transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:04] There's tons of books to read, there's tons of ways to learn the information of leadership. Just like you can read a book on how to fly an airplane, doesn't mean you know how to fly an airplane. So you really have to cultivate leadership, and that's what our brand is really trying to signify.

Speaker 2:
[00:22] Welcome aboard the 21FIVE Professional Pilots Podcast.

Speaker 3:
[00:26] You're on 121.5, the emergency frequency.

Speaker 4:
[00:29] It's a show, five Professional Pilots, four Professional Pilots.

Speaker 2:
[00:33] I looked back at them and I said, I don't think we're at the right airport. And they go, I don't think we are either. Each episode, we bring you fascinating conversations with industry experts.

Speaker 3:
[00:41] I think I should be a go-to on how to deal with 63, 64-year-old men.

Speaker 5:
[00:46] You're going to chase it, like a dog chasing a school bus.

Speaker 2:
[00:49] But we're not just about the serious stuff. We're here to have fun.

Speaker 1:
[00:52] And I like to sit with pilots a lot of times. I always say, they're better looking than Tom Cruise. It's the whole thing.

Speaker 4:
[00:59] The 21FIVE Professional Pilots Podcast is your destination for everything aviation, whether you're cruising in the flight levels or just starting your journey. Max, I'm so excited for this episode. A big topic we've been talking about lately is leadership. We've had discussions with MBAA, we've had discussions with Dr. Chris Broyhill. And especially in business aviation, it is one of the hot topics where we can identify, look, leadership is an issue. But how do we actually teach leaders? How do we foster the next generation of leaders? And I'm excited that we've identified our guests today to help us. Gentlemen from first class leaders, President Kyle Freiberger, and Director of Training and Strategy, Mike, you're going to have to do this one.

Speaker 2:
[01:51] Mike Sferrazza, and the Director of Training and Strategy, Mike Sferrazza, welcome to the show, guys.

Speaker 5:
[01:58] Awesome. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1:
[01:59] It's all good. Keep that in. We're all humans.

Speaker 4:
[02:01] Yeah, that's right. No kidding. It's the toughest part of the job. Well, fellas, appreciate your time, and we're excited to learn a little bit about leadership from you. Tell us a little bit about your backgrounds and how did you start first class leaders?

Speaker 1:
[02:18] Sure. I'll start us off. It goes back honestly to my days as a kid, growing up in a shop with a father who I was calling the man with the stick. He met well, but he was a very difficult father with discipline, stuff like that. I saw that as my leadership role, like this man who you got to do what he says or you're going to get in trouble. I really didn't know how to respond as a kid, so it was always a lot of fear, a lot of trying to hide it, trying to be perfect, trying not to get in trouble. Then I got into aviation. I was pretty young when I got into aviation, and I got away from home, quote unquote, started to fly airplanes, and thought I was getting away from that difficult childhood. Over the course, I became an Air Canada pilot, Air Canada captain, did really well tactically, yet I struggled with the people side, and it all kind of came back when I tied it all together, and I started learning about myself, learning about my childhood, learning about my definition of leadership. I started really tying it back to this idea that I thought if I got away from home, then life would be easier, there'd be less frustrations, less difficulties, less challenges. Little did I know, there's just as many challenges in aviation, difficult personalities that you have to deal with, conflicts that you have to deal with. And so I realized it wasn't my dad issue, it was a human issue, it was a human challenge. So I was about 28 years old, and I was kind of at the last wits in a relationship. And that was the moment I'm like, there's got to be a better way. And that changed everything for me. So I went on this personal development journey and I started looking at my role in aviation, my role as just a human being in general. And that led me down a path of learning about leadership, learning about emotional intelligence, stuff like this. And I realized nobody at any point in my career or just in my life in general had helped me with any of this. And I just said to myself, I said, if I didn't get the help and aviation hasn't taught me any of this, then maybe other people would like help with it as well. And I started First Class Leaders.

Speaker 2:
[04:42] So what is First Class Leaders? It's a leadership training company specifically for pilots and managers in aviation or what?

Speaker 1:
[04:52] Yeah. So our niche right now, we target pilots, we focus on pilots, hoping to branch outwards. We look at leadership as our ability to influence and impact people. So ultimately, we just help people take the lead. So take the lead in the sense of constantly looking at, how are we influencing the environment of the people around us? It's something that any human can do. We do look at it through the lens of aviation for several different reasons. We've helped people inside aviation mostly, but we also help other people as well. Anybody who's looking to build their influence, figure out how to impact people and environments around them better. We do that through, I'm really not a big fan of the word training, because I think leadership training fails in aviation because you can't train it like technical skills. So we cultivate it. Leadership is a cultivation. There's tons of books to read, there's tons of ways to learn the information of leadership. Just like you can read a book on how to fly an airplane, doesn't mean you know how to fly an airplane. So you really have to cultivate leadership, and that's what our brand is really trying to signify.

Speaker 2:
[06:05] Interesting. So one of the biggest failures in leadership, I think, that we've talked about before previously on the show is where somebody ends up being the department manager of a flight department or even just the lead pilot in a two-pilot operation, right? Kind of by default, like the other guy quit or retires, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, well, you've been here long enough. Here you go, now you're in charge. Go for it. We've seen just anecdotally through over the years, some people that step up and do well, and kind of like some leaders are born, I guess, and then we see other ones that don't do so well, and have a really hard time being a good leader and start to lose respect of some of their colleagues and things like that. What do you guys do to address a situation like that, or somebody's coming up short?

Speaker 5:
[07:01] I think one of the interesting things about this that I like to know for starters is that, so many of us look at leadership as something that is determined by rank or by role. Here we look at leadership is not defined by what role you hold in the flight deck. Of course, there's the role of authority, and who has the authority to make decisions based on given circumstances. But by no means is somebody that's in a first officer position unable to be a leader. So I think that when we look at crews that potentially have some conflict, or we look at lead pilots that use their authority as a way to call themselves a leader, something we focus on a lot, and it's something that we're seeing more often than not, especially as we notice age gaps in leaders. The way that things are today with how people discuss their feelings, their emotions, whereas there's a bit of a changing of the tie here too. So it's something we focus on a lot. I'll let Kyle speak to some of the methods too.

Speaker 1:
[08:14] Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, leaders are not born. There's no such thing in our world, like our beliefs, and I'm only speaking to what we believe and what we are pushing out into the world, and I can speak to how it's working and why it's being effective. It's just kind of like what Mike's talking about, like we hear this, we might, maybe people listening to this have heard this before, leadership's not a title or rank, but then it's like, yeah, but you know, when I'm an FO and the captain's super senior, like I can't do anything about it. That's actually where leadership is more important, right? I'll give you an example, people or companies are sending me pilots. When they hear I have leadership training, they're reaching out to me and they're like, hey, I have this really challenging, difficult pilot. I need to send them into your leadership training. Right? And I used to, yeah, bring them in, like taking everybody, helping everybody. And in all fairness, our workshops, we host workshops, we host interactive sessions. They're actually really effective, even for the people who are challenging. But the question I started asking these decision makers, I said, well, who do you think leadership training is for? All right. Leadership training is for the person who's open to it, who has to deal with that difficult person and lead that difficult person. And that's why leadership is not a position or rank, because if you think of it that way, if you believe that and you wait to become a captain and you think, well, now I have the power, that's actually manipulation and control. You're actually waiting to have the authority because you figure the authority, somebody has to listen to me. That's not leadership. Leadership is not, if the moment somebody thinks they have to follow you, it's not leadership, it's manipulation, it's control, it's authority. So leadership is thinking, okay, hey, how do I inspire somebody to want to follow me, to trust me, to buy in? And so even the student pilot who's dealing, they've got an instructor that's trying to teach them something, and that instructor just keeps saying it the same way over and over again, and the student's getting frustrated and being like, well, I just don't get it. In that moment, the question becomes, how do I take the lead as a student? How do I help my instructor say, hey, do you mind sharing that or trying to explain that a different way? I'm just not getting it. That's still there. Think about every aspect of your career. You show up to an interview. They don't want to hear canned answers, they want to hear authenticity. They want to hear somebody who actually understands what it means to take the lead. Then you get into first officer. How many first officers come to me and they're like, Kyle, I didn't speak up. I'm beating myself up. It's one of the most common things, one of the most normal things not to speak up. But yet in our whole aviation careers, we're told you got to speak up, you got to speak up, you got to speak up. That's not fixing the problem. Nobody speaks up because they're told. You speak up when you understand what psychological safety is. You speak up when you start to understand why we're not speaking up, truly. And so these first officers in those moments, those are leadership moments. And if they wait, right, and they think, oh, when I'm a captain, then it's going to be easier. Over and over and over again, they're disappointed because it's still the same underlying habits or beliefs that they have that are still causing these frustrations, these communication breakdowns, these conflicts.

Speaker 2:
[11:44] Yeah, it's interesting to hear you describe it that way, especially the difference between airline pilots and business aviation pilots, where a lot of times business aviation pilots are flying with the same people all the time, whereas at the airlines, we fly with different people all the time. And I feel like, especially as a first officer, the leadership portion of it is scalable, right, depending on the situation. And I find like, if you're flying with somebody who's kind of weak, as a captain, in the leadership role, and it comes on you to kind of step it up, and other times, if you're paired up with somebody who is a strong leader and is good, and is the captain too, then you can scale it back because you don't need as much influence in those situations. So it's kind of interesting to look at it from that perspective versus just like, hey, you're in charge, so be a good leader, you know?

Speaker 4:
[12:36] Well, the other thing too is the advantage, I think, of airline pilots because, well, I think the systemic problem we really have is that leadership is not really taught right in the curriculum that we're going through as a pilot. And I think like what you mentioned, Kyle, is I think most pilots think, well, I'm the leader when I get to be the CFI or the captain or whatever. And so it's so rank focused that that's when you start thinking about it. And even when I upgraded to captain at the airline, I remember there was like a two hour, like now you're in charge class. I don't remember what they called it, but it was like, okay, welcome, you know, how to think like a captain. And what you're describing is something completely different. And it's something that there's a hole in the industry right now. And so I love this idea of starting when you're a student pilot, because you're right, this can't be a two hour course when you upgrade at a 121 carrier. So maybe talk a little bit about the program that you've developed and how you're helping people.

Speaker 5:
[13:45] Well, we got a number of different offerings at this current moment. We have really brought people into a one day workshop, which we have spent time splitting the day into some sort of knowledge based training for the first half of the day. And we really spend the second half of the afternoon breaking out to breakout sessions with one another and practicing. Like Kyle mentioned early on, we like to cultivate an environment to be a better leader. And we do that by practicing, by being vulnerable. So we found when people feel psychologically safe, the definition of that is creating an environment where people feel like they can open up, they can talk about these things, they can be vulnerable. They tend to see more solution to their stuff going on in life. Beyond that, we have just recently started some one-to-one coaching. And I'm going to let Kyle talk about the one-to-one stuff because it's powerful.

Speaker 1:
[14:49] Yeah. So what Mike say on the workshop side is, I really wanted to build something that wasn't another CRM session where you're being force-fed a bunch of information. There's a word that I like to use, clarity. And clarity to me is really about understanding the gap between what the company, what you know a good leader is. So the company says, right, any company I've ever worked for, I'm generalizing here. But company CRM says, be a good leader. CRM says, be humble. CRM says, be a good listener, be a good communicator. Gives us the tens model, gives us the Swiss cheese model, gives us all these things. Okay. So we have this, we have this ideal. We know what a good leader looks like. We know what CRM looks like. Then it's about understanding, well, what do I currently do? What do I currently understand? What kind of leader am I? Like how do I show up in when it's pressure, when the pressure is on? How do I show up when there's stress? How do I show up when the other person doesn't agree with me? That gap between how I show up and how I know I'm supposed to show up is where most people get stuck because they don't know how. It's super difficult if you don't have clarity. Yet it's completely 100 percent common and normal in the sense that every single human being feels that we react. We have this negative feedback loop where we perceive a threat, we react, we justify, we blame, and then we stagnate. We want to break that loop. So all of our training is geared towards helping somebody recognize that they're stuck in this loop, make it normal. So people normalize it. So what I mean by that is every single person, our brains are literally wired for survival. So anytime we perceive anything as a threat, we go and we justify and we run from the line. The challenge is we're perceiving psychological threats now. So typically we don't really have to fear for our physiological safety, but we do fear for our psychological safety. Am I good enough? Will I get fired? Is this person going to think differently of me? Are they not going to trust me? What happens with that is we try to put on a show, a facade. Are we trying to play this part of this role of this module captain who has it all together? But it's just not true. There's no human in the world that has it all together. And we have to start addressing and looking at it from this position of, hey, we're all flawed and the best version of us is going to be the version that accepts and admits our flaws and then we take the lead. And what does it mean by take the lead? What we mean by it's like we have these five pillars we use. So we say when we say take the lead, how do I take the lead? What we're doing is bringing back ownership to me and the reason we came up with this ideology is because if we look at aviation, if we look at the world in general, and you want to think of every coaching call that I've done, every client I've had, every person I've helped, we have the exact same threat and the threat covers basically the human population. This is again, my belief, this is my understanding. But the greatest threat to all of that, safety, happiness, joy, success, everything, is blame. The moment you blame somebody, the moment you justify, you're giving away all your power. You have no control over it. And you're suggesting if somebody else or something else changes, my life gets better. But take the lead. When you ask yourself, how do I take the lead? The reason that's so powerful to trigger, to shift, takes us from blaming or justifying and focusing on literally what we can't control, to thinking, well, how do I take the lead in this moment? And what that does is it literally gives me the ability to possibly do something about it.

Speaker 4:
[18:57] That's really powerful too, because especially in the airline world, there are so many things out of your control. And I think we've both, we've probably all flown with the captain or the other pilot just constantly is blaming everything around them for, oh, this delay, the rampers aren't here, the fuel truck's late, what's ATC? And it's miserable. If you're the other crew member, it's miserable, because you're just sitting there and you're like, we can't control this. And you're wasting so much energy on stuff that's just out of our hands. And so that mindset shift, it's a simple one, but taking the lead. So that's really powerful, Kyle. That's step one in this process?

Speaker 1:
[19:39] Yeah. So it's really the most important step would come before that. So we have to be aware enough to ask ourselves to take the lead. So some of the just kind of, so that the process is figure out what triggers you, right? What you don't know, what you, so anytime you're blaming, justifying any of those opportunities, those are opportunities to ask ourselves, how do I take the lead? Or we can't control tons of different things, we can control what we do and how we show up. And the whole idea is if we control, like let's say, you know, shit's hitting the fan, right? We've got an emergency and lights and bells and whistles are going off. Aviation says, hey, you got to show up composed, you got to be intentional, don't react. Well, number one is everybody's gonna react. There's, there's like no avoiding that. The question now becomes is, who can become, who's aware enough to recognize what we've reacted and to shift back to being intentional? So that's the game that we're playing. We're trying to shift back to being intentional as quickly as possible. So once we are aware that we're reacting, we ask ourselves how to take the lead. And then what we do is we filter it through five guiding principles that help us to make decisions. So we, so we can be curious, we can take ownership, we can be humble, we can be supportive, and we can be courageous. And so I could pick any one of those things that's going to help me. Right? So maybe, you know, lights and bells and whistles are all going off. Oh, crap, there's an engine fire, right? I have that reaction. Okay, how do I take the lead? Okay, I need help. Hey, first officer, right? Get the checklist, right? It's almost like the start of good CRM. It's the trigger moment. It gets us back into the headspace of, you know, I've heard it, I've heard it put like, take a big deep breath, right? Take a pause, just stop. But none of that stuff stuck with me. But these three words stuck with me. And so the more I use it in every aspect of my life, and the more I filter these options through these five guiding principles, what I'm doing is a matter what's going on in the world around me, I'm still showing up the way that I want to. There's nothing worse than flying with, you know, Mike and I, Mike says something and I get, you know, I get frustrated at him and then he gets frustrated at me, and then we just go around this loop. Versus I got to think to myself, so okay, he says something, I could choose to be frustrated, right? I could justify why I'm frustrated, I could spend all my energy on that, or I could take the lead. And the moment I decide to take the lead, now I'm going to show up as somebody who's not frustrated. Because like you said, how fun is it to be around that person who's blaming and justifying? It's not very fun. And so I can't fix that person that, you know, we're talking about, but I can fix, I can learn to fix myself. That's the only person I can fix. And so we have this world of people who are taking the lead. This is my big, you know, grandiose belief is we have this world of people taking the lead. What would aviation look like, right? If people weren't blaming and justifying. If I went flying, I used to, you know, fly through the airlines and it's super common. Two things, saying things like, they just need to be a chameleon. That's one. Number two is, oh, you got to avoid that guy. So what's wrong? And what happens? Well, the company just says, yeah, you can just bid to avoid if you don't want to work with them. It's like, okay, well, I can't do that to laugh to the flight. So what you're telling me is, I get on a flight, I don't like fly with the guys, so I just ignore them and then bid to avoid them. Like it doesn't sound like a very good solution. Versus, the more challenging the other pilot, the more opportunity there is for me to become a better leader. If you don't have that, you can't become a good leader. So it's those opportunities. So what happens if I go into the cockpit, I stop blaming and justifying the other person, but I get curious and I start to understand what their beliefs are. I start to understand why they think that way. I start to open up and I learn how to open up that dialogue. I learn to lead and influence that person. That's a game changer and I'm a better person because of it.

Speaker 4:
[23:54] I remember, Max, you've flown with a couple of people at your airline where people were like, oh, avoid this guy and you did, you took the attitude of like you basically did like a podcast interview with these people and you tried to understand what are you doing? Why do you do things the way you do them? I'm sure you can think of a couple of those, but I mean, that's basically the curiosity pillar that you're mentioning, Kyle.

Speaker 1:
[24:18] Exactly.

Speaker 4:
[24:20] And yeah, it really does take a mindset shift to do that. Could you, and I'm curious if you and Mike could maybe give us an example of what that looks like. Maybe if you guys are flying together, and let's say Mike is maybe the captain that just won't take any input from the first officer. How would you as the first officer, Kyle, how do you handle that? What does taking the lead look like in a scenario like that?

Speaker 5:
[24:47] It's an interesting dichotomy. I think that's been the most impactful for Kyle and I, because the cool thing about take the lead is that, this isn't just applicable to the flight deck, it's applicable to your whole life, and so us as pilot colleagues, but also as friends, it's had a crazy effect on our life. So you use something called the DISC tool. Have you guys ever heard of this tool before? D-I-S-C?

Speaker 4:
[25:13] No, I don't think so.

Speaker 5:
[25:14] Generically, it's a personality assessment and it kind of...

Speaker 1:
[25:18] Behavioral assessment.

Speaker 5:
[25:19] Pardon me, behavioral assessment. You know, put you on a graph, it really does, and it shows you your behavioral tendencies, okay? And Kyle and I are opposites on this graph. And so the first officer, the captain that you just explained, out of the two of us, Kyle will be that guy. Mike is the reserve guy that will shut down, takes things personally and will just not speak up, you know? A little bit more fearful. Even though I might have the knowledge, even though I might have, you know, the grounds to say something, it's just, I don't have what it takes deep inside of me. So one thing that Kyle and I have gotten really good at is, A, taking ownership of how I can show up as the best version of myself in this moment. And then B, if I can impact how that person is receiving the way I'm trying to show up, we will ask. And we've worked through a number of impactful things together. Personal, we don't fly together, but so mostly personal. Yeah, it's been great.

Speaker 1:
[26:20] Yeah, it's mostly about... So the greatest shift you can make for anybody listening, if you just want to start practicing leadership, stop focusing on your intention and start focusing on the impact that you have. So this is a tough one. I mean, I'm still, it will never end. It's a really difficult one, but things like one recent one that I just did was somebody, and I did this with Mike actually recently. I said something, I tried to explain something, wasn't overthinking it, and it came across negatively to Mike. And so Mike shared this with me. And the first thing I said is like, I said, no, no, no, no, you just misunderstood me. And I thought about this afterwards. I said, that's actually me. When I said, how do I take the lead? I said, it doesn't filter through any of those, any of those guiding principles very well. You misunderstood me is actually blaming somebody else for the misunderstanding versus, hey, I, you know what? I totally could have said that better. Can you give me a little bit more about how I'm impacting you right now? And what happened is when Mike started to give me more about how he was impacting me, he felt hurt. He felt like I was trying to understand him versus blaming him for misunderstanding me. It's one of the hardest things we do, but just try and change that in your life and you'll change everything. Stop telling people they misunderstand you.

Speaker 5:
[27:39] The interesting dichotomy here too is like, you are somewhat responsible for what you, for how what you say lands on somebody else. You know, if I say something and you completely interpret my intent, that is partially your responsibility, but it's partially mine as well, right? So by exercising, take the lead or by taking ownership of that, it just helps you build awareness of how you are impacting other people. And I may say something to Kyle in the exact same way that I say something to you, and the interpretations are completely different, you know? And this is why this, you know, this is why take leads is so impactful. And this is why this training is so important in our world, because whether you're a business aviation captain or you're a flight instructor or you're a first officer of the bush, you are going to run into every single personality out there, you know? So the last thing we want to do is just hide under, hide under the yoke and not be, you know, aware of how you can make that positive impact in flight training.

Speaker 1:
[28:42] And that awareness is key, and this is something I think, like, I lacked until I became aware, right? We don't know what we don't know. It's like if you go into the, imagine going to the doctor, and instead of them asking you about your symptoms, they just start throwing medicine at you, different drugs at you, like, more idea. Like, they have to diagnose you, they have to ask you questions, understand your symptoms, so that we have clarity. Once they have clarity, they can give you the drug or the medication or the exercise. And it's the same with our mentality, it's the same with our leadership. So getting clarity feels harsh because we have to recognize and own that, okay, my impact landed negatively with Mike. And there's a lot of stuff that I had to work through, and I am constantly working through to shift out of my own head because I want Mike to see me as a positive role model, somebody he can trust. So what I do, I go and justify, say, hey, Mike, you misunderstood me. You misunderstood me. It actually logically does the opposite, where Mike is now feels like, oh, I'm the stupid one because I misunderstood him, versus that's not what we mean. So it's, hey, Mike, how do I impact you? And then just shifting from intention, we all have good intent. If you're flying an airplane, your intention is not to, I mean, I don't want to stand, but you're definitely good. You don't want to stay flake. That's never a challenge. But the challenge is, is our egos get flared up and we focus on our intent instead of the impact that we have on the people around us. And it's a massive shift, massive shift in everything you ever want when you shift that.

Speaker 4:
[30:29] Let's take a quick break to tell you about a friend of the show, Timothy P. Pope. Tim is a certified financial planner who specializes in helping professional pilots chart a smarter financial course. Whether you're focused on retirement, investment management or strategic tax planning, Tim brings the tools and insight to help you make the most of your career and beyond. He's also the host of The Pilot's Portfolio Podcast, where he breaks down real world financial strategies designed specifically for pilots. Timothy P. Pope, helping professional pilots make the most out of life.

Speaker 2:
[31:04] Yeah, there's a lot of carryover with this stuff too outside of the cockpit, just with other people or even your spouse a lot of times. But the funny thing about aviation is that you think about leadership, and the first thing you think of is like we talked about, there's a captain, there's a first officer, there's somebody that's the leader that's in charge, and we've already discussed how that's not really the lens you want to look through. But how many other jobs where you get paired up with a random person, and then you're trapped in this little room for all that time, for three days straight or four days or whatever it is. It's a really accelerated, hey, let's get to know each other and work together and figure out how to communicate effectively. By the way, you're flying an airplane, and taking off at Lanny and doing stuff that can be very dangerous and affect a lot of other people. That's why it's so magnified in this scenario, and it's like, go back 30 years ago, we didn't even talk about CRM. This is one of those things that we're not really talking about, but we really should because it's really important to figure this out, because we've all been in situations where it goes wrong, and it's not good, and it's unsafe.

Speaker 1:
[32:27] Yeah, and I think the biggest thing for listeners to take away from us too is that it's very, it's nobody's fault. We're adopting these beliefs unconsciously from a young age, like social media, every time you guys say, leadership position, people hear that as leadership. It's like all these words around us are forming beliefs if we don't interrupt them. If we're not consciously taking the time to think about, hey, what do I really believe leadership is and why? The moment for the impact versus intent thing, like the moment I said, hey, you misunderstood me, that all actually stems from my belief that leadership is positional. So I still have that in me. I'm learning to shift to this belief that leadership is, I fully believe it, and I'm finding validation. I'm like, I keep looking at everything, like the words that I'm using, I'm like, okay, how's that impacting that other person? Right? And what's the truth behind it? And the truth is when I say, hey, you just misunderstood me, the truth is that other person typically is feeling like they're the ones doing it wrong. It's not a very positive impact. So I'm like, okay, it will probably work for a while. And then going back just to kind of give you guys an understanding of how we do this really effectively, going back to that Diss Tool is one of the tools we use. Basically, the best way to describe this is everybody's attributes, or we don't have strengths and weaknesses. Oftentimes, we just hear strengths and weaknesses, but throw that belief out. Just humor the idea that there's no such thing as a strength or weakness, but instead, we all have attributes. We all have tendencies that we just have. What happens is depending on the scenario, that tendency could be seen as a strength or seen as a weakness. Leadership is about getting over the strengths and weaknesses, and realizing that, in this moment, are my attributes helping or hindering? If they're hindering, I need to ask for help. Mike and I had opposite attributes, so we're a really good team. The challenge that we would have faced if we were flying together before we even knew any of this stuff is that because we're opposite, we have very opposing views on things, and we would have conflict. We would just have... We'd be looking at the same two different sides of the coin, or you draw the number six on the ground. Mike says it's a nine, and I say it's a six, and we just spend the whole time trying to defend why I think it's a six and he thinks it's a nine. We just both start arguing. Right? No, no, it's a nine. Look at it this way. And I'm just... I keep looking at it like, no, dude, it's a six. Right? This tool helps you see the other side. And I've never seen anything more effective in helping people recognize and actually, truthfully, instead of just being told, hey, we all see the world differently. This tool opens up your eyes to, oh, wow, that's how we see things differently. And then what happens is because we're opposite, we actually, I might not understand what he means, so that I seek to understand it because I'm understanding he may be looking at it from a different angle than me. Now you have collaboration. And that's a massive shift.

Speaker 4:
[35:50] I did a different personality study. This one was called the Enneagram, and it's got like nine different personality types. Probably some similarities there. And I think all of those, in so many other careers, you see people doing personality assessments, and I think there's a better awareness of the different types of personalities. Maybe in different industries, they use a different tool, but they're all trying to find the right fits. And it is one of the things that I've thought in aviation, we never have really done anything like that. And I guess some of the major airlines have assessment rules.

Speaker 2:
[36:26] Isn't that like the Hogan deal that you have?

Speaker 4:
[36:28] I guess, but I mean, what if you got paired, and on your pairing sheet, you said you're flying with Captain Smith, and he's a INTJ or whatever, I don't know, that's a different... But like, here's his seniority number, why not also include something like that? Don't you think that would be a great head start?

Speaker 2:
[36:46] You could have PBS to make that work.

Speaker 4:
[36:47] Yeah, right, exactly, yeah, I only play with this. Or like for the Enneagram, there's numbers one through nine, like boy, if you understand how that one works, and you go, I'm flying with a number five, then that's a huge advantage for you to be able to start that trip and sort of understand where people are coming from. So maybe-

Speaker 2:
[37:06] But then it takes all the excitement out of it.

Speaker 4:
[37:08] I guess, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[37:09] You don't want it flying.

Speaker 1:
[37:10] You're hitting the nail on the head, because that's what the disc does. So literally, you can go in there, anybody under the umbrella, first class leaders, and so I can type in Mike's name, Mike and I are going to go flying together, and he puts us side by side, and it literally tells us, here's how you guys are similar, here's how you guys are different, here's what to watch out for, here's a couple of ways to, if you're trying to get by in, create connection, collaborate, resolve conflict, resolve tension, there's a couple of bullet points about how to do that with that person. And so, and just to be very clear, there's behavioral tools and there's personality tools. This is a behavioral tool, right? Personalities are personalities, and yeah, I don't know much about personality tests. I totally, you can have the exact same communication style. So like another way of saying behavioral style, like this is a communication style, let's call it. So another way to understand that is you can have the exact same communication style with different personalities, right? But you can find commonality in your communication style and understanding these different communication styles. This does a really good job of making it super simple, D-I-S-R-C, and then there's kind of mixes. But that's the basic principle. And so what we're finding is just that awareness alone. Like we've had crews that were going to get fired or going to quit. They were having conflict, couldn't get along, blaming it on generational gap and all these different excuses. They came in and one day are like, oh crap, I realized I could be a little bit more patient or I realized I could do this. Because this thing's a non-threatening tool that it shows how their attribute in that moment with that communication or behavioral style person is could be misunderstood. For one example, the thing that I was most misunderstood for was I would be literally called arrogant. Like this was the guys, I was thy captain 100%. And it was the saddest thing ever because I'm like, no guys, like I don't know what to do. And I put my hand up in a CRM chorus when I was at the airlines and I said, how do I be humble? Change, completely changed my life. Everybody laughed and nobody gave me an answer there. That really left me thinking, well, we're in CRM, they say be humble. And I asked how to be humble and nobody has an idea.

Speaker 4:
[39:39] They said, this is a room of pilots, nobody's humble. Come on, you're right.

Speaker 1:
[39:44] But I tell you guys, that was the start for me because what happened is it wasn't that I wasn't humble, it was that I was misunderstood. OK, so what was I misunderstood? Well, I'm very passionate and I like to drive results. That could be misunderstood as arrogant, controlling, manipulative, XYZ. And so I could just blame everybody else and be like, yeah, well, like it or leave it. Or I could take the lead and recognize that maybe I could slow down a little bit. Maybe I could invite some more collaboration. Maybe I could help people understand by asking them for their opinions more often. Because when I get passionate, I literally drive things forward and I forget to talk to people sometimes. But the people that know me, I express this to them vulnerably because I need help with this. And so, instead of feeling like I need to correct myself all the time, I might go just jump in and be like, hey Kyle, you mind if I have a couple of words? I'm like, oh crap, sorry. So, it's a game changer because you don't feel like you have to do it all by yourself.

Speaker 5:
[40:51] It takes time, it takes time, but the awareness piece is what kicks things off. And for Kyle and I specifically, it's such a great example because of how polar opposite we are and I'll use first class leaders as a whole project as an example. Kyle often gets an idea and wants to go guns blazing. And I'm usually the guy that's like, okay, well, hold on here a second. Like, let's look at this from this angle. Let's check things out. And that can often happen in the flight deck, right? Under varying circumstances. So I have to kind of be aware of the kind of person that Kyle is, or the tendencies that might follow him, but adapt as necessary with the understanding. But again, that awareness piece is a game changer.

Speaker 1:
[41:40] The ironic part about all of this is that the moment you do desk and you go through some exercises, that's the moment you actually believe that most things are just misunderstandings. And then what happens, it's not about having the answers, it's about the fact is that, like Mike and I still have desk agreements, we still have conflict, all those things. But what we are more willing to do is seek to understand because we believe that, oh, they're just looking at it from a different viewpoint than me. Suddenly, we just have conversation with hours and hours of conversations around disk and our styles. That framework, it's almost like a CRM framework that brings us together. It's like, hey, let's just bring it all back to our disk styles. Then we start laughing about it because we start to recognize that, oh, you're misunderstanding, I'm passionate and you're taking that as arrogance and I can see how that can come. Then I'm taking, when he says, whoa, slow down, when I'm trying to drive something forward, I used to take that as they didn't trust me. Well, why don't you trust me? Let's go. I realized that wasn't it either. I make a lot of mistakes when I drive things forward, I don't think them through. I'm like, okay, I could lean into Mike for that. He's more methodical and analytical. Teamwork, right?

Speaker 2:
[43:01] Yeah. It's interesting too, what I've noticed when you talked about awareness, and self-awareness, it's amazing how many people that are known for being a pain by the rest of the pilot group, have no idea, no clue.

Speaker 1:
[43:20] Let me add up to this, Max, what do they need more than anything?

Speaker 2:
[43:23] Yes, someone to tell them.

Speaker 1:
[43:24] They need not just somebody to tell them, they need a leader.

Speaker 2:
[43:28] No, they do, they need a leader. It reminds me from several of these people, but there's one dude that I remember, and he was actually a good dude, and he was just physically imposing like a big guy, and he just was abrupt in the way he spoke, and it put people on their heels right away, right? Guys like that, I poke at a little bit and joke around with them to try and soften them up a little bit, and I remember one time we're sitting there in crews, and he was complaining about, he's bitching about the FOs or something like that. I said, listen, this might be a real staggering thought for you, but just hear me out. Maybe you're the problem. And he looks at me and he goes, what? I'm like, dude, the way you come off, it freaks everybody out. You got to knock it off. You got to introduce yourself. We went through this whole thing, and he had just no idea. He's like, oh my God, I feel so bad now. It was a light bulb moment of just the way he was. I think just the way he was with everybody. He had no intention of being off putting or whatever, but just literally had zero self-awareness. You see that a lot of times. I think that piece too of being a leader is not just how you can affect the people around you. It's about turning around.

Speaker 4:
[44:52] Our industry just feeds it too, because especially the guy that's, he's been a captain for forever. He's always been in the quote leadership. He's never had to fly with somebody that's got a perceived rank above him. He's always the one calling the shots.

Speaker 2:
[45:08] He's lost the perspective of an FO, because he hasn't been one in 25 years. It's just like, and it kind of snowballs with people sometimes.

Speaker 1:
[45:18] The way you impacted that person, Max, is like you took the lead. The question is, so when you take the lead, it's not a perfect science and it's an art. In that moment, that work, that could have went the other way as well. But the thing that you could be confident about is that, who you want to be and what you did were in alignment. You don't want to be the person that's enabling somebody else and having somebody else who's complaining and bitching. You know that that's causing a lot of the energy to be sucked out. Maybe people want to fly with them. It's literally a safety issue. So you had the courage to say something. So we work together with pilots because I'm not the only one coming up with solutions on how to take the lead. I just have the framework. Cats out of the bag here, guys. I literally learned from all these pilots that are learning to take the lead because we're just working out these challenges, working through them. Then like you said, how do you speak up to a captain like that? My question that I would be asking myself is how do I do that to maximize the chances that they're going to become aware and like they're going to receive it positively?

Speaker 2:
[46:34] With that dude, I remember specifically it was the lead up to that, which was probably a day and a half of just joking around with him a little bit and just doing it in a way that was like-

Speaker 4:
[46:43] Building a rapport.

Speaker 2:
[46:44] Building a rapport but also when I said, hey, maybe you're the problem, it was 80 percent true, but 20 percent of it was still in the joking way. I'm like, this is going to be really weird. I have to make sure you're sitting down, but maybe it's you. You ever think about that? And then it kind of puts people less defensive, I think, but those just with that specific-

Speaker 1:
[47:08] One of the best ways to do that, one of the best ways, and this is basically under, gets into setting boundaries, because setting boundaries is a healthy part of leadership and helping other people as well. You were basically setting a boundary there. And learning set boundaries is healthy ways to do that, effective ways to do that. So those are skills we can build. And questions of intention are often one of the best ways to, number one, figure out if the person is crossing a boundary. So I'll give you an example, almost the exact same, this bigger guy, older guy, I'll never forget it. We're going to Rome on the 767. I'm the first officer. First flight attendant comes in and says, hey, do you want a coffee? I'm like, yeah, please, a couple of milks in mine. The captain says, yeah, please. He's like, yeah, I'll take mine with some milk. And just short, didn't really get much of it. And I didn't use it. This guy was victorious. Nobody wanted to fly with them. And I was the same as you. I always got curious about these people. Not always. I used to get reactive. I started getting more curious. So flight attendant comes out or comes back with the coffees. Captain takes a sip of it, spits it back into the cup, gives it back to the flight attendant and says, not enough milk. She goes back out, puts more milk in, comes in, looks at it, he's like, now it's cold. Gives it back to her again. Goes out the second time and I just turned to him and I said, I didn't understand how well I did this. I didn't understand leadership at the time. I turned to him and I said, are you intentionally trying to be a dick? Okay? And it's a question of intent and there's good ways or healthy ways to do it. But in that moment, I'm just asking him, okay, are you trying to be rude? Are you trying to be sure? And he's like, no, why? I'm like, if you were coming across that way, would you want to know about it? And he's like, well, yeah. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure she's back there crying, man. And he's like, oh, that's not what I mean. I just know how I like my coffee. I'm like, that's great. But do you think she knows how you like your coffee? Like, you know, anyways, it was, it was crazy. So I go back, I mended it with her. She was crying. And then he's like, guys, I'm so sorry, like bought everybody dinner, bought everybody wine on the trip and stuff like just completely change. But this guy was like 60 years old. And again, nobody had ever, nobody knew how to help him interrupt his pattern. And that's the saddest thing, guys. Like, I think about this all the time. Old Kyle, like I had to break out of this cycle myself. Nobody knew how to lead me. So I was never getting the help. I would get snide comments and snarky remarks, but nobody was able to create that space for me or to say the things in a way that I could perceive them. And yeah, partly that's hugely my own responsibility. Well, also at the same time, the better a leader is, the more that they'd be able to inspire somebody like me when I was in that old headspace. And so the saddest thing is the most difficult people that you, anybody listening to this podcast, the most difficult people in your life, they need you to be the better leader. They need leadership more than anybody.

Speaker 4:
[50:17] That's really well said. Yeah. And in both of the examples that you guys gave, you were the first officer. You were, and that I feel like so many of us are in the mindset, I'm in the right seat, I'm the chameleon, I'm not going to, you know, I'm going to blend in with whatever this guy or gal wants to do. And we're just going to get through this. And so, it doesn't stop the situation. And you guys both had a great example of, you know, how you could provide some feedback in the right way to do it. And that's why I think it's so important to get this started right away, you know, as a student pilot.

Speaker 2:
[50:54] Well, I think what's interesting too is that, like, I talked about before, you know, not a lot of other jobs are you cooped up with somebody for three days in this small space for these long periods of time. But then the thing is, there's always the light at the end of the tunnel because it's, you're like, dude, I'm out of here.

Speaker 4:
[51:10] Yeah, I'm never going to see this guy or gal again.

Speaker 2:
[51:12] I'm just going to avoid this guy like the plague. So there's not also that long term, where if it's somebody you're working with, you know, on a business project for six months, or yeah, or business aviation, where you're stuck with somebody for long term, you maybe have more motivation to put in the effort to try and work it out. Whereas the short, short yet intense period of an airline trip is like, a lot of people are just like, oh, whatever dude, I just got to get through this next day and I'm home and I'll forget all about this.

Speaker 1:
[51:39] I don't said it earlier, like, you know, this applies to other areas of our life. And, you know, it's interesting because everybody that, I mean, most pilots that come into any of our leadership workshops, they initially think that they're coming in there to be a better leader for the cockpit. But most people don't even talk about flying. They talk about their personal lives. Because you're thinking you're stuck in the cockpit for three days with this person. I'm stuck in my house with my wife for the next 40 years, right? And so if you build that habit of ignoring and avoiding when that is difficult for three days, it doesn't change anything. It comes home. You can't avoid, right? You can't avoid your wife. You can avoid your friends. You just get rid of them, right? It's not a fun life versus just choosing to take the lead in any of those relationships is going to massively pivot your ability to learn and grow and become less reliant on everybody else to make you happy and more reliant on yourself to be happy so that you can lead everybody around you.

Speaker 5:
[52:46] In fact, I would go as far as to say is that all the practice is done at home.

Speaker 1:
[52:51] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[52:52] You know, because you spend, I mean, most people anyway spend most time at home and perhaps it's a more comfortable environment with your spouse sometimes it's often one of the more trickier environments to be the leader that your spouse needs. But by exercising that muscle, you go to work and it's kind of like, hey, this is familiar territory for me. I can do this here too, you know, especially in an airline environment where you're meeting somebody new every single pairing.

Speaker 1:
[53:22] Yeah, I get so excited, the more difficult the person is. And I'm not kidding. Like my dad was the most difficult person in my entire life. And the moment I decided how can I take the lead for my dad when I was about 30 years old, it completely changed our relationship. The stuff that he shared with me, I had no idea that he was 21, he had three kids by the time he was like 22 or 23. The bank was, he was going to like foreclose or he was going to like there was, I mean, he just, he told me these stories about financially. And then, you know, he's talking about like having no idea how did he had no idea how to be a dad. He's like, he's so full. And I'm like, how can I blame him when he's so focused on trying to like, survive, like make sure there's food on the table? And like, I'd never given him the opportunity to say that. And I'm pretty sure he never said that to anybody. And giving him that space and that non-judgment, he shared it all. And there were things that he talked about, you know, he would be physically and verbally abusive to us. And he would talk through it. And then he'd be like, yeah, he's like, I know that wasn't right. But he's like, I, till this day, I don't know. I, what do I do? Well, that's a great question. And then we would work through it. And he's like, oh my God, like, yeah, nobody ever, like I had no idea how to do that. Right? I'm like, yeah, I get it. You have the authority. And when you have the authority, you tell people, you yell at your kid. And then if they submit, right, then that validates that that works. But that's just manipulation. It's not, it's not leadership. And manipulation works, but only short-term.

Speaker 4:
[55:01] Max, what I'm hearing is that Kyle and Mike are gonna fix your relationship with your dad, your wife, your kids and the asshole captain you fly with. In 20, in their 29-minute webinar, you can take on your lunch break very quick.

Speaker 1:
[55:17] And all you have to do is show up with a $10 bill. That's right.

Speaker 4:
[55:21] That's right. But seriously, fellas, let's say this resonates with somebody. You know, we could talk about this for, I think, there's many episodes that we, that we could probably approach on different topics. But let's say this resonates with the listener. And maybe at first you thought, oh, this leadership thing is just for a flight department manager or a captain. But I think it's pretty obvious that we could all benefit from this training. Let's say first, if the department manager is listening, maybe I've got a couple of pilots that work for me, maybe there's three or four of us on a business jet. Is this something that you say, hey, bring the whole department in together, let's do a webinar all online together, or let's start with one person and then sort of do it individually? Or what's the next step for somebody that's listening to this that goes, yes, I need some of this?

Speaker 1:
[56:09] The most effective way to do this is all together. Because when you put a bunch of people who work together in a room and you give them this tool and the framework, the Take-Leave Framework and the Disk Tool, we're all the sparse people for ourselves. I don't know how to fix you Dylan or fix you, that's not the job. The job for me is this. It's not about fixing you, right? It's about seeking to understand you. And the more I learn to understand you and the way that you guys think, the beliefs, that number one is going to teach me stuff, right? I'm going to learn how people else thinks. I don't have to agree with it. That's not the point. The point is to collect as much information as we can so that we can make and respond the best way that we can. So put everybody into the same room, give them disk. You start to look at these challenges that a team faces, like real CRM challenges, we bring those in, and it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's a flight department. We work with anybody who is a team that wants to work better together. You bring them together, you take real challenges, you filter them through these lenses, you reframe how you're looking at these challenges based on the tool, and it's a game changer.

Speaker 5:
[57:25] In our experience too, guys, think about this. You're in a flight department with a couple of other pilots. You all come into this one day workshop, and it's like, okay, Max has a problem with Dylan, and Dylan's on the call, so I can't share my stories openly because it's gonna just create more turmoil and all this stuff going on. But what we've been very successful at is, whoever's facilitating does a very good job of being super vulnerable upfront. I have no problem sharing my stories with whoever I've had troubles with, or Kyle sharing stories about his dad. We create that psychological safety right out of the gate. So there is comfort, and there is the ability to share these stories openly. We make sure people are aware that this isn't about being right, or being better, or being wrong, or being less than. It's not about that, it's about seeking to understand, and it's about when we have that shared understanding, we can all be better here as a team. So we've seen success with pilots coming in individually, or just one individual crew coming in, but if we had our ultimate choice, the entire flight department coming in at one time, and think about that too, right? Like you're sharing stories, people are finding, I guess, shared understanding at the same time. Everyone is hearing it from the horse's mouth at one time, just creates a ton of impact going forward.

Speaker 4:
[58:47] Yeah, you're basically having sense, right?

Speaker 1:
[58:50] People will look at conflict as a negative thing, but conflict is just a difference in understanding and opinion. And if you didn't have conflict, you'd never grow. If we never had conflict as humans, we'd all think the same and we'd all do the same. So it makes no sense. So conflict is not the problem, it's how we handle it. And that's what happens. So when you have two pilots who don't get along and then they come into the workshop together, the biggest misnomer is that they don't want to talk to each other. And that's fine. They actually don't need to, because they'll talk about other situations that uncover the exact same thing. The reason that they're conflicting is because they're not seeking to understand each other. So whether they talk about that together or whether they talk about, oh, well, yeah, my wife, she doesn't understand me. It's going to be the exact same things that they realize. And when they bring the tool in, that gives a context. And if you don't have context, right, then it's very difficult to understand how to fix these problems or these challenges. I don't like to call them problems. They're challenges. They're opportunities to get better.

Speaker 2:
[59:54] I mean, yeah, I could have really used this training, Dylan, at a certain flight department back in the day. Do you remember this with?

Speaker 4:
[60:01] Yes. I was actually picturing.

Speaker 2:
[60:05] I flew that we had this over this dude. It was like, how old was he at the time?

Speaker 4:
[60:10] Like, 70s.

Speaker 2:
[60:11] 70-something, like Air Force B-52 pilot. Oh, jeez. Just the worst, dude, this guy. And then there was me.

Speaker 4:
[60:19] No, Max, he wasn't the worst. You guys just didn't understand each other.

Speaker 5:
[60:21] Yeah. You weren't communicating.

Speaker 2:
[60:23] I was like, the young kid. And then this other middle-aged, she was like, the easiest-going, nicest guy. It was the weirdest dynamic I would have got.

Speaker 4:
[60:31] That would have been a great reality show.

Speaker 2:
[60:32] I would have had a lot of money to get back in time and just be able to record that.

Speaker 4:
[60:37] It would have been incredible.

Speaker 1:
[60:41] To clarify one major thing too, just because it's, I say, seeking to understand people is a solution. It doesn't mean that boundaries shouldn't be set at certain times and you find out the seven-year-old. Yeah, if people don't want help. The other hard thing about leadership is that people don't want help, you can't help them. We're trying to find different ways to inspire them. So I look at it like being a lighthouse instead of a tugboat, you don't want to be the tugboat. Most of us, if we really look at it, I know I was a big-time tugboat, I'm less of a tugboat, more of a lighthouse. That shift as I learned the skill of being a lighthouse, it is so much less stressful. I'm not trying to manipulate, not trying to control. A tugboat can only push and pull one ship at a time. A lighthouse can inspire millions. But what the lighthouse has to really get good at is, okay, that boat doesn't want to fall in my light. Okay, go well. All right. Next, help the people that want help. It's a constant art between them all, and it's not an easy fix. What we want to make sure that we plant, the seed that we're planting into the world is that anybody can learn to lead, and you really don't want to wait till you're in the left seat. It's way more, you're way more at jeopardy when you're in the left seat. Think about it. When you're a student pilot, you try to lead your instructor, so much less jeopardy. So much less jeopardy. You're the student, you're the one. It's actually when you're a captain and you haven't practiced any of these skills, the jeopardy is huge because nobody's going to speak up to you.

Speaker 5:
[62:25] You're not going to get back.

Speaker 1:
[62:28] People are just like, yeah, well, you're the boss. Whatever, figure it out. That's tough. Just looking at it that lens is a massive change. Focus on your impact, stop focusing on your intentions. You can explain those later, but first focus on your impact.

Speaker 4:
[62:46] When we had our first conversation, Kyle, I reflected on, I'll never forget there was a captain that I flew with at the commuters. He embodied a lot of what we're talking about. The word that really resonated with me was inspire. He just inspired our crew to be the best that we could be. Not because he told us to do it, it was just the way he was made you want to be the best version of yourself. Those trips are the most fun to fly. They're the most enjoyable when everybody's on the same page and everyone is inspired. I've always reflected on that captain and tried to be that person and think about how I can be more like that. It sounds like the program that Kyle and Mike have put together is a great foundation. Look, I was joking earlier when I said in 30 minutes, you're going to fix the problem. It sounds like it's really, you can supply the tools. You got to go out there and build the muscle and do the reps. It's just like anything else. You can't read about an ILS approach and then think you're going to be able to shoot it. It takes practice. You're going to have to do it multiple times.

Speaker 2:
[63:55] What a metaphor.

Speaker 4:
[63:56] Yeah. Incredible.

Speaker 2:
[63:57] Thanks, Jeff.

Speaker 4:
[63:58] Fellas, we're excited for this training and these tools to be made available to professional pilots. Like we said, there's not a lot of this out there right now. We'll have a link to first class leaders in the show notes and folks will be able to get touch with you there and look at next steps. But anything you guys would like to mention in closing before we wrap up.

Speaker 1:
[64:22] Say whatever stage of your career you're at, think about the impact that leadership, like learning the stuff that we're talking about, think about the impact that I have on those stages. People go and spend thousands of dollars on interview prep, which is ridiculous and I get why they do it, versus spending the money on yourself to learn how to be a leader. So you go into an interview and you're just authentic, because interview prep just teaches you how to be inauthentic in an interview. Says, okay, if they say this, and I'm generalizing, I'm saying there's probably good interview prep out there. The stuff that I took and some of the stuff that I've looked at, it's, hey, when they say this, say this. Leadership, when you work through it as a student or at any stage, especially when you're a student, like when do you need leadership the most, right? When you're broke, when you're pressured, when you're stressed, and what do they want in an interview? They want to see somebody who's broke, pressured, and stressed show up as the best version of themselves. So up as a leader. So when you go into that interview, like you can't fake this stuff. You have to understand how to talk through this. My last interview is when I took a private job after the airlines. They asked me one question, I gave them an answer. I was like, holy, I've never thought about it that way. I said, well, I don't blame you. Nobody taught us. And then we talked about leaders for the next hour, and I got hired on the spot. And then I got asked to build this training for their company. Right? So it's powerful when you understand these concepts, but you don't understand them by reading a book. You understand maybe the concept, but you don't really understand it, and how to apply it until you start to practice leadership, take the lead.

Speaker 5:
[66:06] So I just want to add one thing too. When we think about leadership in our life, you know, if the focus here is to show if it's the best version of yourself, if you just think about that statement right there, if you're not showing up as the best version of yourself, what is that costing you? You know, is it costing, it's likely costing you your happiness of some degree, maybe joy, maybe a closer relationship that you're desiring with your spouse, maybe it's that conflict in the flight deck, maybe it's the job, your job, because you can't seem to get along with your flying partner. So when you think about the importance behind what it means to be a leader, and whether it's too early to be thinking about leadership training in your career, ask yourself, what is this costing me if I don't start this now?

Speaker 2:
[66:58] It's a good point. I have one more question for you guys. This is a little bit unrelated, but most of the time when we talk to Canadian pilots, they always did something cool and flew like a caribou to diamond mines in the Northwest Territories or something. Did you guys do anything cool like that when you were coming out?

Speaker 5:
[67:14] I think it was one of the boringest career ever. Did you?

Speaker 1:
[67:18] The best idea was fire patrols up in the North, just flying around looking for bushfires. That's it. Then I did air ambulance after that up into a lot of the native reserves that are isolated, but nothing too wild, I guess. I mean, it depends on the idea of wild, but I thought the wild stuff when they were there.

Speaker 2:
[67:39] It's just vast territory that's built to the uninhabited. I think it always comes with some interesting flying jobs of people.

Speaker 1:
[67:47] Lots of guys up way up North, like up in the air.

Speaker 2:
[67:50] Yeah, that's what I mean, way up there.

Speaker 1:
[67:51] The stuff that they do in sea is wild. Yeah. Yeah, nothing cool.

Speaker 4:
[67:56] Well, we're in Scottsdale, so we don't think about any of that kind of stuff. That's why we have to live vicariously through you guys.

Speaker 2:
[68:01] We're getting close to the area of magnetic unreliability here.

Speaker 1:
[68:06] That's all we're used to.

Speaker 4:
[68:08] All right. Well, Kyle and Mike, we certainly appreciate your time today. First Class Leaders is the name of the company. The link will be in the show notes. It's time to get into it. Max, should we go together? Would that be good as podcast hosts, do you think?

Speaker 2:
[68:22] Perhaps.

Speaker 4:
[68:23] I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[68:23] Brother-in-Laws and Podcast Hosts is a lot. It's a very interesting dynamic, so.

Speaker 4:
[68:28] Yeah, maybe you can video that one to release the reality show, too. I don't know. If you have a 75-year-old old B-52 Commander, throw him in as a third. All right, fellas, we appreciate your time.

Speaker 2:
[68:42] Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1:
[68:43] Take care.

Speaker 4:
[68:44] The statements made in this show are our own opinions and do not reflect, nor were they under any direction from any of our employers.