Obsessed with Excellence: How Top Leaders Stay Hardcore Without Burning Out

This show is powered by others over self. Hit that subscribe button to keep training your brain. I'm a perfectionist and that can be a blessing and a hindrance at the same time. You know, if you spend too much time trying to be perfect at everything, which you never will, you might lose that excellence. And excellence I think is more of a team venture. Imperfection is more of a personal trait that some of us have.

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 your host Shelly Rude and today I'm joined by co host Nancy Dakin, a retired Air Force colonel and combat pilot. We explore the difference between excellence and perfectionism, including when your standards start working against you and how to drive high expectations without exhausting your team. This is hardcore and at ease. Nancy, welcome to the show. It's great to have you.

Thanks Shelly.

Well, you know, today we're actually talking about what it means to not go over the edge. Nancy, I asked her to co host with me today because she's, she's a wonderful example of what it means to kind of go over the edge or to live the majority of your professional career on that edge. Right. So today you can expect a discussion about what it really means to be obsessed with excellence, what it means to take a look at excellence versus perfectionism and even talk about what are some sustainable tactics that we can use in our daily day to day lives so that when we are thinking about excellence it's something that doesn't just happen every once in a while. We don't live our lives as one and done but something that you can carry forward in your day to day today. So I thought we'd kick off today sharing a couple of stories about a red eyed leader. So this is a leader that we know and they are exhausted internally but they may not show that on the outside. What you might actually see is someone who always has something going on, always has 10 pokers in the fire. They are running from meeting to meeting to meeting. They typically are pretty bad at follow up. You have to like prod them to get back with you about certain things. And they say phrases like that's a great idea, let's follow up on that. I love that, let's move forward on that. And then when you try to pin them down, they're pretty hard to pin down. Nancy, does that describe anybody that you can think of and you're military career? It was over 30 years, right?

Yes, it was 30 years and 28 days, but who's counting? Well, it's funny when you say those leaders that say, yeah, let's look into that, that means, why don't you look into that and get back to me with what you found? Right. It's a. It's a team effort, kind of sort of. Not really. It tends to be, you know, if it's your idea, you follow through with it and come up with, you know, a solution.

So when you hear that, does that mean that they're expecting you to come back and present on the issue that you raised the flag on, or does that mean that in their mind, it's a dead issue until you raise a second flag with some suggestions?

Yes, that's ever an answer. Yeah, I mean, there's so much going on when you get to, you know, the leadership. There's just so many things. You're right. You know, 12 pokers in the fire is not unrealistic. Running from meeting to meeting, and I can't even remember what was in the last meeting. Right. All I know is I left with like 12 taskers that I don't have time to do. So, yeah, when someone comes to you and go, hey, I got an idea. That's great, you know, what is it? How are you going to execute it? Great ideas and innovation is super. But, you know, how many people have the time to actually think about and go through it when there's so much going on during the day already?

Nancy, I'm going to flip that question and put you in the seat of the senior leader. Was there a time when you went to your senior leader and you were like, sir, ma', am, this is an issue. And they told you, come back to them, and then you actually did. You left, you did the work, you prepared some recommendations for them, and that actually moved forward.

Well, I. I specifically remember a time I went to my senior leader with an issue, and the response I got was, figure it out. And I was crushed. Like, I'm asking for a little bit of help to try to figure it out, and you're telling me to go figure it out, which I did. You know, I enlisted the help of my team and. And we did, and we came up with a great solution that we then shared with the rest of the wing. But it's. It's just disheartening when they say, you can come to me for anything. My door is always open. And then you go to the door and it slams in your face.

That's a really good point. Being turned away immediately versus actually them engaging in that conversation, validating your idea. Right. Of saying, yeah, that is. That is an issue. And then setting aside the time, it sounds like that leader didn't have any desire, didn't see the value in setting aside time to even continue that discussion.

Well, it's difficult to set aside time when you're already working, you know, the hours that you work. I mean, how are you going to set aside time for something that's not my problem. Right, right.

I was going to say, quote, unquote, someone else's problem.

This is your problem. This is why, quote, unquote, I hired you to figure this out. So figure it out.

Is that a common attitude that you've seen in your career?

No, it's not common. I wouldn't say. But then again, my personality is. I will figure it out. Like, it kills me to ask for help. So when I went to this person and asked for help and I was told to figure it out, like, the fact that they didn't think I already tried to figure it out and I couldn't. And it was crushing for me to say that I failed and I can't figure it out. So, yeah, I just always try to figure things out on my own. But obviously, there's some things you can't.

Well, there is a lot of vulnerability and actually getting the guts up to walk into your boss's office and be like, yo, I need some help on this. Because you're right, they did hire you. They did put you in that position. Or, you know, in the military, you're there because you have a seat to fill and you have responsibilities to take care of. To have to ask for additional guidance or help can very easily be perceived as weakness.

Yes, definitely. And I see that in myself, too. Anytime I ask for help, I perceive that as weakness of my own. And then I also perceive that as this person sees my weakness. And that's a terrible thing. Like, you can't see me. You can't see me as weak. So. And I'd known this person for a long time, too, so I was very, very shocked by the. By the response. Especially when we're a team. Right. We do everything as a team, but go figure it out.

It is interesting to think about the fact that when we're obsessed with excellence, like on that topic, for instance, whatever it was that you brought to your commander, you have this. This obsession of something that needs to happen in order for us to raise the bar as a team. That and burnout don't necessarily go hand in hand just because you need help. Or you're approaching a senior leader and you're asking for some recommendations. It doesn't equal the possibilities of you not being able to manage your job effectively. It doesn't equal some of those symptoms that we see when we think of that term burnout.

Yeah. I think there's a very fine line between obsession, excellence, if you want to say even perfection. I mean, perfection. I'm a perfectionist. And that can be a blessing and a hindrance at the same time. You know, if you spend too much time trying to be perfect at everything, which you never will, you might lose that excellence. Right. So. And excellence, I think, is more of a team venture, and perfection is more of a personal. I don't even know if it's a. It's not behavior, but a personal trait that, you know, some of us have, but it can. It can help with your obsession to strive for excellence.

Interesting take on that. Is that excellence is a team venture. Can you think of a project or a mission that you were a part of that would hit the marker of excellence, but you perhaps maybe didn't hit your mark of perfection?

Well, that could be any sortie. Any flight that I've ever had in the military.

Is that a flight?

Right? Yeah, that's a flight. So there's a whole team that goes into putting that sortie together. Whether it's maintenance, gets the jet ready, or airfield operations, or the tower or whatever it is, there's a whole team, a whole support team to get you off the ground. And then there's planning after planning after planning after briefings, and inevitably, nothing ever goes as planned. Nothing's ever perfect. No matter how many times you chair fly it or go through in your mind how it's gonna go, it doesn't go that way. So there's never a perfect sortie ever. And so for a perfectionist, it's like, oh, why didn't that go the way I wanted it to go? Because, you know, everything up to that point was so perfect, and then I screwed it up. Or maybe I didn't screw it up. Maybe, you know, just. You know, just the way things unfold. Yeah, it was the whole team together, and then it never goes as planned.

I'm curious, how many of the people on those teams do you think are of that shared perfectionist personality?

That's a good question. I don't know. Because they're all high achievers. Yeah, and.

Yeah, and they are all high achievers. But just because you're a high achiever doesn't necessarily mean that you are A perfectionist.

I think in this case, probably a lot of perfectionists too, but there's a lot of just pride in your work. Right. So I know from the maintenance field, aircraft maintenance specifically, that there's so much pride in their performance and their job. Right. I mean, they take everything personally. That's my jet, you know, you're taking my jet. Make sure you don't break my jet when you bring it back. Right. So did you break it? Well, Well, I mean, they break. They're airplanes, you know, you don't do it on purpose, of course, but I. But I've always had a very, you know, stellar maintenance cruise. So it was. It was rare to not have a really good jet, especially in the guard. We have the best maintenance ever.

Intensity is something that we see a lot with perfectionists. Not only does it have to be done the right way, it has to be done right now. It's going to take me X amount of time. I just have to sit down and this one thing that ends up taking, you know, two or three times longer than we thought it would take. I know. I was just working on the graphics for the artwork for the podcast. Not only do you have your podcast cover, but you have what are called episodic cover art, which is a different graphic for every time that you do an episode. And it's something that I could absolutely keep super simple and knock it out in 15 minutes, but I. And you do this with design work as well, Nancy. I know you go back and you go back and you go back.

Right.

Talk to me about that creative process and how sometimes this desire for perfectionism actually is a time waster.

It often is. Just, you call it time waster, I call it time suck. Like so many things. I did this just the other day with some photos we took at the retreat. And I was just trying. I was just trying to submit a photo. Like just one. Just submit a photo. I couldn't do it. It took me a week. You know, it's like I create something, it's not quite right. You walk away, you come back and go, oh, why did I do that? And then you fix it and you walk away and you come back and it's like, yeah, a five minute job turns into a week long process. When then at the end of it, did anybody even really like, I shouldn't say anybody really care, but did anybody even really notice? That's the thing, you know, sometimes I say that to you too. It's like nobody's even going to notice. Or my husband says that all the time. Like, no one's going to notice that but you, Nance. And I said, it's going to drive me crazy. Right? But I noticed it.

There's going to be another perfectionist out there that's going to notice. And then here we are criticizing each other.

I'm getting much better. You know, I remember when I was in elementary school, um, I've always been a perfectionist, or tried to be. I was clearly, I could never be perfect. But I refused to use a pencil eraser. So if I made a mistake on a paper, I would just start over. And I remember this one time specifically, it was a writing assignment, and I kept misspelling this one word, and I refused to use the eraser because that would admit that I'd made a mistake if there was, like, eraser markings on it. So I kept writing it over and over and over to the point that the teacher's, like, so frustrated with me because I'd probably rewritten this. Like, it's just a small paragraph, but, like, I'm on my 15th iteration, right. Of rewriting this. And I couldn't understand why he was getting frustrated with me because I didn't want eraser marks on my paper. Like, what child does that? And I don't know. I think it's a mental issue.

More than one, I would say if you have kids, you know, that are out there and this is reminding you of their personality, you might have a fighter pilot on your hands or someone.

Who needs a straight jacket.

The task of rewriting that paragraph over and over again. I imagine that your arm is exhausted, your hand is exhausted, your teacher is exhausted. So this quest for perfectionism, not only does it eventually exhaust ourselves, but it exhausts the people around us. And I want to lean into that as well. You know, you kind of touched on how with teams, not everybody on the team is that perfectionist personality. And so when you insert one of us, it shakes up the team, right?

Yeah. Good or bad? Yes.

What kind of feedback have you gotten when you've walked into a team as. As that personality and you've been kind of looking around, you know, do you size people up of, like, who is like me? Does that just unfold over time? How do you figure out who. Who you can align with as a perfectionist personality on a team?

I think it just unfolds, right. You don't know the players on the team until you start working with them and, you know, you know who's committed and who's just there. Right. Like, I'll do Whatever you want, but I'm not gonna get, you know, come up with any ideas or come up with any solutions for you. So the people who are maybe, maybe obsessed with the mission, I don't know if that's the right word, but there's just different personalities and you know, you kind of have to have both. Every leadership course I've been to, any you can think about when you're in high school, when you're in college, whatever. Anytime you're within a group, there's always that one person that kind of steps up as like the leader, right? It just, it just happens, I think somewhat naturally. Even though we say leaders aren't born, they're made, but I think some people just have that personality of control or confidence to say, let me kind of guide the group. I never saw myself as that person. I preferred to be the one just kind of sitting back watching what unfolds. But at the same time you lose control. So it's like, okay, I've watched, I don't like the way this is going. So now I must insert myself to get that control back of what's going to happen. Sometimes it's good.

How much of that is self serving control and how much of that do you think is mission serving, like standards?

For me personally, it's mission serving. I don't think I've ever been in it for personal gain. It's always been for team gain. We can get more done, we can be more efficient, we can be more productive, we can be more whatever, right? It's never I am going to get something out of this. It's always been to make the process better. I'm always huge on process improvement. Nothing, nothing drives me more crazy than bureaucracy and horrible processes that are antiquated and inefficient. Because the more efficient you are, the more productive you are, the more you can get done, right? So I guess in that way people tend to not want to be around me because it's like, oh, well, if we get this done, then we can do this, this and this and this and this. And they're like, can we just go to lunch? Well, sure. But then you're going to lose that hour of productivity, right?

Well, you start to see the burnout of good people around you. You know, when you're, when your entire team is looking at you and like, yeah, you're right. That is awesome. And we should have all that done. Can we go get lunch? You know, as a leader, sometimes that's a big check mark for us to be like oh, yeah, we're human. Let's go take care of our people.

Right?

And that brings us to really talking about the warning signs when excellence becomes a liability. There are some personal warning signs, and they're different for everyone. Is there a time in your career when a senior leader or, you know, even just one of your buddies kind of said, nancy, I see this happening not necessarily in you, but in you or your team. Like, what does. What do? What are the external symptoms of what a burnout might look like? Or when somebody is taking perfectionism a bit too far?

I think you're right when you said burnout's different for everyone. It could be, you know, they just don't show up anymore or show up late or, you know, aren't participating or feel like whatever they're contributing isn't enough. It's different for everyone. Like, they're just not making a difference anymore.

That attitude of, you know what? Forget it. Sorry I said anything that's really hard to hear.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

And I would. I would liken that to the emotion of frustration. And sometimes we, as the perfectionist, or we as that driving leader, can feel so frustrated with our team for performing less than what we know they're capable of. But that frustration can come from the team member also, right? Of like, well, you're. You're pushing me too hard. Or. Or in the case of the senior leader you already talked about, I came to you for help. You turned me away. That's another level of frustration. So those frustrations, whether they're coming from the perfectionist or they're coming from the other people on the team, if it's not reined in, if it's not paid attention to it quickly can become exasperation even, or even over time, it might even slowly just start to build up and be this feeling of, well, forget it. I'm not going to do it anymore. Can you share with me, Nancy, in your career, times when you have just felt exasperated, like you're just done with xyz?

Probably when I retired, I mean, there wasn't a time during my career that I ever said, no more, I'm done, until I retired. I said, I'm done. You know, I'm. It got to the point where there was frustration of, again, bureaucracy. There is frustration of cultures that needed to be changed. And, you know, it takes years and years and years to change a culture of an organization. There was the frustration of knowing that I personally could not make change anymore. And. And that was a. That was a hard pill to Swallow, too, because, you know, I. I should be able to make change. I should be able to make things happen. And you think the higher you go in your career, like, the more change you can make, but sometimes the higher you go, the more your hands are tied. And. And I was actually contemplating staying in or getting out. And so I called five. Five friends of mine, said, this is where I'm at. This is what I'm thinking. And. And the one person said, the position you're in now, how much change are you able to make? And I said, very little. It's frustrating. Very little. And he said, then how much more do you think you'll make at the next level? And I said, I don't know. And he said, well, think about over the last 10 years, how much that has declined with every step. You know, you're young and, you know, ambitious and you're going to change the world and you actually do things and you think you're making a difference, and then you climb the ladder and you're like, less and less and less. And I said, you know, you're right. He's like, you can make more change probably on the outside than inside.

What is the lesson for our, I don't want to say junior leaders, but for our leaders that are still in those positions where they have the opportunity and they feel like they can make changes, the higher that we're climbing up the ladder, we're getting to the part of our careers where that boat is very difficult to turn, and it's not going to happen overnight. And you have to have another, what, 20, 30, 40 years before you're able to even see the fruit of those changes. And that is very frustrating. So if you're at a point where you were when you're looking at what the future looks like, and you can either step up or step back, stepping back, sometimes you can actually make a bigger change. And so with you exiting out of the military but continuing to work, you have a very unique opportunity to breathe life into those of us that are sitting in positions where we can make change.

Right? And I would advise the younger, the more junior to get involved, to get involved in the strategic planning. Right? Because what happens 10 years from now is already being planned right now. So if you want to be part of that change, be part of the planning process, which isn't always a given, but if you're able to be part of that, then you can help make.

That change and be part of that. Looks different for every industry. It looks different for every team. It can be as simple as serving on a board. I know you've got some experience serving on boards, right?

Yes. Yep. I've served on a couple boards since I've gotten out. And even then, you know, it's a team. It's. That's a whole different animal too, because you have different boards that operate different ways and have different ideas of how things should be, and you're doing it for good. I mean, for me, it's a nonprofit board. Right. So I'm trying to do for good and, and it's a spectacular board of directors and we work well together. But I know there's some cases it's just more of the, the teeth gnashing and, you know, 10% of the people doing 100% of the work while the others just kind of like, you know, hanging out.

Is that similar to what you saw in the military? The. Would you say 10% of the people doing 90% of the work?

Yeah, something like that. I mean, there's always that saying, yeah, 10% of the people do 90% of the work. And there are. I mean, if you do a good job in the military, guess what happens? You get more jobs. Because here's the thing, you have a primary duty, but then you have additional duties. And in some cases, your additional duties are more complicated and more time consuming than your primary job. And you never have just one additional duty. You have as many. Why? Because we're always doing more with less. We've got more, more and more to do with less and less. Less people, resources, time, money. So it becomes kind of obnoxious to the point that, you know, for example, even for senior leaders, I mean, your primary job is. So my primary job was commander, right. But I was also a pilot, so I had to keep my flying currencies. I was also, you know, in charge of anywhere from 100 to 200 people who all had their own issues or problems. I shouldn't say they had their issues. You know, they have problems and they come to you. Right. So now I'm a, you know, a chaplain, a lawyer, this coach. Like whatever. Whatever issue they have is now, that's what I've become, right? Because I'm not. I'm not going to be the one that shuts the door to figure it out. Like, I'm going to help you figure it out. There's always so much to do. You just kind of, kind of lose.

It sometimes when you are bringing on that more and more and more, you're filling the need. And it's really hard when you're looking around at your other teammates and they're not doing the work right, but we.

All get paid the same.

There's additional duties. When we look at it from a perhaps corporate perspective, that can look like you're on salary so you just got tagged as the new head to plan the Christmas party, or you now have to be part of the employee feedback program. There's those little things that sneak into those salary positions and management positions that are important and they do need to be done right. I mean, additional duties have to be covered. You can't just not keep up with your flying record. And you, as a corporate leader, you can't just not keep up with your own professional development. It's so important that if you expect those standards from your teammates, you have to be the one that's also living out by example and you have to be doing it sustainably. That's when it comes back to this whole idea of burnout. Nancy was able to deepen her career and make it all the way to quote unquote, the finish line of retirement because she did it in a sustainable fashion over her 30 year career. And what's interesting is when you listen to how she describes her 30 year career, she doesn't necessarily explain it as a sustainable fashion. Right, Nancy? I mean, did you feel like sometimes you were just always on the edge.

When you said it was sustainable? I'm like, is it, I mean, you just keep going, you know, you get up and you keep going and you keep doing. How you keep going and keep doing, I guess is just personal, personal drive, personal pride in, you know, doing a good job. But yeah, but then you also see, I don't know, it's so hard. My entire adult life was in the military. So it's, it's very difficult in this civilian world to, to just see how people are. You know, people call in sick, you know, it's like, what? Wait, that's a thing? You can't call in sick. You know, it's like, remember I had a job interview for a company, company X, and they said in the last year, how many days did you call in sick? And I said in the last year, like, I've never called in sick. I don't. That's not a thing. That's not a thing. But it is, it's very prevalent apparently in the civilian world. So.

Well, and it's those definitions of sustainable you did sustain. And there were some habits that you created over those 30 years that made you able to go day after day after day after day. Can you think back on. Let's just start with healthy habits that, you know, served you well, like keeping a healthy body weight standard or staying, you know, physically active.

Right. So the physical standards helped because you're required to maintain certain physical standards, so you never wanted to fail at those. And it was pretty much a mindset within, you know, either the maintenance or ops community is, you know, physical fitness was a thing. We didn't always eat the best, and we probably all drank too much, but, you know, everybody tried to be fit and it. And it served you well, too, because it was kind of a release. I used to run a lot. I mean, that was a good release, a stress releaser.

Well, physical fitness, having a team that knows that that is a priority and that that's important. Can you imagine in the corporate world what that would look like if everybody on your team really was focused on physical fitness? My family is into Formula one, and they did just come out with the new Formula one movie. And one of the driving factors behind it is that those drivers are ATH and they keep their bodies in peak performance position. And it was really neat to see that play out through the eyes of a Formula one driver. But not just the driver. It was the team. And they showed throughout the movie. I won't spoil it for you, but how they were able to build that vision of teamwork. At the very beginning, one of the drivers is on his own doing a run, a jog around the track, and by the end of the movie, the entire pit crew is out there with him on the track. And it just shows you that there is something to physical fitness that brings humanity together. Do you have any stories from your PT days, Nancy, about maybe achieving, you know, crazy good standards or watching someone else achieve some standards that you didn't think was possible?

Well, I think for some of us, it was a competition. You have to be physically fit to fly. I mean, especially fighter jets. You have to be able to handle the G forces and just the equipment that you have to wear. I mean, when you have 30 pounds of hardware sitting on your head, I mean, you need. You need some neck strength, you need some muscle mass and just your G tolerance. But I think in the physical fitness testing that we have to do, there was sometimes some competition, especially between me and the guys. It was like. I remember one test specifically, it was during the test to see how many push ups, because there's a certain number of push ups you have to be able to do. And push ups are my worst. I hate it. It's a ridiculous exercise, but it became a competition right there during the testing, and it was hilarious and it was fun, and it just kind of got everybody energized.

I was just doing sprints on the treadmill and I'm smiling. I'm really proud of that because I had knee surgery two years ago and I really haven't been able to do sprints, definitely not at my old speeds. But I was just getting up to it this week and I was able to hit, so 6.8 on the treadmill with an incline. I remember racing one of my military buddies side by side on treadmills at 6.8 and. And he is huge. I mean, he's like a seven foot tall man. And it was hilarious because I'm five foot three. And so for the two of us to be on treadmills next to each other, sprinting as hard as we possibly can, we're just cracking up. There's so much fun that can be had by physically pushing yourselves and just enjoying that competition. And then you always have those memories to look back on and be proud that you tried it and be proud that you got out on there. In our team, we have a contractor who wanted to do her very first mud run, and she was so intimidated to do it and she didn't want to do it alone. So a couple of us went ahead and registered with her and I'll put a picture of it up in the episode, but we did. We racked out the mud run with her and she's so proud and we have some incredible memories of that. Um, and I just want to throw it out there to our corporate clients and those of us that are really struggling with our teams and how we can find some joy in our day to day work. You know, lean into this idea of physical performance, which, you know, we'll touch on in later episodes. But there can be not just personal fulfillment through physical performance, but really bringing together the humanity of the people that you're serving with. Because each of us has a body, and I do get into theology of the body personally, and so I'm sure that a lot of that will end up coming out on our podcast here. But being able to share with the people around you as we challenge ourselves, you know, as we work and grow. Medical records are very private, especially in the military. Heaven forbid anybody knows anything that's going on with you. Medically, we try to keep that all under lock and key. The same is out there for the corporate community as well. So I'm not talking about your. Your medical issues. I'M just talking about the day to day use and pride and joy that we have in our bodies and how that relates to the work that we do with each other.

I think about, think about when you're a kid, right in school, what was, what was your favorite time of day? Recess. Reset. Mine was recess. Like that was my favorite time. Because what happens like the middle of the day or a couple times a day, you get out and you just go outside and you act like little banshees and you're crazy, right? And you're just burning off energy, whatever it is, Playing tag, playing on the swings, whatever it is, you're making up games and it's fun. Well, it's supposed to be fun, but it's fun, right? You know, falling off the jungle gym, getting some scars, whatever it is. But that just kind of breaks up your day and it's like you're letting your hair down almost. I mean, why can't we do that? Why can't we do that in the corporate world? Just like every day too, we're having recess. Like just go like wake up and you know, a lot of people do that. They'll go walk on their lunch break or whatever. But still, if you had, you know, somebody to do that with, someone to hold you accountable and someone to enjoy it with, it just makes it so much more fun. I think we should do that. We should institute recess into the corporate America.

Absolutely. And into every team. You know, I have my own team that we can really deepen those relationships with. And it doesn't have to be complicated or formal. I know as a perfectionist we always want to like put the bow on it and dot the I and cross the T before we send it out.

Right.

But it doesn't have to be that way. It really can be as simple as like a selfie of you with your gym face all red and sweaty and you send that to your team and you're like, I hit a PR today. And it's not because you're celebrating yourself, it's because you're celebrating an accomplishment and you're hoping that they will celebrate their accomplishments as well. I know that's a really hard, self serving sounding type of tactic to do. It's really hard for me because I would rather not do anything on social media ever. But what I have been really delving into is the understanding of trust and how you can build the trust of other humans. And AI is making it so difficult and kind of in a good way because it's forcing humans to be human. And I dare say that a lot of us have not been human for a very long time. And in the military we are conditioned that way with necessity for the mission. Right? To take your, your human emotions and your human drama, your issues and shove them down and shove them away so that we can execute the mission. And that works for a time, but it's not sustainable long term. So if you are working on a project or a task with a team and you want it to be something that is sustainable, then we have to bring the trust aspect out and we have to bring that humanity aspect of it out. And a really simple way to do that is by leaning into physical performance. And you know, maybe it doesn't have to be like, who can do so many push ups? How many was that, Nancy? Do you remember?

I'm sure it was a lot. No, like over 10, easily over five for sure. Yeah.

Physical competition can happen like minute to win it games. Oh my goodness. Just fun. Just something where you can get up and get your body moving. And Nancy, that's actually what you specialize in it now, isn't it?

Well, yeah. It just made me think about, you know, recently the compliment that I received for an activity that we did at a retreat a year ago. And it seemed silly and it seemed childish and it was a play on the Amazing Race. And obviously we weren't traveling around the world, we were just traveling around a small piece of property doing different things. But I have all these grownups, you know, building, you know, a house of cards or go through this little obstacle course, whatever. It wasn't too, too physical or too, well, too mental. Some of the brain teasers I think might have been a little too hard. But a year later, getting the compliment of that was my favorite part of that retreat was just like, oh, you know, because I put so much into it. So it was just fun. And it was just fun. That that little physical team activity was, you know, their favorite part of a wellness retreat.

So we went through the burnout warning system, recognizing and responding to warnings. I do want to capture this from you, Nancy, as a leader. When you have a team member that you sense is experiencing some type of burnout, but maybe they don't even see it in themselves. What do you think is the best course of action on how to address that or bring it up?

Well, I think it depends. It depends on the person. It depends on the situation, what they're doing. I mean, obviously if it's a safety issue, then you're going to deal with it right then. But if it's, you know, not urgent, you know, life or death situation. Then you come up with a plan. Maybe. Maybe it's just talking with you. Maybe it's bringing in, you know, your first sergeant, Maybe it's bringing in the dph. Maybe, you know, the chaplain. We have all these resources that can help people. You never know what's going on in someone's personal life. So I did learn that as a commander. I had several people when I was. I was a maintenance squadron commander, and I had several people in my command deployed. And then I got a call from a friend of a friend who said, hey, I think you need to know about this. This guy deployed. He left his wife and two kids at home, and their house caught on fire. It was half destroyed, and they were living in it. And they said. It broke my heart. I'm like, first of all, how did I not know that their house caught on fire? How did I not know his wife and two children were living in this house? And when we finally got to the bottom of it, it's like, well, we didn't want to bother you. We didn't want to bother anybody with our problems. And I'm like, okay, well, first of all, you can't live in a half burned down house. That's not a thing. So, you know, we worked it out. We got him a hotel room for, gosh, it was a long time while their house was being fixed. But, you know, you just never know what's going on in people's lives. I had another guy that had been missing for a week. We finally found him. He checked himself into a hospital for mental health.

Was he one of your staffers or.

He was one of my airmen, but he was single. Nobody knew where he was. You know, it was. It was. I don't remember how we finally found him, but I called him and I'm like, hey, what's going on? You know? And he's like, well, you know, I wasn't. Wasn't feeling right. I checked myself in his hospital. I'm here. I'm going to be here for a couple more weeks, blah, blah, blah. And what was interesting was I saw him again, gosh, like, 10 years later, and it was. Sadly, it was at a funeral. But he said, you know, you were the only person that called me while I was there. And I'm like, well, first of all, dude, no one knew where you were. No one knew who you were. But then once we did, obviously, you know, I stayed in touch with him. But even then, he's like, you know, it's just no one else. No one else shouldn't say, no one else cared, but there was no one else in his life that was checking on him. So you just never know what's going on in someone's life.

You never know. And that's why, as a leader, it is so important that when your people do come to you and they say, hey, I need help on this, or, hey, can you go over this with me? Or can you explain that to me again? It is so important that we don't just immediately turn them away. We give them. Well, we can say figure it out, but.

But let's put it.

Calendar. Yeah, there you go. Let's figure it out and let's set a date to come back and talk about that together. Yeah. Because, you know, you can't be shocked one day when. When one of your people ends up in a. You know, battling life's battles, whether it be a fire or whether it be their own internal mental strife. It's sad when that. When that shocks you, isn't it, Nancy? When you're like, how did I not know this?

Right.

And it can make you feel like a failure as a leader, but that doesn't mean that you failed as a leader. You haven't failed as a leader until you don't have a chance to make it good.

But you already said it earlier, too. We're so, so well equipped at compartmentalizing that my whole world could be crumbling. But you will never know that, because I'm not going to let you know that. I'm going to continue to show up. I'm going to continue to do my job to the point that I can't.

And that's where we need people to watch us, and we need people to raise our flags and look at us and say, nancy, how are you today? Genuinely? Yeah.

And that doesn't happen, especially when you get to a certain level that doesn't. That doesn't happen anymore. No one, no one asked the commander how they're doing. I had had it happen one time, and it took me so off guard, you know, I was like, what? Because he's like, can I talk to you for a minute? I'm like, yeah, sure, Says airman. And he said, how are you doing? And I'm like, oh, I'm cool. Yeah, everything's good, whatever. He's like, no, really. He said, you're always asking us, but has anybody asked you? I said, yeah, the chaplain comes every day to my office and says, how you doing, ma'? Am? What's going on, ma'. Am. And I'm like, I just blow him off. Because I'm like, get out of my office.

I'm busy.

You know, And I know you're just checking your blog, you're stopping by. I mean, he probably meant it sincerely, but you know, it's one of those when you come by every day and go, how you doing? You know, what's going on? Like, I can't take that seriously. But when an airman comes to you and asks, that's different.

There is opportunity. There isn't there for, for each other. It doesn't matter what your title is, it doesn't matter your rank, it doesn't matter how high or low you are on the totem pole. And it doesn't matter if you've never talked to them before or if you've rarely talked to them. If you have a chance to sit down with somebody and say, hey, how are you? And share in 30 minutes of conversation, that's a huge gift. Well, Nancy, thanks so much for hosting with me today. I love that we were able to tackle some pretty heavy material in a light hearted way. From what it means to be obsessed with excellence, to the difference between excellence and perfectionism, to really going through some of our own warning system signs for burnout. I think there's some really incredible nuggets that you've taught us and I'm really thankful for your insights today.

Thanks for having me.

That's our episode today and Nancy really has me thinking about this idea that my frustration with my team might actually be a warning system, telling me that I'm operating from perfectionism instead of excellence. Because honestly, I've been mistaking my intensity for effectiveness. And I know this because it's taking me a lot longer to do things than it should. What if you experimented with taking a step back when you feel that frustration, it's just stopping and asking yourself, am I inspiring excellence or am I demanding perfection even from yourself? And maybe also try what Nancy suggested building in some kind of recess for you or your team something physical that just lets everyone be human together. I'm curious what you'd discover about the trust that builds when people see you as more than just that demanding boss. The thing that's really sticking with me is this idea that my perfectionism might be making me the person that my team has to work around instead of someone that they want to work with. And that's really uncomfortable to sit with. Speaking of building team connection, Nancy's Amazing Race style activities reminded me of the wellness retreats that I offer to my team every year. It's fascinating to watch some people dive right into making those personal connections, but others really cherish the alone time that we always build into the agenda. Both ways to go are totally valid, and honestly, seeing people choose what they need has taught me that trying to force connection is really just another form of perfectionism, assuming that there's one right way for everyone to build trust. And it's not true. It's really about respecting different people's needs, and that's how the trust gets built. If this conversation made you rethink the difference between excellence and perfectionism, share it on your stories and tag me othersoverself with Hardcore and at Ease. I'd love to hear how you're experimenting with being hardcore about your standards while staying at ease with your humanity. This week, I want you to sit with this question. When you're frustrated with how someone else is moving forward on a project, ask yourself, are they actually doing it wrong, or are they just doing it differently than you would? Nancy mentioned how some of the best ideas came from her airmen, not necessarily from following her exact playbook. There are usually countless ways to reach the same goal, and our first frustration often says more about our need to control the process than it does about the quality of their work. That's all for now. I'm Shelley Rude, and you can count on me returning next Tuesday with an episode just for those of us who feel like we're the only one who actually cares about moving forward with excellence. Until then, stay hardcore, be at ease, and trust the process.

Sam.