Stop Feeling Alone While Surrounded by People

This show is powered by others over self. Hit that subscribe button to keep training your brain. Leaders, we stand up so that we can be seen and leaders sit down to make a lasting impact. The standing gets noticed, especially if you're little like me, five foot three. We have to stand in order to be seen. But the sitting is where the work actually happens. 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 Shelly Rude and if you've ever felt completely alone when you're surrounded by people, well, today's episode shows us how to build relationships that deeply matter. We explore how to generate momentum through genuine conversation and what the philosopher Augustine understood about the power of being truly heard. You'll discover specific environments where depth happens from the hanger fly to the holiday table and the principle that makes meaningful conversation possible. This is hardcore and at ease. This is being recorded the week after Thanksgiving and maybe you've had a holiday like mine where there is so much conversation that it just feels all very surface. Looking around the table, I can see people just sitting there who are waiting for the night to be over. Maybe it's not your Thanksgiving table, but maybe it's a conversation at a bar or a holiday party. These networking events that we all have to go through. People are there and the event is flowing nicely and everyone's pretty likable. But here's the truth that we try to avoid. It's easier to keep things on the surface now. People find us more likable when they don't know our dirty laundry. And conversation tends to flow a lot easier, but it doesn't actually go anywhere. I want to take you back to a time in my life when I had countless nights out and lots of social environments. Whether it was at the bar, always with my ex husband, having these social gatherings with friends who were always there as long as we were having fun. It wasn't until his drinking became out of hand that I noticed a major issue. It was when he was choosing to drink with our son in the car as a passenger. And then suddenly there was a time in my life where there was a need for deeper conversations and virtually every single one of these supposed friends started to disappear. They just became too busy to get together or meet me for coffee. I was watching years of these surface relationships being revealed for exactly what they were. I felt like alcohol was at the root of these issues and I didn't know what to do. So I learned of something called Al anon which is a meeting for the people who are affected by alcohol, not necessarily the users. I was brave enough to go into a meeting, and I didn't say a word, not even hello. I walked in and I sat down and I just listened. I listened to a table of approximately 20 people go around, and some of them shared and some of them didn't. And what I heard that night changed my life. I heard what it would be like if I chose to leave my marriage. I heard what it would be like if I chose to stay. And I heard what my son might sound like in the future as he would reflect back on his father's drinking and how it was affecting his life. These were points of view that I really had never considered. But it was all because I finally was in an environment where people were telling the truth. Depth was the norm, not the exception. Now, years later, in a different season of my life, my church does this twice a year. We do a baptism service instead of the regular message. And I sat there recently and I listened to 15 different stories from 15 different people, one after the other. Each person's spiritual journey was narrated as they were being baptized. And I was just sitting there listening. And you know what? It reminded me that this is why we do what we do on this show and in my business, the meaning behind all of it. These stories are happening all around us, but we're not always in the environments where we can actually hear them. And here's what I'm learning through this reflection and observation period. Leaders. We stand up so that we can be seen. And leaders sit down to make a lasting impact. The standing gets noticed, especially if you're little like me, five foot three. We have to stand in order to be seen. But the sitting is where the work actually happens. The real work of building excellence happens in conversation. But we've traded that depth for efficiency.

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We've traded that connection for this surface level feeling of productivity. And sometimes we've even traded real relationships for comfortable, unhealthy ones. Now, there's this parable in Luke 14, and don't worry, I'm not going too far into spirituality today. But listen to this parable. It says, don't take the seat of honor at the wedding feast because it's better to be invited up to the head table than to be asked to leave it. Ambition can have us craving seats at the head table, and that's not a bad thing. But we should always be striving for the invitation and never the seat itself, because the seat is useless if there's others at the table that aren't open to hearing what you have to say or to find value in your perspective. The real influence comes from someone wanting to have you at the table, not someone who just shows up for the good times. Now let's get into this idea. When surface relationships reveal themselves, Surface conversations are comfortable. We're more likable when we keep things light. The bar conversations, they flow easily, whether it's sports or weather, complaining about work. We share grievances, small talk. It doesn't demand anything of us. And for ambitious leaders especially, this surface conversation is very efficient. You get through that social obligation and you can go back in your office and get back to that real work. Except what if the conversation is the real work? Let me tell you about a woman veteran that I will never forget. She gave decades of her life to her veterans service organization. She was reliable. She set up the holiday decorations, she attended all the meetings and she was consistent. She was there year after year. And when it came time for her to need a ride to a medical appointment, well, she was coming up empty handed. I had just met her and I'll never forget listening to her crying to me on the phone, expressing how she felt like she had wasted years giving to a group of people that were never going to give anything back to her. This right here is the others over self paradox. We are called to give, and we have the right as human beings to hope for reciprocation. This isn't transactional, it's relational. But surface relationships can masquerade as as community. You can be surrounded by people and still be completely alone because nobody actually knows you. And the hard truth is that if you're trying for these deeper relationships and they just aren't happening, if every attempt at meaningful conversation gets deflected back to surface, well, then it might be time to let go of the surface touch points that you have and start pouring relationship efforts into these more meaningful interactions. This is what we're talking about today. Because this is hard. Especially when these surface relationships feel like community or they're your only sense of community. But when they're not serving the healthy version of you, you're not actually serving them either. You see, when we stay surface, we're not serving others. Well, it's easy to ride the coattails of a cause rally and pump our fists while actually ignoring the agency of people involved. You can champion a mission while still failing to understand the people that are executing it. And it is possible for you to build solutions for people without actually understanding what they really need. My veteran friend was in a veteran community and she was giving and she wasn't receiving. She gave years to people who never knew her quite well enough to know exactly what she needed. And what's important to realize here is that that is not what others over self looks like. That's serving a system while missing the people. That's a system serving itself. Now, as ambitious leaders, we like to quote Henry Ford, if I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. And we use this phrase to justify not listening. But Ford wasn't ignoring conversation, he was actually listening between the ears. Conversation isn't about asking people for solutions. It's about hearing their pain points where they're struggling and how they measure success. And then you, as the ambitious leader, you step away and you have the opportunity to provide a simple solution to a not so obvious problem. But you can only hear those pain points if you're having real conversations. Now here's what's happening. Deep conversation is a fundamental human need, but the art of it is disappearing. Lost to social media, algorithm driven content, endless to do lists. We're optimizing productivity and we're losing connection. When we choose to engage in meaningful conversation, we're giving a gift to all involved. We're not just receiving information, we're meeting a basic human need and testing whether the relationship has actual depths. Now, the stoics practiced dialogue and not debate, but shared exploration of an idea. Military after action reviews. Maybe you've heard of that before on this podcast. When an after action review is done well, it creates psychological safety to share honest conversations and honest observations. The bonds that are between military service members, they go deep because they've been through intense situations together. I'm not just talking about combat or crisis, but it's the conversations that happen in the preparation and after as well. Augustine wrote about confession, the power of being truly heard by another. These traditions exist because depth is essential. It's not optional. So where do these moments actually happen? Let me walk you through some tangible examples. First, the crisis that separates surface from substance. Now earlier I mentioned my ex husband's drinking and it had reached the point of actually endangering our son. And this was a moment when I needed real conversation in my life. And who stayed? Almost no one. This is the test that reveals what you've actually been building with your time. I. I'm not bringing this up to be cynical, but I do want you to be realistic in how you're spending your time. It's true that Some relationships cannot bear weight because they just simply weren't built to. And then I went to that Al Anon meeting and I sat and I listened. I heard people sharing what it's like to live with someone who's addicted to alcohol, what it's like to leave. I heard what it's like to stay. And I heard what kids say about it when they grow up and learn and live firsthand how addiction can affect them. I wasn't in that meeting to speak. I was just there to hear perspectives that I couldn't see from inside my own situation. And it shifted everything for me. There's a dying art form in aviation, and it's called the hanger fly. My combat pilot friend was chatting with me about this. So a hanger fly is an informal gathering that happens after a flight and at the close of the work day. It's not required, it's not on anyone's schedule. It's just something that you gravitate to now as a young flyer, she says that you end up sitting there and you're listening. You glean information. This is informal training that doesn't happen in any classroom. The entire squadron or the. Or the whole group is there. And it starts off as many. Conversations that eventually become usually one are two main points that tend to draw more people in. This is an open discussion about whatever's on your mind. And it's an opportunity to hear different points of view, to communicate, and to learn from others outside perspectives. She also told me that this is a safe space. There's a pilot rule that every story only has to be 10% true, which means that you're listening for the lesson. You're not litigating the facts. What matters is what you can learn, not whether every detail is perfectly accurate. The hanger fly is disappearing. We're literally building hangars that don't have gathering spaces. And so as people are finishing their day, they're leaving. There's no lingering, there's no organic conversation. And because of this, we're losing something critical in being more efficient. Now, another person, a good friend of mine, his name is Keith, he's a business coach and he's a CEO. And he told me about his Thanksgiving this year. He had just taken his two teenagers over to Phoenix to attend Charlie Kirk's memorial service. So now they're at Thanksgiving dinner table. And the mother in law didn't just ask, what are you thankful for? She very specifically asked, how did that experience shape what you're doing today? And Keith got to sit there and listen to his kids talking about how attending a memorial service led them to start a TPUSA chapter at their high school. He said they talked for an hour and the connection between that experience at the memorial and their current action became visible to him. Everyone at the table was sharing something meaningful about these kids in their current journey. The gift, she gave that to herself as the mother in law. She gave that gift of conversation to Keith as a father. She gave that gift of conversation to the kids and they had a voice and to everyone at the table. Now this is what it looks like when relationships can bear weight in business. We do after action reviews, but not a checklist version. Not where you're rushing through what went well and what didn't. Check, check, check, check, check. We do after action reviews in a real version where somebody can say, I saw you make that decision and here's what I observed. We do reviews where the team can surface any unspoken tensions. And it helps when you can discover the gap between your intent and your impact. This is deep conversation and it's where learning and leading truly happens. And it's where you find out who's actually committed versus who's just present in the seat. An AAR is a corporate version of the Hanger Fly, and if you do it right, then an off site can work very, very similarly. It's away from the urgency of daily operations. It's time that is structured specifically for depth. There's no devices, no interruptions, just clear intention. Because the conversations that happen at 10pm after the formal agenda is over, well, that tends to be where people feel safe enough to say what they're actually thinking. And this is where you build the relationships that will hold when things really do get hard. Now, if you're thinking that your team might need this kind of space and you're not sure how to create it, well, hey, that's exactly what we do here at Mission Ambition. We professionally coordinate, host and facilitate these off sites that are designed to move your team from that surface level collaboration to having genuine momentum. We create that structure and the psychological safety that makes the depth possible. So if you would like to explore what that could look like for your organization, definitely reach out to us@infooissionambition.org even tough situations with co workers can create opportunities. Let's talk about conflict. The conflict could just stay at the surface. We could just fix that immediate problem, or we can choose to go deeper. Help me understand how you're seeing this situation. Love that phrase. Help me understand how you're seeing this situation. There's a vulnerability of admitting that you might be missing something and the service of helping someone else articulate their perspective. I always forget about that because I am a words person. I love messaging. And I forget that not everyone is quite so fluent with words. Being able to help someone else articulate their perspective is a gift that you can give them. This is also why those bonds run so deep in service members. We have these shared hardships and what they do is they create opportunities for depth. But they're only there if you take them. Oftentimes those bonds are forged in those hangerfly conversations, not just in the mission itself. So let's think back to that baptism service that I mentioned. Fifteen different stories, each one honored with time. They weren't rushed, they weren't summarized. It wasn't a bullet list. It was a fully told personal story. The structure itself communicated value. Now, when you create the container, then the people will rise to fill it. Now let's contrast that with my veteran friends experience. Decades of meetings, decades of events of her showing up, and yet no real connection. Activity without relationship. Here's the principle that makes depth possible across every context. Structure plus safety plus time equals depth. Structure plus safety plus time equals depth. Now, structure means that you've created a container. There's a clear beginning and a clear end. And there's a purpose that people understand. The hanger fly, it has structure. It happens to be after the flight in a specific place with understood norms. That baptism service, it had structure. It was each story getting its time and knowing that everyone will be heard. Even the Al Anon meeting had structure. People share when they're ready and others listen without interrupting. There's a phrase of I want to feel safe. I want to have a safe space. And maybe you're cringing right now because I'm using those phrases. And I get it, I get it. I used to hate those phrases too. But what I've learned is that when we hate those phrases, safety of conversation really doesn't exist. So when we talk about safety, we're talking about people who can share and speak up without fear or judgment of consequences. In the hanger fly, we have that pilot rule that every story only has to be 10% true. That's a safety rule, y', all, that creates the safety to share the lesson without having to defend every detail along the way. And at Keith's thanksgiving table, his mother in law posed a question that created safety by honoring the connection between experience and action. Time. Time means that you're not rushing to the Next thing, the hanger fly happens because people linger after the workday ends. The baptism service, it takes the entire hour. That would normally be a message. Keith's kids, they talked for an hour because no one cut them off. Trying to fight for efficiency. Get all three right and depth becomes possible. Get all three right and depth becomes possible. Structure plus safety plus time. If you miss even one of those three things, you're back to surface level conversation. My veteran friends organization, it had structure and it had time. Decades of meetings and events, but they never had safety. No one could share what they actually needed without risking not being accepted or not appearing like they were a good soldier at whatever age. There was a lot of weighing of volunteerism and if you didn't, then you weren't pulling your weight for the good of the group. It's up to us as leaders to create the conditions for having meaningful conversation. It doesn't happen by accident in the margins. Now let's connect these teachings about meaningful conversation with the framework of hardcore and at ease. There's a marker of transformation for an ambitious leader who's working through the framework. Can you sit in a deep conversation without controlling it? Can you listen without immediately jumping to solutions and problem solving? Can you just be present without checking your phone or thinking about your to do lists? Do you really feel like you can ask for help when you need it and not just show up when things are good? Now please don't blow off this lesson because it's extremely important. Your ability to engage in meaningful conversation reveals how at ease you actually are. And your willingness to let go of these surface conversations and these surface relationships, well, that shows that you're building from your authentic center. Now let's go back to that framework. When you're secure in your tactical center, your authentic self, when you're hitting that bullseye deep, deep, deep. At the very, very base of who you are and what your personal values are, well, you can hear observations about yourself without getting defensive. You're curious about this gap that exists between your intent and your impact. These deep conversations don't scare you. They actually help you clarify your values because they can be a reflection that shows how you're actually living out your personal values. My crisis with my ex husband revealed that I had been building surface relationships and fostering them for years, decades. That was not aligned truly with my personal values. And that's where the conflict was. I had to ask myself, what was missing from these relationships with these people who just were leaving when I needed them most? What did they all have in common. And I had to ask myself, from their perspective, who was I to them? And it was hard to come to the truth that I was no different than just being their buddy's spouse or I was just another way to get through a Friday night not being alone. I had to be deeply honest with myself about what these relationships were and if there was a future in upholding them. When we talk about generate momentum as a leader, there is a shift. There's a shift from who has a need to know and we shift to who else needs to know. Now this shift includes this question of whose observations do I need to hear that hanger fly that I mentioned? Well, that's momentum building. The young pilot is sitting there learning, listening, not just from their own flights, but from everyone's flights. And the experienced pilots, they stay sharp by articulating what they know and what they've witnessed. Everyone in that room benefits. And that's collaborative momentum. My veteran friend that we talked about, she needed a ride and she gave momentum to an organization that never reciprocated. Real momentum is collaborative. It's not one directional. If you're the only one that's showing up for depth, that's not momentum. And that takes us back to that red ring of ambition alignment. If you're seeing one directional giving, that is not momentum, that might be a flag that your personal ambition is not lining up with the ambitions of the organization that you're serving. So right here we're going to talk about the others over self principle in action. When we create space for others to share their observations, we're serving them by listening. We're also receiving the gift of their perspective being laid onto us. And this isn't transactional, it's very relational. It's Keith's mother in law who served everyone at that table by asking a better question. Keith served his kids by making space for their hour long answer. Everyone present served each other by being genuinely engaged. But here's the paradox. We can give fully and we can hope for reciprocation, but we don't demand it, we don't transact for it, but we do hope for it because that's what makes us human beings instead of being systems. Now that hope, when that hope is consistently disappointed, like what happened with me trying to find support from a friend base that didn't exist, when that hope is consistently disappointed, then that becomes data. Now let me be clear because sometimes we absolutely should be pouring into an empty well. Maybe there's a person who has nothing to give and we need to give to them because they can be the person that's most in need. That's not the issue that we're talking about here. The issue is that when that becomes the constant, unsustainable model of how we give. Giving from one well to another, going one cup at a time until both the wells are dry, that's not how we do things. Real others over self means taking time to partner and collaborate on a big bigger plan for filling the well. It's not just responding to the immediate need, but it's stepping back and asking, what is the sustainable solution here? How do we build a system that serves this person without depleting everyone involved? That right there is the conversation that has to happen. How can we have a veteran care support system that isn't depleting the veterans themselves? Because if the other person isn't willing to have that conversation, if they only want to keep you bringing them cups of water without addressing why the well stays empty, well, that's when you know that that relationship can't bear the weight that you're asking it to carry. I use the veteran care system as an example because I'm deeply intimate with it. Lists of names and people that are strategically calling one resource after the next. There are veterans that abuse the system they call a resource. They get what they can, they move on to the next resource on that list. Now that is a good solution for a one time emergency. But when we're teaching people to repeat the system every month and they rely on that for their ongoing support, well, the outcome isn't meeting the intent. And yet here we are, day after day, still serving systems that ultimately don't serve us back. Expecting excellence from yourself is about choosing where to invest. Don't settle for those surface relationships like I did. You don't have to learn the hard way. Recognize them from the beginning. Don't settle for surface relationships when you're capable of depth. Don't give decades to organizations that can't show up when you just need a ride. Simon Sinek. He talks about the infinite game. Finite games are played to win. There's a clear end and there's a point. Infinite games, on the other hand, are played to keep playing. The goal is to continue. That's how our relationships should be. Building lasting leadership. It's an infinite game. You're not winning by getting through conversations quickly. You're winning by building relationships that sustain the mission over time. Let me say that again in case you're thinking about hitting up 12 networking events this week. You're not winning by getting through conversations quickly. You, my ambitious friend, are winning by building relationships that sustain the mission over time. Now let's go back to that wedding feast parable. Ambition drives us to want influence. But influence isn't about taking the seat. It's about being someone that others invite to the table. And once you're there, being someone that they actually want to hear from. The infinite game means continuously earning that invitation, not defending the position. As a highly driven person, I know that you're intense, you're still mission focused, but you've also got to learn that depth is not a distraction from the mission. It actually is the mission. Because excellence pursued in isolation is not sustainable. And missions are carried by people, not by systems. Understanding people is understanding the mission. So where do we start? Oh, my goodness. We've talked about why depth matters, where it happens, and how it even connects to the framework. So let's get practical. I'm going to give you five specific things that you can do this week to create opportunities for meaningful conversation. First, listen for what matters to them, not what you think they need. Don't ask what solution do you want. Instead, say, where are you struggling? Or if you don't like the word struggling, like I don't, you can say, where are you battling? Tell me about this battle you're in. How do you measure success in this area? What does this situation cost you? Then actually process between the ears. Don't just let words come back out of your mouth to fill the space. Process what they're saying. Try to connect patterns that maybe they can't see as they're talking to you. If you feel like they are asking for a solution, then yes, offer the solution that they couldn't even figure out how to ask for it. And remember that pilot rule above everything. Every story only has to be 10% true. So listen when you're listening, instead of litigating the facts and trying to pinpoint, well, you said this and they said this and you said this. Just listen for the lesson. Listen for the lesson. All right. The second thing is for you to apply the principle that we talked about. Structure plus safety plus time. Create structured opportunities. A Thanksgiving table with a prompt that goes way beyond surface conversation. Beautiful. An AAR with dedicated time, psychological safety and clear intention. You might even do an off site away from the daily urgency with space to think these one on ones with recurring protected time and no devices. No devices. Do your own version of the hanger fly. What if you created space after major projects or milestones where your team could Just talk without a formal agenda. Don't give them pressure to produce insights. Just build the space to process together what you all learned. And if you're thinking that your team needs this kind of space but you're not sure how to create it, or you, quite frankly, just don't have the time for it, well, that's what we do here at Mission Ambition, we professionally coordinate, host and facilitate these off sites that are designed to move your team from the surface level collaboration into genuine momentum. All right, here's the third thing you can do this week to create an opportunity for meaningful conversation. Ask questions that invite observation, not just information. So replace the phrase, how are you? With what are you noticing about how our team is operating right now? Instead of asking for an update, talk about, what am I missing about this situation. And instead of asking, what do you think we should do? Try this phrase, help me understand how you're experiencing this challenge. Maybe you do genuinely need help. Never be afraid to say, I'm in a hard situation and I need someone to listen. Now, the fourth thing that you can do, this is so important for ambitious people. I want you to resist the urge to solve immediately. Sometimes people need to be heard and not fixed. Sometimes just the art of articulating the problem is the solution. Your job as a leader, it's not always to solve problems. It's not to just provide that answer. Sometimes it's to ask that question that helps them find their own answer. Now, if you remember my veteran friend, she needed a ride. She didn't need a whole bunch of solutions. She didn't need me to give her a phone number to go get a ride. What she actually needed was someone to witness her pain and to validate that decades of giving without receiving was not her fault and to help guide her towards a better peer support system. All right, the last thing that you can do to help encourage these conversations of depth is to be honest about where you as the leader are avoiding depth. If you're constantly too busy for these real conversations, or if every interaction, it's really transactional, you do this and I'll do that. Did you check the box? If think about, think about where you're showing up. Are you only showing up for your team when things are going really well? Because these are signs that you're operating from constant urgency. Even if you're the one that's creating this false sense of constant urgency and constant urgency. Well, that's the opposite of being at ease. As we talk about being honest about where we're avoiding depth well, you also need to be honest about which relationships can't bear. Wait. If you're trying to deepen a relationship and it just consistently isn't happening. If you've got people that are always there for the fun stuff, but then when you really need them, they disappear. That's data. It's data. It's not you negatively judging another person. It's not you putting down another person. It's you watching for and recognizing a pattern. And. And that, my friends, is data. Pour those relationship efforts into interactions that can sustain depth. You have a right to have deep, meaningful relationships with other human beings. Give yourself permission. Lift that weight. This isn't being judgmental. It's about being strategic with your life purpose. And it's about figuring out where to invest your finite energy. Because you can't build lasting leadership on surface relationships. If you haven't read Simon Sinek's the Infinite Game, I highly recommend it. It completely reframed how I think about building sustainable leadership. Now you can find it through our affiliate link in the show notes down below. Full disclosure, we do earn a small commission if you purchase, but I only recommend resources that I genuinely use and believe in. Now, as our time together today comes to a close, I want to leave you with this. Leaders stand up to be seen, but they sit down to make a lasting impact. The standing gets noticed, yes, but the sitting. The sitting is where the work actually happens. This week I want you to find one opportunity for depth. It could be an aar, it could be a dinner with family. It could just be a conflict with a co worker. Maybe it's creating your own version of that hanger fly some unstructured time where conversation can happen naturally. I want you to ask a question that invites observation and not just information. Create that space to actually hear the answer and then receive it as the gift that it is. Have fun with this. And remember that every story only has to be 10% true because you're actually listening for the lesson. Pay attention to those who actually engage with you because there is a hard question here, my leader friend, that we're asking ourselves. Where are you pouring your relationship energy into? Where are you pouring your relationship energy into? Is it going into surface connections? Because I was. For years, for years I was giving to people who wouldn't show up when I needed a ride, who wouldn't show up when I needed a witness on the stand. We're not talking about being transactional with human beings. This is about being realistic. We are called to give and we have the right to hope for reciprocation. When that hope is consistently disappointed, it's okay, my ambitious friend, to redirect your investment. If you can sit down in a conversation without controlling it, without checking your phone, without jumping to solutions to fix them. If you can sit down and just listen to another human being without planning your next move, well, congratulations. Because that is evidence that you are becoming at ease while staying hardcore. You're in the infinite game. You're building relationships that can bear weight. Now, next Week is episode 25, and I'm talking with Chaplain Brian Webb about gratitude and grit. He leads through uncertainty. And this is perfect timing between the holidays because we're exploring how spiritual resilience intersects with leadership excellence. Whether you like it or not, it doesn't matter if you consider yourself a spiritual human being, because we all have a spirit. So come with me for that conversation and we're going to learn how gratitude functions in relationships that have real depth. That's all the time we have for today. I'm Shelley Rude, and until we're again next week, I want you to remember this. Strive for the invitation to the head table and not the seat itself. The invitation comes when others find value in your perspective, and that only happens when you first valued theirs. Healthy relationships serve both people involved. Go have a real conversation this week and pay attention to the other person who's actually there for it. Until next Tuesday, stay hardcore. Be at ease and trust the process.

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Hi, I'm Doug Slocum, the author of the book Violent Positivity. I was Blessed to spend 35 years in the US military, the Air Force, working with some of the most amazing men and women you'd ever want to meet. Well, throughout my life, throughout my career, I learned lessons. I developed this leadership style that I like to call violent positivity. And this book was my opportunity to tell that story, but also put forth those principles. Violentpositivity.com More information on how to order the book.