equips the called that opportunity for you to not be skilled and then gain the skill that then launches you into these incredible opportunities. Do you attribute that more to gratitude of taking advantage of those resources and, you know, and then how much of that is grit? Sometimes we feel like we can just bunker down and make it happen.

Yeah, I think I always tell people, you know, we hear the term first work. Work smart, not hard. I don't believe that philosophy. I believe work smart and hard, there is no substitute for hard work because God demands it. God calls us that with all that we do, we do it as unto God. That means we work hard. At least that's my perspective on life. I do everything hard because I'm doing this work. Hopefully not every day perfectly, I hope, as unto God. Some days I'm doing it as unto man because I have to, because God has given me a master in the sense of having a boss and having an employer. There is a. There is an earthly master to serve, and I must serve him. I must serve it as unto God. So that demands hard work. And then God, whatever else God gives you in life, to the best of our ability, as sinful and broken and open as we can be. I think for me, it's just saying, okay, God, I'm. I'm available. There was another saying I heard back in the 90s that says my availability will give God the opportunity to work a miracle through me by being available, by being open to people, to having discussions and being there for people in the moment when they need me.

Guide us through that perspective of being in an organization or having a boss that you feel like your heart is at odds with your external circumstances. Is that something that you've seen in your military career, in your civilian career? What advice do you have for people experiencing that?

I think what you do is you be patient, Treat everybody with everybody. Everybody from the PFC to the Fullburg colonel to the general, all with dignity of life, with the same dignity. I don't tend to be. I don't change who I am with people. I'm the same person. I think that's something that's. That has benefited me to some degree by being. I don't know how to be fake. I don't. I literally couldn't make. I don't think I could make it up. I just can't be. I can't be somebody else. And I see some people compartmentalize their lives. I can't do it. I'm not even that smart, okay? Like, I can't even compartmentalize. So I treat Everybody the same.

So I'm leading. I'm leaning into your understanding of dignity and treating every single person that exists with dignity. What, what I witnessed. Here's a quick story for you. So I grew up in the north, right? We're in Michigan here, and I'm in the Detroit area. People are extremely rude. You take the receipt from the cashier, you don't say thank you. You just like drive away as fast as you can. And then I moved down south for the military and for some other ventures, and the south is totally different. Everyone says thank you. Everyone has just these manners that are so contrary to how I was raised. And when I hear you say that treating people with the individual dignity that they deserve is a choice, it's not a social construct of how we should be reacting. Walk me through that a little bit, because I'm seeing more cell phones, I'm seeing less face to face interaction. I'm, I'm seeing a hesitancy to even engage with other humans.

Let me go back to our basic of, of dignity and all men created in the image and women. When I say men, I mean all mankind created in the image of God. Okay? So the way we treat image bearers is a view upon the very Creator. If we treat our fellow men and women with ill will and with malice, we look upon the Creator in the same mindset. So whether we agree with somebody's lifestyle or not, we need to interact with them in a way that brings, you know, grace, grace and mercy, because that's what we would want. It's not always easy, for sure, but if you approach it from that perspective, and yet you're firm, you don't compromise your core beliefs or your principles in that process, and you have dialogue, that can be challenging. And I've had, I think even if you walk away disagreeing, you have respect. And then if you start there with dignity, no matter if you disagree or not, you can't help but to respect the other person.

Have you seen over the last, you know, 20, 30 years of your career as a military chaplain, are these conversations getting harder to have? Do you feel like there's a degradation of respect and dignity being passed between humans? Or is that perception something that's being thrust upon us?

Yeah, I think the, I think that whole cultural thing of people don't want to engage as a cultural is a more of a media driven kind of thing. And I'm not saying it's a narrative, it's just kind of a. And it is true, though, if you look around in places of business and. And places that we. That we frequent, you know, restaurants and public places. You see everybody caught in their phone, including myself. We're all in that world. It's a very cultural thing to do. We're so swamped by information. We're over. We're over. We're like. It's like we're addicted to information. Our fake. Watch somebody who lost their phone. Watch their behavior. They are.

Cover your children's eyes.

Yeah. They are freaking out internally, looking for that as if it's a fix. I mean, I hate to say that, but, like, one day I left my phone somewhere and I was like, I was. I was. My blood pressure was going up. And I. I think that lends to the fact that we're. We're. We're tied to that information and to all the things that. That this electronic thing does for us. Think about. I was sitting on Sunday afternoon with my wife someplace in a parking lot, and I'm watching. She was going into a store, and I was watching a golf tournament live on my phone through my. The same app I use on my television. And just the bizarre thought about how much we can do electronically with that affords us to be able to walk away from our own homes and have the same benefits and luxuries when we're gone away from our home. So I think that part. But I think people are starved for human interaction. And I think when you engage with people at that level, that's when you'll see, like, their deepest needs being met in some of the most simple conversations.

Is that how we do it? Is it through conversation?

Yeah, I think what we do is. I'll go back to talking about veterans. So we say thank you for your service. You know, there's a movement now, it's actually a website or a comment said called beyond thank you for your service. Because thank you for your service is a dialogue ender. It is. Thank you for your service. Move on. It is.

It's a power play. It's a. As compliments are. Right. I've tossed the ball to you now. What?

Yeah. Instead of, hey, I see you served in the military. Like, where did you serve? When did you serve? You know, what did you do? You know, I mean, like, some of the things that you can have a dialogue about. So how are you doing? I mean, if you can. If you have the guts to do that with somebody to say, how are you doing? You'd be surprised. People will actually respond to that.

Why does that take guts?

Because I think it's the same Question we ask about when we're talking about suicide prevention, we say, you know, are you thinking about taking your own life? We find that so uncomfortable. I don't. I've done it enough over and over again to where you say, you see somebody in real struggle, and you say, when you run to somebody. So I run to somebody sitting down, and they'll say, well, here's where I served. And I'll say, so how things been since you've been out? And just watch for the body language, you know, and just say, so how are you doing? And I think can be an awkward question and an awkward response because the person not expecting that, but I think that's where genuine care for our fellow men and women comes from.

Can you tell me again those three major things that the chaplains represent and lean into?

Yeah. Nurture the living, care for the wounded, honor the dead.

And so having that as your compass, if you will, as you move forward in life, in every interaction, if. If you have that purpose and that clarity, it's easier or harder to ask the tough questions, like, are you thinking of harming yourself?

Yeah, I think it makes it easier in that construct because if you really believe that, if you don't believe that, then you're. Then you're not in the right calling. If you believe that you're going to be a chaplain. And the. The three calls to a chaplain is nurture the living, care for the wounded, honor the dead.

And that empowers you to take those brave steps and ask those tough questions. And one of the things that you and I chatted about when I was denied entrance into the Chaplain Corps, essentially, was this understanding. You actually said, shelly, that's probably better because you would be spending a lot of your time. Do you remember how you said. How you finished that sentence?

I don't remember that.

But doing death notifications.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. Casual notifications are an interesting part of the responsibility of a chaplain. Yeah. You know, my history with that, how many doors I've knocked on, you know, over my career. And you can. It's really interesting. I had three different types of experiences through that process of doing that ministry. No matter where you're doing it can get to be like. Like you're a machine. You're just doing it. You're doing it from memory, muscle memory, doing the thing you're kind of checking out. Mentally, you're just kind of going through the motions, and you go through phases in every. In life. We do that too, in raising families and all the different areas of life. We go through phases of where we're like, you talk about the nurture. So nurturing, caring and honoring are really all life, I think about all life. I think we nurture our family, we nurture our children, we nurture our spouses, our families. Then we care for the wounded. So we care for our families when they're struggling, care for those who are sick. And then we honor the dead and we have burial. And you know, we, we, we want to make sure that we're compassionate and, and graceful in that process. We grieve. So there's really no difference between. And that's why one of the things, I like to cross that over so that the normal person can think, well, all right, yeah, you did this specific ministry, but no, that, that applies to all of life. You know, we all do those three things or we should be doing those things.

We should be. We should be. And right. That's where if those things don't exist, like honoring the dead, that's where we see killings happening constantly. Right. Without reverence for life. And that's where a lot of these deeper issues like abortion can come up. And we are not going to get into that today, listeners. So you can just calm down over there.

So when, when Cain killed, when Cain killed Abel in the Bible, the reason why it was wrong was because he was taking the life of an image bearer. See, he didn't need to be told that I was wrong. We know that's wrong. It's written on our heart as an image bearer to another image bearer. Taking the life of another image bearer is wrong before God because he created them in his image. And that's what made it wrong. And so that's the, that's the point where when it comes to what you mentioned about when people can murder people, they've lost the bearing of the simple dignities of life because if they did, they wouldn't do it. Cain's jealousy overrode is the belief in his brother's dignity of human life and being made in the image of God as what the third or fourth beings on the whole earth had already lost. That ability. It tells you how quickly we are to fall into, fall into sin just that quickly.

Outside of those who work in end of life care or hospitals or funeral home, like that idea of just having a conversation about dignity. I feel like those conversations only happen in the most extreme situations. And isn't that a shame?

Yeah, well, I think that's where we lead to how we treat those, the, the most vulnerable of our populations. From the youngest to the oldest to those who are infirm, we. I find this kind of interesting, something I've learned over the years. When people are grieving, they tend to lose people after a couple months. Everybody's gone 30 days out from a death, everybody's gone and they're on their own and they're not done grieving yet. But what happens is instead of us willing to kind of, you know, the Bible says to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn, to stay in that wisdom. I think sometimes we feel like we're going to catch it like a cold and that grief is going to rub off on us and it very well.

Catch the grief from someone else.

Yeah, like kind of what might happen to me next if I get too close to it. I really think that's how we view it, because all of a sudden we're super uncomfortable with grief that goes on any length of time. And we say, oh, that person needs to get over it. There's just this inherent thing, us as humans, to stay away from the very thing that we know, that death comes to all men and women, and eventually we're all going to be faced with it. And I think none of us wants to face it that closely. I think there's something about that. It just feels. And death should feel abnormal because it was never created to be. I mean, sin and death were never intended to be on the earth, but yet here we are. We've been dealing with it for 6,000 years.

And here you are as a man who chose to step into a military service capacity and face that and make that part of your life's work. So you are one of the most hardcore people in my life that I've known over the last handful of years here. Sir, I want to know from your mindset, what is it that in your life that you are so hardcore about that it drives your actions and your decisions every day?

Oh, man. You know, I think I just put my head down and work hard at whatever God's given me to do in that moment. If you. If you went back over my life and saw what I've done, I just work hard. I work hard at everything I do. I. I can't come up with any magic. You know, what am I hardcore about? General Vadnais shared a story 1. One morning at a chapel, at a commander's breakfast up at camp, grilling. And he said, every morning I get up and ask myself, are we doing the right things and are we doing them right? And it took me a minute. I was like, you know, that's really a key issue. Are we doing the right things and are we doing them the right way? And that's kind of like, I think how I've lived my life. Am I doing the right things? I want to honor God. I feel like I don't honor God a lot with my life. I feel like that. I mean, internally, like, when I lay down at night, I know who I am. I mean, if I'm honest with myself, I lay down at night. And there's some people that man, I just like to, like, send them right to Jesus, you know? You know, you want to talk about have a Come to Jesus meeting? No, I want them to have a Go to Jesus meeting, you know? And so I know who I am as a human. And so I know that I'm far from the standard of being. Of being Christlike. I can compare myself to another man, but that's a faulty comparison. My comparison must be to Christ, and I fall far short of that.

And you're not someone that I see as filling time with busy work. The projects that you get into are significant. Can you share with me a little bit about that understanding of hard work?

So I've done it to a fault, I'll be honest. I've driven myself into the ground to where I ended up in a lot of trouble. I mean, just like physically and mentally, where I just ran myself till I was just drained. And that's. That's a mistake. So I'll start with that. But I think. I think if you work hard here, God kind of rewards that gives you, you know, like, it's like the investment. It's like, you know, I took what God gave me and I invested it, and then he rewarded it and he built the benefit. And I just kept working hard and he just kept giving a little more and a little more responsibility. And that's kind of a biblical view of what God does with what people do with their lives. We talk about people give an offering. While the offering of my life, my job is to be an offering. Paul said, I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live the life I live. I live down unto him. That's the way I hope I. I live my life to some degree. The grit, the hard work, it's part of my. It is part of my work ethic. We all have this kind of internal work ethic. You see, people who don't have a hard work ethic, I'm not criticizing their lack of a work ethic. Only God knows where they're at in their life. So I don't know.

What's interesting to me about this conversation, sir, is I know your specific faith, and you do not believe that you can work your way into heaven. And so on one hand, there's this incredible work ethic that defines who you are and how you're operating on earth. And in the back of your mind, there's the true belief that you can't work your way into heaven. How do you. How do you put those two together?

I've got to always go back to what God teaches. God gives me ability, and I put myself to work. God says, man, man's got to work. It's a part of biblical structure for men in particular, I would say, and women in a lot of ways, but in particular for men, God said, hey, you're going to work. By the sweat of your brow, you're going to work. So if you just get past all that and be like, okay, God, I'm going to work. I'm going to go work hard and do it what's right, I'm going to take care of my family. So when you think about, I work hard, I don't just work hard for my. Myself, I think I work hard to make sure that in, in my case of this project, that people have jobs. You know, part of my job is to make sure people have jobs.

Yeah, let's get into that a little bit. So tell us about the project that you're in now.

So, you know, as a project lead for Walking with warriors with about 40, 45 people and over 50, if I start counting your team, Tim's team, Molly's team, all those individuals who, if this doesn't work right, then this whole thing gets impacted at some level, everyone gets impacted by that. So here we are working with veteran navigators, serving veterans, and military families with mental health and substance use disorders and caring for them, you know, nurturing their lives, getting them connected to resources, advocating for them, you know, meeting special populations like you addressed with women veterans, strong. That distinctly addresses the needs of female veterans and your whole team. And so that demands a lot of organization and a lot of care. This team is my second family. They really are. I know a lot about this team. I know what makes them tick for the most part. I know where they're struggling. I know what their family members are like to some degree. I know some of their personal struggles, and I'm working to ensure that those get taken care of. So, for instance, somebody calls me last week and says, hey, I got a real problem and I need to take some time off. I'm like, go, just go. Go be with your family. That, that's primary. Because if they're not good, the rest of the work they do isn't good. They've got to be good. So my job is kind of like, I'm like the shepherd leader. I've got to kind of shepherd this flock that are working hard. I mean, this is an amazing team of leaders. I've got great leaders, good leaders. Okay, leaders. That's any team.

Well, what's so unique about your particular position is that you oversee the project, but you are not necessarily the direct supervisor for these team members. And so you're a beautiful illustration of what, what happens when you feel leadership in your heart, but you don't have the power to force things to happen.

So I think what you do then is you learn how to communicate across those. So we talk about 360 degree leadership. So we, we. We lead up, down and across. Years ago, I read a book called 360 Leadership by John Maxwell. I found him one of the best books he ever wrote because it taught that, like, you can lead up and you learn to do that. The Chaplain Corps taught me that. How to lead up, because you had to be. You had to speak strength to power. You had to go to power and be able to stand your ground and, and be professional at the same time. But dealing with. So I. One time I was in 02 and 03 and 04, you know, first lieutenant, captain, major, and I had to speak up to, you know, other majors, you know, colonels, generals, and do so in a way that demonstrated care for our soldiers, to them, you know, speaking truth to power and whether they liked it or not. So that's what we had to. We have to do as a leader is speak up, down, across. So I could lead down to the, to the private, Private Fluffy with, With no rank, Private Fluffy, and up to all the officers, and then across to my contemporaries. And I really learned to do that in the core. I kind of honed that skill in the core which led to this project. Because I was already. I'd already been a chaplain for almost 10 years, no, 12 years, when I took this position.

And to do that, you have to have the belief, first and foremost that you even have a voice, that you have a quality voice, that you have value in your voice, and that what you're saying holds substance.

That goes back to a saying. My dad always said you don't get the right to Speak, you earn the right to speak. And the old saying, and I'm sure you maybe heard it, there used to be an old commercial that said when E.F. hutton talks, people listen. And so if you go into meetings and you go into relationships and you listen first and then you speak, or if you wait to speak or get asked to speak, your words carry that much more power and authority when you do speak. And so having a little age on me, having some experiences, having some keep things in the back of my head, I don't get the right to speak. I earn the right to speak. I walked into every new relationship with that thought about hearing my dad in the back of my head, you earn the right to speak. And I think by doing that, that was a credit to the work that happened. And so I go into, I went into MDHHS leadership meetings and just sat in meetings and listened. And then suddenly one day somebody mentioned veterans and somebody wanted to know what I thought. And obviously I'm the subject matter expert. And so that was taken with authority, you know, had credibility to it because I've been sitting in meeting after meeting for months without saying one word. And you don't know how hard that is for me because I love to talk. But you learn in those moments that you can't, as a chaplain, you have to be, have that ministry of presence. I remember Dr. Fisher always says when we were preaching a sermon, get up, say what you gotta say, shut up and sit down.

That ministry of presence, that is a golden nugget for so many of us to do this self check and remember that you as a human being have value and that just you being present, you don't have to open your mouth. You can sit there and observe and absorb and have just as much value in a meeting as if you did open your mouth.

If I had one. Encouragement. Tell people, go to a funeral home, go up to the grieving family and just hug them and tell them that you love them and that you'll be here. And you can even say that I've told people, I know there's nothing I can say. I'll tell you what, I will be in the back of the room if you need me, and I will be here all evening or all day. And that's presence. And even if they get swamped by people all day long, they will not forget that you came there and did that. And if you want to see an example of being a ministry of presence, that is like the perfect picture of.

That, you've had to go out in your position and do house calls. And we talked about the casualty notification house calls. But you've done some crisis response house calls also. Do you mind sharing a little bit or do you have a good example of one that we could learn from?

They're quite different in their complexity. So let me talk about a casualty notification first and kind of give you a crisis intervention picture real quick. So one of the things we always did was you go to do casual notification. You go and you recon the location before you just go there. You don't, you don't just walk up and knock on somebody's door. You recall, make sure they're home, see if people are up, you know, get ready to do that. So what One of the key things I, that I think I did every time when we did a casual notification and I, I did 79 of them in my career. Some of them required four and five knock on doors. But we would park and I would always say to a notifier, I would say, lord willing, we're going to go home tonight, today, tonight. And we're going to love on and kiss the people that we love. And that's going to happen for us. When we go to that door, everything in their life changes forever. Like this is it. We're about to tell them the worst news anybody can hear. And that's the kind of brevity we need to go to that door with. Like, hey, we're changing their whole world forever and their whole families forever. Nothing will ever be the same again. We're going to go home tonight and nothing's going to change for us. But we're going to, we're going to upend their whole world. And we, by God, we better go there with that kind of care for them. And so that's the kind of thing that occurs before that. And then you do the casual notification and you actually see what you just talked about. And there are all kinds of experiences. I mean there's probably, I'd say probably eight to ten different types of responses to a casual notification. Then you go to a crisis intervention, which is much different. You're more in the moment really in the moment, just in it, like in the grit of it. You know, I always call it the booze, guns, drug moment. That's what it was. The majority of my 40 plus suicide interventions were, I always called it the booze, guns and drugs.

Can I want to pause here because how do you even find yourself in a crisis response moment? There's no bat signal that the majority of human beings call right. I mean we call 911 and the police show up. But how does Chaplain Webb show up at your door?

Yeah, so I'll give you a couple of quick ones. But. So we're down at Fort Custer and a soldier called, because I knew him, he was on the honors team. And he called, he's still alive today. He called and said, if Chaplain Webb doesn't get here in the next hour or so, I'm gonna end this. And he was in Lansing. I was in Battle Creek. I was doing land nab, actually, and I heard somebody yelling down through the woods, Chaplain Webb, we need you right now.

And so I, no pressure, sir.

No pressure, no pressure, no pressure. We're an hour from Lansing. So I turn and we're just double timing it back to, toward the, toward Cantonment. And we get back and they're like, hey, you need to go to Lansing, you need to go to this place. So we get, we get in the car, we race up to Lansing, we go in this apartment complex, there's the whole thing going on with guns, booze, drugs. And there was actually a.45 discharged in the room while I was in the room, and my chaplain assistant was to the right of me and I was in front of the two soldiers. It's a long story, but they kind of made a pact they were going to take each other's lives. And I had to be really in the moment. You have to be like, the first thing that has to happen in a crisis is validation. I was just sharing a story somebody the other night, so I, I, I'm going to shift to another story really quick. So it's 11:30 at night. I get a phone call at Camp Grilling. They're like, hey, there's a young soldier with a M4 in her mouth up at FP101 and they need your help. And it's FP101's 40 minutes away and they're trying to kind of end this crisis, but it's not ending. So I get in the Hummer with my chaplain assistant and we haul butt up there. We get up there and I get in the tent and here's this young girl. And I got some recon. I did some recon before I went in there, got some information. A young girl, she had just given birth, she had a new baby. Had to leave her baby home in Detroit with a mom she didn't trust. Here she is on her first weekend after annual training. It's Monday night, She's freaking out. Her mom's not returning her phone calls, she's out on guard duty. It's dirty, it's 95 degrees out. It's a horrible day. All she's doing is thinking about her baby. She just wants to end it. She's like, I'm. I don't know what else to do. So I walk in the tent with this knowledge and I said, you know what? I know it's been a really crappy day. I know it's been hot. I know you're really worried about your baby down in Detroit. I'll tell you what, we're going to take care of this. I said, but first I need you to give me that firearm. And they've been trying for an hour to get that firearm away from her, and they weren't validating her. And all I said was, I know it's been a crappy day. I know it's hot. I know right now you're. All you care about is your baby. And I get it. Like, you're. You just gave birth. And so I said, I'm gonna help. We're gonna make sure this gets rectified.

That power of validation lives everywhere. It's not just for crisis response. Validation lives in everyday human conversation.

Yeah, it really does. And so when you walk into those moments just by validating people's position where they're at, like, I had a guy say one night to me, call me up on the phone, this happened maybe six months ago. He said, Chaplain, I got a.44 in my lap, and if you don't tell me what I need to hear, I'm gonna, I'm gonna end my life right now. And I said, I said, okay, okay, I get, you know, I get it. I said, so tell me what's going on. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, okay. I didn't say, no, you don't really want to do that. Because really, he does want to do that. I just said, okay, so tell me what's going on. Just tell me. And so he started talking about all this stuff and he had created some of the problem, his own problems, and I eventually had the right to tell him that in that hour long conversation.

But not up front.

But not right up front. So you start the conversation by validating the situation they're in and just recognizing that they're really struggling and that it's okay to struggle. I'm not minimizing you or criticizing you as a person because you're struggling. I'm not going to, you know, stigmatize that moment. I refuse to do that. I've had it done to myself by people. They wanted to stigmatize me because of the way that I ended up, the way my career ended, you know, with all the struggles I went through near the end of my career.

So there's something that is contributing to this. And I know our listeners had just had a little. Little taste of the experiences that Chaplain Webb has lived through, and it's the understanding of something called third party trauma. And when you experience these intense emotions or moments of trauma that are someone else's trauma, they still affect you. They should affect you. That's not a bad thing.

Yeah. And if they don't, there's really a problem if they don't, because somehow you and I, partway through notifications, I caught myself doing that. Like I was just a machine, just doing this so often and running so hard. And I realized, like. Like, I've got to stop. Like, I've got to refocus. Like, what am I. I'm just knocking on doors. And we. I was knocking on doors every night of the week, three and four and five times a night, or just, you know, and that's what happened during that time during the war. And you just kind of become a machine and your brain starts checking out and you cut. If you're. If you. If you're. If you're a human, eventually you'll realize that you'll be like, oh, like, that's just not working.

So as you pursue these hardcore goals of having these deep conversations and upholding the dignity of others, what is it that helps you to stay at ease? What is your. Your compass or your grounding point? Because so easily I could see anyone in that situation slipping over the edge.

Yeah, well, I think I did. So in 2018, I hit the wall and ended up in inpatient treatment or trauma exposure and over. Just overdoing. And that was my. A lot of that was my own fault for just taking it too far for too long and just thinking I was there was something noble about running myself into the ground. That's kind of where I was at at the time.

It's a hard truth, isn't that?

It is. It is, and it's. I was there. It was unfortunate that I got there, but I was there. So that was my reality. So fortunately, people loved on me enough to get me to. Some had to force me to go to treatment. So. But I think there's nothing noble about that. But I think where I find the ease in that is recognizing, number one, of actually taking care of myself as a human. Being mentally, physically, spiritually, I kind of like set aside everything for the mission. I had forsaken everything. Like I was like just running headstrong into fire. Like. Like the whole world was burning down. And by God, I was gonna put out the fire. And I kind of felt that way.

All hardcore all the time, right? Yeah, we've got a thousand listeners out.

There like that forward, and no matter what, damn the consequences, you know what I mean? I was going headstrong. And, and that's. There was some. There was some need for that, to be really honest. There was some need because it needed to be taken care of. But there was some foolishness in that on my part as well that I take full responsibility for. But, you know, somebody had to make sure that stuff got done. And there is some of that little bit in me that says nobody can it quite the way I do it. So thus, this project has taught me a lot about delegation and I believe in that. I do. I believe in that type of leadership. I'm not a micro major. I'm not going to be a micro major.

So am I hearing you say that if you craft your team right, your team can actually be a source of helping you stay at ease?

Yeah, I think this team makes my job. This is a really fun job. I feel like I got a retirement gig. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, it's kind of nice. It's like I'm working hard, but I don't feel like I'm having to. I don't feel like this is labor. I feel like this is joy. Like there's happiness and growth and potential. And if I can put veteran suicide in the rearview mirror, like that is, you know, I, I said this one time in a meeting, I said, we need to be able to have a conversation one day. Said, remember when veteran suicide was.

So for those of us on the inside that deal with, you know, mental wellness related to the military, if this is your first time hearing some of these numbers, the numbers are not changing. Like, we, we need to not fool ourselves. The numbers that are out there that are being collected are being collected from not clean sources, if you will. The data is dirty. It's being shuffled around with different justifications. Kind of like how the COVID numbers were. Right. Let's just be real. And it's very disheartening and it's very scary, and it's very hard to admit that we are not moving the needle when it comes to the preservation of the veteran life.

I think it's always been my Key that since I think my last casualty notification, that if we don't train the community that we're going to lose. That's where we'll lose the battle. We're going to win it. We're going to win that battle at the community. That's where we win it. We don't win it up here in the veteran programs. That's not where we win this. We will make an impact, but we've got to train the communities. We need to train, you know, the Armadas and the Millingtons and the Davisons and the towns and leadership in the communities. We need to push that training down into those communities so that they're equipped, so that every, every neighbor is. Is his brother's keeper.

So that we can go in as individuals within a community and have that crisis response moment and do it from a place of authenticity where we genuinely care and love for the person who has that nine mil in their mouth.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the only way we win this. I mean, we're going to continue to sustain the same numbers inside of our program, but without either quadrupling our program. And I think the way, the best way you do this is by training the community so they can do what we do in a super organic way. Just a neighbor watching, a neighbor who knows that they're a veteran. And to be really honest, a first responder, a fireman, a police officer. Those first. First responders, I think about all the things that they get exposed to repeatedly in a workday. This just reminds me of back in the days of one crisis to another crisis to another crisis. You know, and as we move through our culture changes, we see a higher need of first responders in more critical situations.

Absolutely. And they have to be included in the veteran conversations because the work that we do with the military reserves and the National Guard, a lot of those are first responders. They hold both of those uniforms in their closets.

Yeah. And some of them are serving as military members. Fire, you know, firemen in their communities or police officers. I had in one of my units, I had two state police officers, a couple county deputies, you know, a police chief. So those were all active men. And it's in particular, these were men in MP companies back 15 years ago, and they were leaving, you know, military duty to go back to be a state policeman the next day with probably more crisis there than they had over the weekend.

Yeah. And. And what are we going to do as a community? Are we just going to hope that they're able to tough it out Mentally or are we going to make sure that they have the resources and the training to be able to make it through?

Would we just give a teacher a classroom with students and no nothing to do her job with or to protect her? You know, would we have, would we not have an active shooter thing in every school, in every church, you know, to prepare people? But we don't prepare first responders. We don't, we don't prepare communities to interact with veterans and military and first responders in an effective and strategic manner when crisis arises.

And it brings us back to our initial conversation about grief and how we think it's just going to rub off on us. I don't want to have that uncomfortable conversation because then I'll be thinking about it all day. Let me go check my Facebook feed.

I have a friend and she lost her husband. And I, I watched this happen over a couple of years, years time and watched how, where the support came from and where the support left and some of the things she wrote and, you know, you could watch the grief have its own kind of lifespan and her two young boys experiencing the loss of their dad as young boys. And it was, it was really interesting that there were people that were really godly that embraced that, that with her, that were there. I marked on every one of her Facebook comments posts. I didn't always comment, I rarely ever commented, but I always wanted her to know that in the background I was there.

You're choosing to intentionally be there to.

Support that, to say, hey, I'm watching, I'm interested. And a couple times I wrote her, I told her, I said, you know, it's really interesting. And I had this conversation on a post with her about embracing grief and mourning with those who mourn. When it comes to death, people never get over the loss of someone. They will get beyond it. They don't really have a choice because they're gonna. Time is going to go by and things will change and they will, they will begin to recover. I've seen some that don't. I've seen some that the grief is on them 20 years later. I use peer support specialists in particular with veterans. So those are people who have shared life experience and I've seen peer support specialists who are still in recovery. And that's great. You know, everybody's going to be in their own stage of growth and resilience and, and, and progress. But the hard part is that it takes a real special person that's still in recovery to, to help those who are in a similar position because they're both still in the battle, not beyond the battle. So it's kind of like, you know, I can get my battle buddy in war, but I'm. And I've got his back. I'm back to back with him both fighting, but we're both under the same fire. All I can do is make sure he stays alive and make sure I can stay alive. We really can't help each other in any other capacity, but in that moment. But if you have a peer support specialist who is more at the recovered level, they now have skills and abilities and growth that can really bring that person much, I think, much quicker through that process and help them avoid the barriers, the landmines along the way that maybe they experienced if they had to do it alone.

And you have to get through that stage of recovery. You really do. You know, I just. I want to make sure that we're establishing this voice that the world needs you to recover. Take your grief. We're not talking about grief necessarily here. We're talking about the battles that come with substance use and the battles that come with negative addictions. The world needs you to recover so that we can take and share your story and lean into those who are still in the battle. If you want to let your dreams and your life have those legs and become something bigger and something greater, if you want to give fruit to your ambition, that's how you do it. You have to recover. You have to follow the proven path and do the hard work. Do the hard work, right, Chaplain Webb. And only then can you really serve as a beautiful voice of strength and service and power and proof that good things are to come.

The storm won't be there forever, you know, eventually you'll come out the other side of the storm and. And you'll see the light again. You're not going to be in the darkness forever. Struggles are usually only for the night. You know what I mean? So we come out every morning, the sun rises again. Every day is new. God's mercies are new every morning, you know, So I tell people, you know, tomorrow's another day. Tomorrow's another day to get up and try again and continue to struggle. And there's nothing wrong with the struggle. And that's what moves you to recovery.

Now. You shared that. You're starting to feel in life like your days are numbered. So what's next for you? How are you going to measure success over the next couple of decades here?

Yeah. Wow. You know, we're hoping to expand our project. We're looking. I'm I'm, I'm really pushing hard on a nationwide approach to our project. So whether that occurs, however that comes about, I'm going to be patient. Wait, see what God does. If he opens up doors and there are some potential open doors, we're going to see what happens, see if we can walk through those doors. I'm going to be, you know, we've talked about in our own lives about probably making some changes in five years and I'm never going to stop working. I don't believe in retirement, but I'm definitely going to change the mode in which I operate. I'm hoping to maybe do consulting work and do some travel around the nation when it's cold here and I can be someplace warm.

You're going to be a snowbird, huh?

Yeah. So what we're going to do is. This is a real short comment. We're going to buy a big rig RV in about three or four years and we're going to start going south in the winter. Once I'm out of this role in a full time capacity, who knows where that's going to lead? Who knows? I don't. James says, you know, Lord willing, we will. We're going to do this. But things can change and we all know that. So we're open to the change, we're open to whatever God's doing. But we still believe in planning. I believe God gave me gift sets to do that. I'm a visionary. I see things usually before they happen. I don't mean like, I don't mean like visions, but I mean like when it comes to big visionary things like I can see where this project can go. I literally could write it on a piece of paper and tell you how I would do it in 20 minutes. And I believe that'll be effective. I mean, we did this and it, it does take the team though.

That is so wise, so incredibly wise. You know, when, when we look at partnerships and collaborations, there's there's a saying that we're known for of we believe in collaboration, not competition. That's something that I've seen within the veteran care space, for instance, where we're all fighting over the same dollars instead of partnering and you know, doing shared proposals for grant funding. You know, in the business world we operate with primary contractors and subcontractors. Everybody wins. For some reason, that mindset is not being carried over into the veteran care space. So that, that's a little bit of the behind the scenes mission of why we do what we do. But what I'm Getting at here is that you have collaboration where you're working together deeply, you have competition where you're fighting each other essentially to better every step of the way. But there's a piece in there that exists that's not talked about enough, and that's the stale river. The piece that's in there is the handshake. It's coordination. So between competition and collaboration, you have coordination. And that is what's killing us when we sit in coordination. Share my event. Sure. Share my event, sure. It's not a handshake, it's a handoff with no follow up. And then we get mad because we're sitting in coordination while you didn't share my event. And it's like instead of being stuck in that C grade, the A work, the work that's going to really move the needle and make the most impact. And is that collaboration?

Right.

It's. It's this idea of being an essentialist, of only focusing on the movements and the partnerships and the actions that are really going to make a deep, deep impact.

Yeah. You're only as good as your network. You know what I mean? You build a good network and you collaborate well. And I learned collaboration back when I was before this position. I knew what collaboration really looked like. Territorialism is, is self. It's self defeating when you get territorial because you don't own anything. You don't own people, you don't own programs. I don't own Walking With Warriors. The state owns Walking with Warriors. It's their program. I'm the project lead and I don't hold a sense of loyalty to anyone but the veterans in my team, because that's what matters. At the end of the day, we've got to remember that our goal is to help veterans with mental health and sudden challenges. That is the goal. And we've got to keep our eye on that goal. We miss that, we might as well hang it up. That is our goal. That is our audience.

That's why your program has been so powerful, because you've been able to say that the mission does take precedence. And when everybody on the team understands that it's a mission first mindset, then we can let go of that little piece of ownership, you know, that we're craving after and those pieces of control. It's just, it's really such a beautiful thing when you can cut through all that red tape, even from a government organization. Right?

Yeah. I think what happened was, is that I put a train on a track in 2016 and gave it a push and the team is what fuels it and keeps it running down the track. And my job is to keep putting enough track in front of it so it doesn't derail and make sure it doesn't go too fast around the curves so it doesn't derail. But the. But really, the team is the fuel. They're the engine that makes this thing run. They're the ones that keep it running. And my job is to make sure it's funded, that it remains, you know, on track, that, hey, we're going to have curves, we're going to have hills and valleys and bridges to cross. And we've done a lot of that. We're in a really sweet spot right now. Now. Now we're looking at replication in about a year. We're going to be in a really strong position to replicate and be able to go have some national conversations, which I'm having a couple of them currently. Everybody takes ownership, but, like, this sense of humility, ownership that, hey, I'm one part of this whole synergy. That's when we have success.

I love this so much. So if it was not a success, whatever your efforts are over the next couple of decades here, what does future failure look like for you?

Well, you know, I really struggle with that question. I'll be honest. I was, like, thinking about it as I looked at it. So I believe that failure happens to everyone and failure is a good thing. We often. I read a book years ago, I think, by Andy Stanley called Fail Forward. You know, because we're gonna fail, we're gonna, like, miss the mark. You know, we're gonna go stand in front of a bullseye and miss the bullseye. So what is the. Is that failure? It's just missing them. So I think about future failure. Maybe it's something becoming, something I wasn't prepared for, but being okay with it. Doing things maybe differently than I would have done them, but it's still providing outcomes we want. So if I can get out of my own way in the middle of that, because if I don't get out of my own way, that's like. That's like final failure if I don't get out of my own way. So if I can get out of my own way and be like, hey, okay, that's not the way I would have done it or would hope to would have got done. But, hey, okay, let's go with that. And that's that resilient piece. That's an adaptation and, you know, adapt and overcome. So that's what can happen when you're open to that. I really want to have as much impact, I guess, as what God wants me to have. I want to be open to that and okay with landing in, you know, I'm not okay with landing in a chair somewhere. I better not say that too loudly. You know what I mean? Just like, I'm not the kind of guy, I don't relax well, I just don't.

No, you don't.

I try it. I try, but I can't. I don't.

You know what's funny is in part in our Addie's conversation, what you didn't bring up was all of your no nature travels that you do, your hiking and your mountain exploration and, you know, we're going.

We're going on a three week, well, two and a half week trip in October to Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and we're going to be in the Rocky Mountains, the Tetons and Yellowstone and, and do some, probably a lot of walking and hiking, but a lot of sightseeing. Getting to take my wife some places where she's never been, where I have been. It's always cool. Yeah, I love to go out. I guess for me it's an opportunity to kind of check out. Even though I take my work phone with me and I take my computer with me, I want people to hear this. I wouldn't necessarily think about it. I think sometimes it's okay to check in because I have more peace of mind if I can check in for 10 minutes and then check back out for the rest of the day. There is something about that, like completely, absolutely. Checking out would make a person like me absolutely just crazy. So I think allowing people the grace to say it's okay to check your email in the morning and then put it away, you know, I think there's some freedom in that because I think trying to tell somebody, no, you need to go on vacation and put your computer away and your phone away and all that stuff and just check out. There's people like me, really, really driven. That's just not working. Yeah, it's not helping.

And how do you define success? Right. It's not, you know, the number of liquor bottles that we're selling here. The numbers that we track are very, very different numbers.

Yeah. Success is about one. I think about it. If we have kept, and I know we have, we've kept many people, our team has kept many people from taking their own lives. And you just can't even begin. What is it they say? Every person's death by suicide impacts 60 people 70 people. Just think about that. Just exponential how many people's lives were. Our team is keeping from all that trauma, keeping from all that. All the fallout from that over all the years we've. And you can't, you can't put a success label on that. Like, you can't, you know, it's not based on numbers, it's based on people. How do you define success? If my kids all end up in heaven and my life is lived to the best of my ability and honors God, well, that's success. My dad worked for 41 years in the plant, lived three years and died. My dad did what was honorable. He was a tough, old time, old fashioned worker. But God called him to work hard, he worked hard, and he's gone. And that's honorable. So I think when we start talking about success, like in the career world, we have to be careful about how we label that. Like one job. Oh, I was all this. I was a lawyer. I was a doctor. Well, okay, great. Did you. Doctor and lawyer the best you could or. Hey, all I did was work in a plant for 30 years and then I retired and I worked hard and I didn't hardly miss any time. That's success. That's honorable. Because you provided for your family. The Bible says a man who doesn't provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever.

Boy, that stings.

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's kind of the, the brevity you gotta take when it comes to success. You, you're, you've been given them. I think we've been given roles as men, women, husbands, wives, workers. It's, it's not, it's not like doctor, shop worker. It's like we've got all these roles. It's the same thing on the team. I'm like the head coach. If the team does great, they get all the credit, and if they don't, I get fired.

So the joyful leadership, that's kind of.

The way it goes. Like, we all need each other. You know, we need the guy who makes stuff, the guy who makes the cars that we drive or the person, you know, we need everybody in our community. They're all vital to our lives.

They are. And we need the guy that knocks on the door to tell us that our child has passed away.

Yeah.

Chaplain Webb, you've given us a small glimpse into what it means to be a military chaplain that is continuing to serve in the civilian capacity. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for opening and giving us just a taste of what your life has encompassed.

Yeah. Thanks for the time and opportunity. I really appreciate it. Thanks for your friendship and for the ongoing work and service that you provide to women veterans. And it's invaluable what you do. And I'm blown away every day by what you and other team members do on this team to impact the work here in Michigan, hopefully soon in other areas.

Well, before we close out today, I want to give you one more chance to say anything that is still on your heart that you want to make sure that makes it to our listener.

Wow. Make sure you live your life in such a way that when. When it's the end of your days that they stand there and they can talk about how valuable you were to their life. And because at the end of the day, no one cares what you do, how much money you made. They care what you meant to them. And I was just sharing that with somebody the other day. That's what's valuable, is what people will say about you when you're no longer here.

Thank you for that wisdom, sir.

My pleasure.

What Chaplain Webb showed us just now isn't about having all the answers. It's about having the discipline to be fully present when there are no answers. The difference between being in recovery and being recovered. The power of validation in crisis. The ministry of presence that saves lives. This is leadership at its most human and its most hardcore. If you're carrying impossible weight right now, if you're leading a team through darkness while barely holding yourself together, I know what that's like. And remember what Brian said. You don't get the right to speak. You earn the right to speak. Sometimes the most powerful thing that you can do is say nothing at all. Just be there. I'm your host, Shelly Rood, personally thanking you for listening, listening today. And if you're watching on YouTube, well, you get extra bonus points. Now it's time for a segment called get the Gear. And being featured today is the book that shaped my understanding of faith and brought me to where I am today. This is the Nazarene by Shola Mesh. It's a crime to humanity that this book is out of print, but you can still find copies on Amazon. And I'll make sure to put a link to it down in the show notes. If you're trying to discover faith in a positive future when all you see is negativity and destruction around you, this book, this novel, it will rise to the challenge of your intelligent, critical mind. And it will not disappoint you. And neither will today's guest chaplain Brian Webb. Connect with him and the Walking with warriors program@Michigan.gov and that's all the time we have for today. I'll see you again next Tuesday as we tackle our end of the year reset. How to execute 2026 without burning out? Because your plan is solid, the question is, are you? Is it sustainable? Because in the year to come, can you really keep your edge without going over the edge? Until Tuesday and once you to stay hardcore, be at ease and trust the process.

You'Re listening to Hardcore and at ease. Keep the conversation going at Join othersoverself. Com.