The WAY to WOW Shows
Follow Your Gut, a Professional Journey
May 4, 2022
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[0:06] so welcome to the way to wow show people making money i'm your host kevin bemel and this is our regular wednesday broadcast it's 12 30 or close to it here on the pacific coast 3 30 uh p.m on the east coast and uh the times in between and my guest today is uh dr mark brooker captain retired united states navy um before i i introduced mark further though i just want to mention a couple of things uh first of all my colleague leah siegel's show will be

[0:43] broadcasting tomorrow thursday 1 p.m pacific time 4 p.m uh eastern time and her her we we've done a pivot on her show so leia's show is now called the way to wow show bounce back and leia talks to people who have met and conquered life's challenges and have some interesting lessons that we can use when we're confronted with those hurdles that inevitably come up how to get over them and go on to bigger and better things leia's guest tomorrow is jay siegel you may notice that they

[1:18] have the same last name and that is because indeed uh jay is leia's husband also known as rabbi siegel and jay has a fascinating story to tell about um being what he calls the recovered rabbi going from dark to light um and he'll he will talk about his journey of spiritual resilience and i think you will find that uh quite interesting and uh she she always gets embarrassed when i say this when when when i'm on you know when i'm producing her show so i will say it uh right now because she's not here leia is

[1:54] a fantastic interviewer very insightful very empathic and so i invite you to join us tomorrow afternoon uh for for that broadcast but today i have someone who um you know marks in my relationship is is really an outgrowth of my transition uh out of the navy into civilian life i was looking to connect with uh navy colleagues who were in who were involved in academia and at the time um mark was a professor at uh or an instructor anyway at chapman university i believe

[2:29] it was and we got on the phone and from the first time we talked it was like you know we were i think we were brothers um and uh soon thereafter uh mark came down to to visit me when i was on duty at uh seal team 17 um and to show you what a glimp talker he is seal team 17's workspaces they have controlled access so you need to have an id card to get in and he buzzed and didn't have an id card but they let him in anyway so um you know i would say if mark comes to

[3:06] visit you i don't want to say lock up your valuables because he's not that kind of guy but just just be aware that if he asks you to do something you're probably just going to end up doing it because he's a very very persuasive man um and and he met many of my colleagues that day and it was they were all just absolutely uh delighted to meet him and we're going to be talking about mark's uh professional journey as we do each week and and i think out of that you will find that he has uh one particular subject that has been a lifelong uh continues to be a lifelong

[3:42] learning quest and i'm not gonna um you know give away the secret but i think it'll become evident pretty quickly um as we go along so um mark first of all welcome to the way to wow show people making money thank you so much for for coming on and speaking with me today well thanks kevin i really appreciate the opportunity and it's good to see you uh we've spoken on the phone many times it's been a while since i've seen your face so you're looking good buddy thank you thank you you as well you as well so mark you know um you obviously first off had a a long and

[4:17] distinguished career in the navy so would you talk to us a little bit what what where did this decision to join the navy come from why was that your you know at least initial chosen career path that's a great question uh so you know i grew up in massachusetts uh uh went to pharmacy school uh up there in northeastern university many years ago got a job in washington dc i just want to get out of boston and try something new washington dc seemed like a pretty cool place and i had a nice i was running a drugstore this chain drugstore called people's drugs just like cvs and walgreen back then um but what happened

[4:54] is i didn't really like the job but i did it for three years i had some debt to pay out like we all do um but i got held up a couple of times literally got a gun to my head one time another time uh there's some shots fired it's a long story but it was just a little dangerous you know washington dc was a dangerous place in the 80s and i had a good story like three blocks in the white house uh but i always i always thought about the navy my father was in the navy out of cousin the navy so it's always kind of the back of my mind and i just i guess part of you said i'm going to get shot out of all i could wear a uniform so uh but i i i took a it was a pretty risky thing in 83 you know a lot of

[5:30] it was post vietnam um but reagan is a big 600 ship navy thing so anyway i took a risk uh i think the the the big incentive for me was they said i will guarantee a job in san diego california at the naval hospital i always want to go cross country anyway took the opportunity didn't think i was going to stay in uh for 30 years but ended up just loving it and it was a good fit for me and and i just really really enjoyed it and really what i what i loved about it was that maybe is anyone out there and same thing air force army coast guard they're all you know they all give you great opportunity

[6:05] but they gave you an opportunity to lead which i just ended up loving to do and learned a lot from that experience so uh yeah it was a great ride so if i can back up a little bit where did the decision then come to go to pharmacy school um no i can't i don't think i've ever heard anyone you know as a kid say you know when i grow up i want to be you know a pharmacist well here's a deal man so that's a great another interesting story in a nutshell be completely transparent here man i uh my father we grew up lower middle class

[6:41] my father was a blue collar worker general electric plant up there in pittsfield since closed sadly but his father was in the same plan his grandfather you know as a lineage of of blue collar workers a good job back then uh but my father did not want me to uh be in that uh in that to follow his lead so he wanted me to go to college but he put a lot of pressure on me he said mark uh you know if we're gonna send you to college you need to come up with a profession i didn't you know i had no clue really what i wanted to do but the pressure was hot and heavy about when i was 17 you know literally i was working in a drug store at the time and the night that he really put pressure on me he uh

[7:18] he said to me uh because you know you got to come up with a decision like quick well that night i worked in the drugstore i saw mr socop i'll never forget he was a pharmacist we're a nice little smock i was just selling you know snickers and stuff i wasn't doing any pharmacy work but but he had a nice car and uh and he seemed like his job was pretty chill so i went up to him that night i said how do you become a pharmacist he told me five years hard work i said okay so that night i went home and told my dad i want to be a pharmacist so i put absolutely not zilch of information into your thought into it but it worked out well it was a means to an end and pharmacy is a great profession but it just uh i like the

[7:54] leadership aspect of it in the navy so that's it that's it in a nutshell not your not your traditional way to pick a profession with that there it is well so so you know it's it's interesting because i think sometimes um i don't know we get maybe it's a gut instinct or or we just see something and it seems right and and there's there's a value you know in pursuing that um and and trying it out a pharmacy obviously takes going to school and all that so it's an investment of time but uh um i i i'm not you know i've never seen any uh you know date on this but i'm not sure

[8:30] these sort of you know in-depth you know searches that people make end up with them getting you know profession that they're a job that they're any happier with so yeah bottom line i wanted i did not want to be poor frankly i didn't want to uh my parents struggled with money and god bless them but i just i really didn't want to be in that position and you know pharmacy seemed like a pretty decent way to get out of it but uh anyways interesting way how we pick our or our ways in life isn't it yeah yeah and i i assume at the time you were not married or yeah yeah no i was not not married i've met my wife chris

[9:06] we've been married 39 years coming up in next month uh wow yeah we met in washington dc uh very i was about a month out of college and she uh her and i met and we fell in love and so you were married at the time you decided to go into the navy yeah another interesting story yeah yeah so we as anyone else would pick our date june 18th 1983 that's a day we're gonna get married and send all the invites out uh about six months before that is when all these things happen with the hold-ups and the guns and whatever and i and that's when i decided to join the navy so i was up but actually basic

[9:41] training uh for midway through our you know midway through my basic training is when my the marriage was so they gave me a weekend pass flew to minnesota got married went right back to to newport for finish out basic training so we she was with me the entire time for my navy uh 30 years she's she's been from from the very beginning to the end and what did she think about this this idea of you know going from being a civilian pharmacist to you know joining the navy and did she have any sense of you know what what that was going to mean you know schlepping all over the world that kind of stuff yeah she had no sense

[10:16] whatsoever god bless her she never met anybody in the navy from minnesota but you know the thing is she knew how i didn't i don't say miserable but i just wasn't happy in my job and there's a good spouse she knew i was unhappy and she wanted she knew i want to do something different and you know i was talking to someone yesterday who's just getting out of the navy and the key with anything actually i talked about a guy who's a corporate leader yesterday who did 24 moves with with the corporations and was ceo of three different places just fascinating but but the point is we both agree that our spouses uh really are the key to this thing if chris was if chris my wife was not on

[10:53] board with this navy thing i wouldn't be able to do 30 years but she made it exciting for the kids and the kids were you know they were not traumatized by these moves they thought it was an adventure because of my wife i of course i was thrilled to be moving you know you're going to a new job but it's your spouse who really is going to make or break it so i've been very blessed that chris has been a big supporter of my navy career and when you entered the navy i mean was the plan all along to stay for 30 years or kind of how would what would and what was your sort of uh perspective at the time that you you know made the decision and then you know you're going through

[11:28] officer training and all that yeah well the plan was to get to california get my pharmacy license and get a job in california as a civilian that was the job that was the plan ended up liking the navy and uh from there they offered me to go to subic bay in the philippines and to move overseas was such an adventure for chris and i so we've decided to do that and and that tour you know that took another three years that really got me excited about the navy um and i at that point i think i i realized i want to do more than just one tour uh and ended up doing uh 30. and really i was thinking of getting out at the 22-year mark i guess and that's about

[12:03] when 911 happened and is anyone is you know everyone who's on the line whether you're in the military not to change a lot of people's lives it certainly changed my perspective i did not want to get out of the military i want to stay in and so anyway we got to 30 years and um besides san diego and subic where else were you stationed and what was your career and as you talked about then maybe talk about what was your career progression like um so as you you mentioned that you really enjoyed the leadership aspect of being in the navy that's kind of your secret sauce i think so what was what was that you know

[12:39] career progression like and and how did your i mean you know your your interest in leadership was that something you know you brought to the navy or was that something that maybe sparked how did that all come together yeah that's a good so what happened i guess with me is um probably the first 10 years of my navy career i realized that my morale my engagement my excitement to go to work waxed and wayne sometimes really fired up to go to work other times did not like going to work matter of fact there were at least two times in my navy career i called up the human resource department purse for

[13:15] those who people in the navy and i told them i want to quit well naively just can't walk away from the navy but that's how miserable i was and they said you can't get out and that would have been a big mistake but i started looking into i said why am i why is my mood vacillating so wildly and i had i realized i looked into it it had nothing to do with where i was located i had some fun duty stations not so fun duty station had nothing to do with that had nothing to do with the job i had is any other profession pharmacy you've got an umbrella of jobs you have uh but it had nothing to do with that but i realized it was my boss uh sometimes i had a boss that got me fired up to go

[13:51] to work and other times i had a boss who wanted me to quit and that that really intrigued me and i wanted to know why i want to know why certain leaders did certain things that made me excited otherwise like i said i want to quit and i started reading my leadership this is many many years ago probably six seven eight years into my navy career and it was kind of a hobby you know you have an interest i just got seriously interested in this back then there wasn't no podcast and whatnot but there's mostly books i just read a lot of books uh and i got some thoughts and theories on leadership move ahead 20 years and i would in the navy just take on larger and larger jobs i took on larger and

[14:27] larger leadership positions in pharmacies uh i got a big break and and bottom line is i got selected to be commanding oscar naval hospital bremerton which was you know remember getting that call i was just very very surprised and frankly thrilled um and that thrill and excitement lasted about three days before i was actually going to take over the job and i don't think i i don't think i had a panic attack but i wasn't uh i couldn't sleep we were driving cross country head to seattle washington area and i was tossing and turning and i could not sleep of course i wiped my wife up chris and she's what what's

[15:02] going on she was uh i said i'm nervous about this job and she looked at me with you know when she asked me what are you specifically nervous about as well i'm not sure i know how to run a hospital here i'm going to be running a hospital in three days and she looked at me with this look of horror she said you're telling me we're three days away from this thing and you don't know what you're doing and that wasn't overly dramatic i mean i had a i wasn't incompetent i don't want to say that but there were so many other people more qualified for that job than i was uh other people knew what i knew and now my wife knew but here's what she said to me chris has always been giving me wise counsel kevin she said uh mark you've been studying leadership your whole life go into this

[15:39] job and be the best leader you can be and and employ those of those things that you've learned you're not going to learn how to run a hospital in three days and but just be the best leader you can be and that's what i did kevin i just did the things that's all written in the book uh about taking care of people is really what i did and uh what happened over those three years was really the profound experience of my life we ended up being the most we had we won more awards at any of the hospital in this region of the region was big it was a whole pacific rim 12 hospitals um and that was really a amazing experience for

[16:14] me it was stunning in the fact that while i really wasn't the expert in running a hospital i did try to connect with my people show them i cared and they responded incredibly well of course i was surrounded by brilliant people but that was the pivotal moment of my i guess my career and that's when i realized that these leadership behaviors it really is behaviors are so powerful um so that's kind of that's my story in the navy and we could talk about the transition but that's uh that's how i kind of got into this leadership thing so you know one of the questions that comes

[16:49] to mind is is you know you have this sort of self-professed you didn't know what you were doing for this you know very senior position and and yet the navy chose you for it um and as you know in retrospect obviously the navy made an outstanding choice so what is it you think that the navy saw in you that caused them to choose you despite what turned out to be your own kind of maybe misgivings if if you will yeah that's really i mean it's really

[17:25] such an important question again talking this gentleman yesterday about his experience and you know we both concluded that the most important thing you can do as a leader is pick pick your right pick the right people and i'm not saying i wasn't the best person for this job and i know i wasn't but you know what i guess somebody saw something in me that uh that they liked i i'm guessing i wasn't behind the scenes when they made these decisions although i i know how the decisions are made but they do do it with a great deal of mindfulness and discerning because these are important jobs um so i don't know i would guess that someone just saw

[18:00] some leadership traits in me that they they thought would be good in this position and they gave me a shot and uh and i realized how important this was not too many pharmacists get opportunities to run a hospital the size of bremerton matter of fact truthfully it's never been done before naval pharmacist never run up family medicine teaching hospital so i knew that i'd i'd certainly want to screw this up for a million reasons but i didn't want to i want to make sure that other people had the same opportunity i had so i just want to do it well and and again uh what i learned i guess the last thing i just want to say kevin what

[18:36] on this topic is when i went into the job i thought about the great leaders that i had worked for i i've done a lot of thinking on leadership as you can probably imagine you don't write a book without thinking about it but this is before i wrote the book i i wrote a list of all the great leaders that i had worked for and i looked at i said what did they all have in common and just what they call had in common they i felt they cared for me and now they may not have cared for me but i felt like they cared for me as a human being not just a naval officer but then i thought about what did they do what did they specifically do that made me conclude that they cared

[19:11] for me and those are the things in the book uh knowing your staff be visible you know be respectful and whatnot and that's what i did uh very very uh in spades in bremerton i tried desperately to show the people i cared for them and i was very transparent when i didn't know something i told them i don't understand what what this is all about and i think they appreciated me being you know vulnerable i guess is a good way to put it i mean i mean you know from my time in the navy my guess is and and i'd be curious to hear

[19:47] your thoughts on this i think sometimes we don't perceive ourselves in the way others perceive us and so you know perhaps people saw in you these qualities of leadership and and consider them perhaps more developed than you felt they were um and and and so you know from their perspective they weren't taking a big leap of faith um they were you know pretty certain that you know you would you would step up to the plate and you know and and you know to continue the baseball metaphor you know knock it out of the park

[20:22] yeah well you know one thing i did again thinking back you know i had some pretty it's a bad jobs but jobs they were kind of no one wanted these jobs i mean look we're calling the navy collateral duties your primary job and you got these other little frankly shitty jobs as they used to call them um and i got some of those jobs that weren't really you know i was mwr morale welfare and recreation guy i was a guy who i had two parties i had to put together christmas in the in the gorman ball but you know i put a lot of effort into that i picked the right people i had fun with it and we had the best parties in that three years so

[20:58] i guess my my what i learned from that is no matter what job they give you just do the best you can do and chances are more times than not life is not fair but more times than not good things will happen and that was my experience i every job i went into and some i really didn't like but i realized that you know i i really had to do the best i could to be you know get on someone's radar and maybe that's what happened i just i did try really hard at every job i had i even though some leaders that weren't that stellar i just continue to try to perform at the highest level one and i think that's you know that's

[21:34] an excellent lesson for us to always keep in mind it it can be very dispiriting right to work for someone who's who's difficult to deal with and it can feel like you know well he's he's he's demoralizing me why should i give him my all but of course we have we have a you know a self-incentive if you will to perform well um and i think that ties into our self-respect it certainly ties into um whether we can reasonably expect to advance professionally etc so i think that's a you know that's that's a that's a great lesson that that perhaps you know comes out of your your

[22:10] career in the navy so you're you're 30 years in the navy and and um you know it's it's it's time for you to go you know um and uh so talk about if you would you know when did you start the transition how did you you know work on it you know how was your family involved give us a little uh insight into that if you would yeah yeah my experience of transitioning to the navy is what everything you're not supposed to do so it was not i i you know i don't one thing i tell you kevin i do a lot of mentoring of folks i guess mentoring's

[22:45] probably not the right coaching is probably the right term of transition um because transitions very very hard and for me the transition from the navy to the civilian world was really really hard and one of the things i got that got my way was i was afraid to go up to people and say i'm looking for a job um that was that was a bridge too far from me i was too i was too prideful frankly and so i do a lot of coaching now functionally you know even admirals coming out saying hey you just gotta get out there and say i'm looking for work uh no one should come to you unless you just you know lay it out there so um it was not a good

[23:21] transition it was a hard transition i think for a number of reasons i'm not going to get into it too much but i i love the navy i want to stay in the navy 30 years all you can do is a 06 commissioned officer i don't think i prepared enough i don't think people frankly in the military and they do they give you the transition classes of how to wear a tie how to put a resume together important stuff but i don't think i didn't get the mental aspect of it is is when you're you're moving to another uh you know from the realm of your life you know instead of seizing your life um but i landed on my

[23:56] feet took them a couple years uh and i do what i love to do now uh but uh but a lot a lot of interesting uh things i learned about transitioning now i do like i said i do a lot of work with folks helping them transition so yeah and as you know i've i work with uh military people who are transitioning as well one of the things i've noticed um more so among senior enlisted and senior officers is it it's kind of like you know you go from you know your people you know snapping

[24:32] to attention you know yes sir when you you know when you speak and then you know that next day you're out of the navy and it's like you're just a guy now you know that that and i i call it you know that sort of loss of prestige and i think even the best leaders who who don't get all wrapped up in the idea of you know captain colonel you know um you know sergeant major it's still i think there's some kind of visceral thing there um that that i've noticed so how does how does one um be on guard for that how does one

[25:07] um you know conquer that that that that sense because it you know we're talking really about a major shift in identity right i mean that's that's really what it comes down to you know that's a i don't know i don't i've not read anything or found any maybe someone who's listening could could you know write a book on it but i don't know i've not written i've found anything that shows if you do this this and this uh you will especially in the military you're going to have a smoother transition as far as the the prestige thing i think i think you just got to be mindful that it's gonna happen

[25:43] um and you're just gonna have to deal with it i mean there's no uh like for instance when i was working at this this corporation um they were called it was this one person was calling me broker not mr broker not mark and certainly i want to be called captain that those days were over but broker so i finally went up to them i said hey let me just tell you i was called broker twice in the military and it was because i screwed up so that's just please don't call me broker just call me mr broker call me mark call me anything you want but just don't call me broker and they got it um and i don't think that was over the top i don't think that was

[26:18] beyond the realm but i think for for anybody like a ceo leaving and maybe volunteering uh you know you've got to just you just got to be mindful that your life is going to change and you are not going to be you know that kind of jump to attention when you walk in a room anymore um i don't think i was that wasn't the big part of my transition i think for me it was the purposefulness i mean for 30 years i was doing something extremely meaningful i thought um and sometimes you take these jobs that you you're not going to replicate that and kevin you know you were the seal teams uh

[26:53] when i ran into you with seal team 17 i had been working and i've had to take a knee with with the the honor foundation which is the nonprofit that helps these clt members transition um and and what i tell them i say hey man you're never gonna recapture the the the the magic of a navy seal team it's impossible i mean it's the highest performing team in the in the recorded history there's nothing like it so don't have your expectations so high so i think one of the things we could do as we transition just lower your expectations uh you you know if

[27:28] you work for the va that's a probably pretty the very noble goal uh maybe equal to dod so but just just be mindful that you're probably not gonna recapture that purposefulness uh that you had in the military uh and just just lower your expectations a little bit it's another it's a new chapter so you're you're you're transitioning out of the navy what what did you you mentioned you were working a corporate setting so what was that what was that like to you know get go from the navy to getting that corporate job and you know yeah well it wasn't

[28:04] you've got to be careful here but it wasn't a healthy organization i went into i was looking to make a certain amount of money and they offered me that certain amount of money and i just took it and uh and you know that's all good it's it's the recession it was a bit of a recession at the time uh but you know what i guess it wasn't a perfect fit but that's okay what i what i tell people when you're transitioning especially out of the military don't overthink this thing the chances of you finding your perfect job the day after you get out of the military is probably zero i i've never met anyone who has so don't overthink it grab something you have a good gut feeling on and if it's a cross between

[28:40] two of them take the higher paying job um of course but don't worry about don't overthink it because it's going to take you a while to wear the tie and figure out how this corporate thing works out in six nine 12 months you start looking for other stuff if you need me so don't i just tell don't overthink it just grab a job uh and and and get certainly a transition uh in the civilian world yeah and and i think that's that's sage advice and i think that could that could easily apply to someone you know coming out of college yes well um i i don't recall exactly what the statistics are anymore but i think it's

[29:16] you know something like uh almost 100 percent of military people leave the first post their pro post for their first post-military job you know within like within three years and and it's a really high percentage that leave you know within the first year um you know what what what we think a particular job is going to be it doesn't turn out to be and um i'm reminded of a a piece of advice that my friend who who works at nasa um lives by um and he says you know just say yes right

[29:51] good things come when you say yes even if it's just kind of a tradition transitional you know situation that leads you to the next you know better better step so it sounds like that's kind of you know what you did is okay i got the opportunity i'll say yes and see how it goes so so now you're in the corporate job it's not really working for you um what was what was the next step after that yeah so at the same time i started my own company i mean literally i got i said there's a this company one it's not a big corporation it's a sole proprietorship they're doing business ads broker leadership solutions and it was pretty

[30:26] easy at 50 bucks you put a thing in the you know it's pretty easy to file for your own company as most people probably know i didn't i thought it was some huge process it was pretty easy and cheap so uh and i you know just did some rudimentary things about a business card and started doing some pro bono work giving talks uh to different groups um and people liked what i hear had to say and that spread pretty quickly and so i got on the military 2013 i had a couple of clients the clients kept growing and finally in 2015 it was you know i was kind of done with the corporate thing i was working some academia um and i just

[31:01] felt like it was time to go on my own which is you know kind of scary for me of course i had the i was blessed with the retirement but uh but you know never never having a place to go to every day was a little bit different but my business has grown enormously and i'm just very fortunate uh so what i do now i do a lot of coaching executive coaching and i do a lot of speaking uh fortunately back back on the road giving live speeches i wasn't a big fan of what we're doing right now i'd rather be having a beer with you kevin yeah this is the next best thing but giving a talk to an audience you know is anyone

[31:36] who's done it it's just much more fun alive so we're getting back to that so uh we've got the book out of the book coming out so i'm staying busy so um tell us tell us about your your first book i know it's on naval leadership i've read the book it's excellent and i you know what i meant to have my copy of it here so i could flash it on the screen i forgot to grab it before we started but maybe if you've got one behind you you'll you'll show us the book but in any event i'll i'll put a link to it in the show notes um you know after the show posts on on youtube but tell us where did where what was the genesis of your book um what was what

[32:13] was it like you know writing a book it's this was your first one as i as i understand right and i think there's a lot of people out there that want to write a book and would be interested in hearing your thoughts yeah well here's the book i was actually reading review i get lessons from the navy um came out roman and littlefield a couple of years ago now so you know what was the genesis of the book uh first of all i think everyone's got a book in them so i think for anybody out there if you've got a passion you've got to have a passion for obviously you can't write something spend hours and days and weeks something you're not passionate about but everyone's got a story and i think you

[32:48] know everyone's wired differently dna and whatnot people are excited about certain things so i i encourage people i always encourage people to that put it in writing and just don't don't think of it as a 300 page document just look at every day or every week getting a routine i found it and i don't have the time to to work out my second project here my second book uh but in october i'll have more time i'm really looking forward to that because i haven't been writing now for a couple years uh so what happened with the book uh kevin is i i took a lot of notes the other thing i probably didn't talk about too much here but but when i was

[33:23] watching back in you know eight ten years ago when i was had this nirvana that it's my boss who's the one who's making me happy or unhappy i started taking a lot of notes i watched peop i watch leaders and watch what they did and i'd write them down i'm so and i didn't i don't think i i know i didn't plan on writing a book back then i just want to keep i just want to remember this stuff because it was so powerful to me uh trying to become the best leader i could be um so all these notes i kept taking uh when i retired i kind of looked them up oh my goodness i got a lot of notes here and that really was the nicest of the book uh and i've broken into you know eight chapters basically different

[33:58] behaviors in each chapter uh did a lot of research into uh data that supports the behaviors i talk about but the book and my in my talks really are predominantly stories uh people love stories and i try to put some some you know some fun stuff in there some humor uh self-effacing you know things that i did wrong uh but people remember the stories and the book has uh while it does have facts because you've got just gonna have some some data in there it's not overwhelming data just a couple of uh data points and studies that to show

[34:35] that what we're talking about actually works uh so i tell a lot of stories and uh i've got quite a few of them that i've written down and and use them in my speeches and and whatnot and uh it was just a it was it was just an amazing experience of putting on paper and to see the book and anyway anyone's ever written a book you know when you see the the product it really is an amazing experience um and i'll just share with you my mom and dad are still alive uh a couple years ago when the book came out they're you know any day they're probably not going to make it they're 91 and 89 and get some health issues but i wanted to

[35:11] get the book to them before anybody else because that time in two years ago they were really in bad shape so i the first book i saw was sent to them i opened it up and shared it with them so it was a kind of a kind of cool experience but i do encourage people to write you know write something that they're passionate about uh everyone's got a book and and you obviously obviously it's published we said roman and littlefield so how was it that you were um what was the path to actually getting the book published yeah yeah so so i wrote the manuscript um and i started looking into getting an editor uh my

[35:46] daughter was a uh was she was a journalism major university of florida one of her roommates who used to work at roman and look at that i'm sorry uh i came to the big one of the big five up in new york doesn't name slips mate but she was now she was an editor on her own she was mark send it to send it to her so i sent it to her and she goes what are your plans with the book i said i'm just going to self-publish she was no mark this is a good book i think you should you know pitch it to some some publishing houses and i had no idea how to do this uh but she coached me how to do it you get a a literary agent and i was fortunate to pick up a literary

[36:21] agent who they're the ones who really pitch it for you so it was a it was a two-year process because i could have self-published much earlier um but she convinced me to you know pitch it to some some uh different uh uh houses and roman lutheran picked me up so it's really quite an honor that was another big point when i got that call i was actually in the middle of teaching a class at chapman university we took up i took a break and i checked my emails and i got the email from littlefield and uh i told the class and they all were clapping for me it's kind of cool very cool yeah for sure for sure and so now you're you're on to writing your

[36:57] second book would you talk about that uh yeah yeah yeah for the one that you love world war ii or history military history it really doesn't matter because this guy admiral nimitz who ran the war as you probably know kevin and most of people realize who having limits is but if you don't know admiral members ever heard this guy's name uh he ran the pacific war in world war ii for the for the americans of course um he's an amazing guy and there's a few books written about him uh potter wrote one uh bournemouth wrote one there's a few books but not that many uh and when you read into this guy and i've got the book probably 25 done uh

[37:34] everything i've talked about and everything stephen covey talks about everything dale carnegie talked about way back when uh nimitz did these things he took a care of his sailors uh and how i know that now is i went on an honor flight uh if anyone knows what an honor flight is these world war ii veterans korean war veterans vietnam ventures they get uh all charity work they get a flight to washington dc and they see these sites it's pretty cool so i took my father on one and i got to spend a lot of time with these world war two vets and i went up to every one of them was in the pacific i said hey tell me you know tell me what you did and and i

[38:10] said tell me about having nimitz and they all said the same thing kevin great guy great guy sailor sailor i love this guy he took care of us and i asked him how many times did you meet adam nimitz i never met him i mean i was at e2 he was a four-star admiral but but they all said the same thing in my research and i've done a lot of research reading letters from people no one has a bad same thing to say about this guy he was just an amazing leader and he acquiesced all the time to mccarthy because that general macarthur was the other leader in the pacific and he was the opposite of both brilliant people nimitz was a

[38:48] humble soft-spoken try to keep the ball moving forward of course you know we don't know about john mccarthy he was again brilliant man but he was pretty big ego uh and he was trying to steal the show in the pacific and whatnot everyone kind of knows this again brilliant brilliant military leader but that's that's why i think nimitz isn't really thought about because frankly macarthur kind of sucked all the air out of the pacific um so it's an amazing story of of of a remote workforce of two million people was under his command at the end of the war six thousand ships if you can

[39:24] imagine that uh and they all love this guy and they all work really hard more importantly the mission was accomplished in an amazing time frame so there's a lot of stories him visiting people getting to know his people there's all these fascinating stories about him that i usually tell in different seminars so that's my project uh it's about his uh his amazing leadership fascinating you know um a couple things come to mind and i've read you know i've read about admiral nimitz of course and i've also read about admiral halsey who is one of his top lieutenants and and it's interesting that um

[40:00] so often uh people in senior positions um seem to engender jealousy on the part of their you know just immediate subordinates and yet i think even halsey you know spoke highly of nimitz all the time as did you know all of the other people um i don't know if you've ever seen the movie in harm's way um it's one of my favorite navy movies and um i think um uh henry fonda plays uh admiral nimitz in the movie and as you're describing you know admiral nimitz and his character

[40:35] right who who better to do that than henry fonda who always played this sort of you know self-effacing guy humble you know a man of the you know man of the people and and and indeed that's you know so much of what uh admiral nimitz was so yeah i'm really looking forward let me just tell you a quick story with admiral business man this is this is this this is usually when i give a seminar and i give a kiss a seminar at the work college a couple years ago right before covet hit um and i told this story to start it out basically saying how did how did he really the question is how did this man create such intense loyalty over half

[41:10] the planet earth because it was really the pacific rim 60 million square miles 2 million men and they all felt the same way i love this guy how did he do it so this story i'll tell you real quick is uh it was 1942 um and he uh he's working really hard his staff kevin you believe they had 35 people on his staff that grew enormously over the war but think of it 35 is incredible so he's busy he knocked at the door as his dad comes in and he says sir there's a kid off the enterprise who wants to see you and uh in the late like i was kind of an administrative one but all you want to do is push people away because their business lamar said sir i'm going to

[41:46] send him back to the ship you don't have to have any time to see it nimitz insists on seeing him the kid comes in and he's looking at nimitz's four stars this kid was you know 22 year old e5 off the enterprise a young young enlisted guy intimidated by the big boss and he starts stammering can't speak and finally name is his son what do you want to see me for i i'd love to talk with you and he goes well sir here's the deal is uh you're you're from uh the hill country of texas and i'm from the hill country of texas and uh i have a bet with all my shipmates that i could see you face to face because we're both from the hill country so i've seen you face-to-face sir i'm out of here so he scoots out it nimitz

[42:22] yellowstone because hold on son hold on where are you from in the hill country i'm from kerrville sir get out from kerrville too and they start talking about squirrel hunting in kerbal for a second the kid starts getting his situational awareness back and says i'm out of he says sir thanks so this has been fascinating i'm going back to my ship and he scopes out again and then it says hold on son hold on you got a big bet with all your shipmates you gotta prove that you saw me let me get my command photographer we'll take a photo well i'll tell you i'm at the new kevin i'm in the war college naval war college a couple years ago going through literally 10 000 documents you know primary documents for my book and i find

[42:58] the photograph so it's a true story this kid that john cherry was his name petty officer cherry anyway the kid goes back to the ship and farsi collects his money but my question to anybody whether you're in the military or not just think if you had this interaction with your ceo and you go back to your people what are you going to say about the ceo or the admiral you're going to say he's a great guy so my point was that i mean nimitz was the busiest human being on the face of the earth at that time the victory defeat was in the balance 1942 is a pivotal year but he took five minutes to talk to this kid because intuitively i

[43:33] guess he knew that that he had to create this buzz about him or something i don't know he's just it's fascinating matter of fact just real quick i talked to his grandson the chester nimitz jr he lives in cape cod uh i haven't visited him yet because of cobra but we're gonna meet i talked with mr nimitz i said so tell me tell me about your father what did he read he goes well i'm looking at his library right here uh and he's and i'm going to pull one book down lee's lieutenant which is a book written many years ago about general lee and he says my father wrote in there lee took care of his people so obviously he is a very young

[44:09] officer he realized that taking care of people is really important and again back then there was no there was really no literature on this there's no leadership development gurus that talked about this so i don't know i'm fascinated with the guy because he just intuitively understood that how to get people motivated you got to spend some time with them and show them that you care i mean you know in i didn't know this about nimitz um you know but when you when you look at the careers for example of um george patton of of dwight eisenhower so you know neither one of these men you know particularly you know lit the world

[44:45] on fire academically but when they became officers they made the study of leadership and military science you know on their own really it was it was a passion on their part and they were they were largely self-taught in that respect even both had gone to the military academy and it sounds like um you know nimitz did the same thing he really immersed himself in whatever you know books etc there were that he could read um and and and became you know a a student

[45:20] um and there was if there was some intentionality there you know that that goes along and this i think ties back to your point earlier about no matter what the job you find yourself in do the best job you possibly can it sounds like the corollary is you know in in sort of immerse yourself in in you know learning more about your your chosen profession your chosen direction um that that there will inevitably be a payoff and and and somehow it'll get inside you and and you know like your your beautiful story with

[45:56] nimitz you know he somehow you know intuitively knew if i can connect with this young sailor there are you know massive dividends to pay for probably i i suspect with nem it's not for himself per se but just for the war effort overall that that he would spread the word hey you know sink pack you know really cares about us as individual sailors yeah yeah and at the end of the day i mean people listening in when you work for someone who you believe cares for your well-being you're going to work harder for them and there's so much data out there what was so exciting when i did the research for the book there's just ubiquitous

[46:33] the data is is extensive that shows that when leaders care profits go up when leaders care hospitals are safer when leaders care wars are won faster there's an amazing study done in afghanistan about 15 years ago so it's uh it is it's it's it's common sense i mean think of it kevin when you when your teacher cared for you you're going to work harder as a student but somehow we kind of i didn't want to say we lost our way we just we've just not we not focused on this enough i think i think one of my theories is there's so much information out there on leadership we forget the basics just take care of your people and

[47:08] you will have a motivated workforce and what my book what i like about it is it's practical behaviors that when you do these things with genuinely in your heart you're going to have a motivated workforce yeah yeah absolutely i think too that um leaders these days are so overwhelmed with so many things they need to do and and i think we need to learn to just sort of push a lot of the stuff aside or or lateral it off or whatever so that we can focus on what you're talking about which is if we take care of our people

[47:45] yeah everything else will fall into place yeah and i tell people that dimmitt was busy man was a busy guy um and you know alexander looked great going back like two thousand five hundred years ago when there's there's reports about him that he would walk around he would show that he cared um and there's the thing i tell people i said yeah i know what you're thinking that uh there was no social media there's no emails with back with uh with alexander the great but i tell him the man was conquering the known civilized world i'm sure he had some some administrative

[48:21] duties he had the you know the autonomous all kinds of ideas on whether i have the time to do them but uh but i'm doing a lot of coaching now uh and i just i'm really excited to get back on the road and the guy because they had this long drive in l.a of course you're stuck in traffic so i just picked some up randomly and i listened talking about uh how she had an au pair and uh and she was trying to get this lady motivated to be the best au pair she could be and she was told just listen don't tell her what to do just just tell her what you're thinking what what your endgame is and she said i want you to make this this house a home uh and that's what you you should do so

[48:57] i get up the la give my talk and this young lady comes up to me she goes you know you're probably not going to be able to answer this uh but uh but i i i i'm hiring au pair and i don't know how to how to uh tell her how to you know do this job and i said amazingly i said 24 hours ago i heard this cd i hadn't i wouldn't have been able to answer this question before 24 hours ago but i said just make a house a home and it's the young lady teared up and she goes that's beautiful i said he said i'm just relaying what i heard i didn't come up with it i think it is brilliant so just be able to touch people like that in all

[49:32] levels it's just just you know that's what i love hitting the road i just love helping people um be the best leaders they can be yeah yeah well mark you have given some great great lessons that we can all use first of all you know starting with sometimes just take the leap and and and you know if it works out terrific and if not just use it as a stepping stone to the next thing right um the second thing is no matter what situation you find yourself in work very hard to to do a great job add

[50:07] value learn what you can learn and and and even if you're not even if you have a terrible you know boss to work for just do it for your own benefit for your own sake right um and then immerse yourself in in learning about what it is that you're involved with if it if it develops into a passion you know all the better um and uh i i don't want to forget everybody has a book in them right so um you know just just give it a shot i know i wrote a book several years ago on uh kind of a step-by-step process on how

[50:43] someone coming out of the military can find that first post-military job um i i was not fortunate enough to get a publisher i got close a few times um and uh but but it was still a very worthwhile um endeavor i i enjoyed writing the book immensely it was a lot of work of course um but the research was fun and it was really great and when i got it done there was kind of like wow i i wrote a no kidding book so there you go and since then i've given you know pdf copies to various people who uh you know could benefit from it so yeah so mark thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing your story

[51:18] sharing your thoughts your wisdom really really appreciate it well kevin i appreciate it and really good to see you again hopefully we'll get together face-to-face at some point we're they're not that far apart we got to make that happen yeah yeah for sure for sure so folks thank you very much for joining us today on the way to wow show people making money as you know my guest has been mark brook brooker and he long career in the navy and then now um writing and speaking on leadership and um mark's contact information will be in the show notes after the episode posts on youtube

[51:55] so if you would like to get in touch with mark um i you know talk to talk to him about getting getting coaching or or maybe doing uh coming to an organization to speak i know he would uh he would appreciate that there'll also be links to his into his book so if you um want to get a copy of um um show us the book again mark lessons yeah and and i i have read the book um it's it's it's a really fun fun book to read um and and the lessons are just

[52:32] excellent you can immediately apply them to not just the business place but in many it applies to being a parent i think or or being a you know a little league coach or any kind of situation where you have where where you're then you have a necessity to motivate people to to do something so i i highly recommend mark's book so before we leave two things one my guest next week is ricky gonzalez and um i think you will be captivated by by ricky's story he's he's a young man and he is already um has tremendous success

[53:07] under his belt so i invite you to join in next week on wednesday 12 30 pacific 3 30 eastern time for the way to wow show people making money and i just want to wrap up by reminding all of you uh in my sign off that uh my my dear friend marie who's uh up in heaven now and and and i was so blessed to know her and i was even more blessed that uh before she passed she uh made it clear that that that i was her beau but not in any weird way because she was my mother-in-law at the time and i just want to say marie darling you are still my bell so thank

[53:45] you all very very much for joining us and for watching and we will see you next week