Scott Gration Intro

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today on the servant leadership podcast we're honored to have retired Major General of the United States Air Force

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and author of flight path Scott grayan with us appointed by President Barack Obama Scott served as the US Special

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Envoy to Sudan from 2009 to 2011 where he played a crucial role in diplomatic

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efforts during a critical period in the Region's history in his book flight path Scott shares his experiences and

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insights gained from a lifetime of service both in the military and Beyond born to missionary parents in the

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Democratic Republic of Congo Scott's early experiences in Africa shaped his worldview and commitment to service

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Scott's approach to leadership is grounded in integrity and a deep commitment to the care and well-being of those under his command he understands

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that true leadership is about empowering others and helping them reach their full potential today Scott will share his

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wisdom on how servant leadership can transform organizations and inspire others to Greatness Scott thank you so much for

Welcome Scott Gration

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being here I'm really excited to have you well it's an honor for me to to meet with you I have great memories of the

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last time we chatted and I look forward to this yeah it's not every every day that I get to talk to a real hero so uh

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this is this is going to be fun for for those that might not know you or know

Scott's Life/Career Background

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your story can you give a little bit of career background well my career is not the

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step standard career I went over to Africa uh when I was 18 months old my

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folks were missionary teachers in Africa and uh we started out in Congo and then

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uh There Were Trouble in Congo there was rebellions and everything else and we ended up evacuating and in fact is we

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lost everything we owned on the third evacuation and that was actually let me just take a parenthesis here that was

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actually a pretty good thing for me because uh at the tender age of 13 I got

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rid of my trumpet which I hated to play you know and so I didn't have to practice it anymore but I learned a very

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important thing while people could take everything we owned and we lost

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everything except the clothes on our backs and the car we were riding in uh nobody could take what's in your heart

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and nobody can take what's in your cranium and and while I didn't sort of

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apply that lesson it really came back to me that your relationships with God your

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family your friends and whatever you can store in your head uh nobody can grab they can take your backpack they can

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take your trumpet they can take your shoes whatever they want but they can't take that stuff now I must admit that

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even though I believe that nobody can take what was in your head I had a hard time putting academics up there uh so I

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went to I back to the States and I didn't do

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very well in high school I was put in auto mechanics which I did very well in

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mechanical drawing and wood shop and that kind of thing but I had to take this test they called the placement

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test and I found out I was best suited to be a shepherd and I don't even like sheep and so at that point I said man I

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better learn something and so I took algebra and trigonometry and introduction to calculus and summer

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schools and night schools and and I was accepted into Ruckers University but

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they said you have to become an engineer cuz you don't know how to read so I became a mechanical and aerospace

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engineer and then I had this thing called a draft number and back in the you know late 60s early 70s our birth

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date was equated with a number and then based on where that correlation turned

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out you ended up going to Vietnam if you had a number like six and so I went down

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to take a physical with about 300 other naked people at Fort Dicks I said man there's got to be a better way and I

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went over to Maguire for bace and signed up to be a pilot in the Air Force and uh

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fortunately I was able to enter enter into ROTC and uh learned how to fly and

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then I joined the Air Force after uh College went to Pilot training became a

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t38 instructor pilot and then I was taken uh before that assignment was done

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actually to the F5 which is a two seat I mean sorry single seat two engine

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fighter and I flew that uh both in in Arizona and then with the Kenya Air

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Force and then I was a White House fellow and then I was uh going to go to

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NASA to fly in the space shuttle but they couldn't give me a date to fly for about three years and I said oh man I

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can't do this and so the Air Force was coming out with this airplane called the F-16 and I was given a one of the slots

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uh and right off the bat you know when it was just a almost just out of experimental status uh and it was a

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almost like being a test by we didn't do very well in the early days and and some of my friends were killed in in uh new

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things it was the first airplane to have fly by wire and that be that was a problem initially it was also one of the

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first airplanes to pull 9gs and so it could actually black you out and you could go from conscious to unconscious

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without going through the standard other Clues like tunnel vision that kind of thing in fact as I lost a very good

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friend uh who was looking over his shoulder pulling hard blacked out and and didn't wake up

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and so it was an interesting uh career in flying and then I went and did some

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staff jobs in turkey and in the Pentagon and um the good Lord blessed and I

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couldn't get out of the Air Force because they kept giving me threeyear commitments and then moving me every two years but fortunately I was a major

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general before they allowed me to get out and I had a wonderful career I wouldn't trade in another day but uh I

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didn't follow the career path I just did what came and uh it turned out all right

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wow that is fascinating uh I even learned some stuff I didn't know in there which is crazy the uh when you

The Effect Of The Army Draft On His Career

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think about even just the process of getting drafted and looking back at how you got started in what ended up being

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uh the path for a lot of where your life went would you have taken this route if

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if the draft wasn't there No in fact is I was looking to be a pilot with

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missionary Aviation fellowship or or one of the missionary Aviation and and I was

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seriously considering going and getting my amp and becoming a missionary pilot

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uh that's where my heart was to go back to Africa to help out and I had a natural Affinity to to Flying and I

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thought that the two would mix very well uh my background in Africa growing up there speaking the language and that

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kind of thing and then uh flying also so it sort of came as a surprise uh really when I got

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drafted and I said good Lord what are we doing here and then we went to this thing called Urbana uh which is a

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conference where a lot of people young people get together in Champagne Urbana

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uh over the Christmas vacation and somebody there one of the boo said you know you can be a missionary in the

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military you know you don't have to serve God in in a small airplane in Iran

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Java or Kenya or some place you can be flying fast Jets and serve of God uh as

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a missionary and he said in fact is not everybody can get into the military not

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everybody can be a a fighter pilot not everybody can can witness to people in a

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squadron uh where you have that kind of relationship that's pretty closed and so we took that as a challenge and decided

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that okay uh it's it's may be time for us to

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expand the Horizon and think of missionary Aviation being in the United

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States Air Force and it really changed our attitude my wife's in mine we got married and and committed to do that wow

Integrating Faith and Career

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did you ever find as you kind of went down that the career path and thinking about integrating your faith thinking

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about integrating your work thinking about just faith in the military in general uh and your role Major General I

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mean did that get sticky uh sharing your faith or sharing your viewpoints on different

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things not really uh you know I always I never found I always made a commitment

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that I'm not going to sacrifice my faith in God and and my values and my integrity and I never did

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have to sacrifice uh and it was interesting that you know when you

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strive dve to be excellent when you try to be the best you can be as a fighter

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pilot and a friend and and and a comrade in a in a Fighter Squadron uh you know

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people come to you when they need you you know we had a couple fatalities and and the doors were there for us to to

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help and share and explain the whole concept of of faith and and eternal life

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and and what it really means and then when we live so close to

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dying you know Faith you either have faith or you don't have faith either believe in yourself or you believe in

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God uh I mean the reality of this is when you're down at 500 feet U flying

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500 miles an hour fast uh you're not very far away from knocking at St

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Peter's gate uh and and you just get used to living in that kind world and

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and for me I knew that every day could be my last but I knew that every day had

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to I had to prepare for the future but I had to live as if it was the last so uh

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telling my wife I loved her uh living with short accounts and not and trying

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not to do anything you were embarrassed about or didn't want to have closed up when somebody come rifling through your

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drawers uh after your last sorty uh you know it it uh it sort of makes you

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live in the present and it makes you sort of live with eternity values in

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view because uh they're right around the corner when you're a fighter pilot but the interesting thing is you know I mean

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I didn't anticipate being a general being flying

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the F-16 and being at the top of of the game and being a White House fellow

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under President Reagan and working with all the presidents ear and there was a book came out uh when I was a captain it

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was called a turtle on a fence post and that little image was one that sort of kept me going Turtles don't climb on top

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of fence posts somebody puts that turtle on top the view is great it's wonderful

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but you didn't get there by yourself and and I think that image is one that kept me grounded and kept me realize that I

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was there by somebody for somebody and I needed to make a difference in my

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actions I mean there's a lot of good Leadership Lessons and everything you just said but even

Servant Leadership Perspective

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taking taking just the concept of you leading a lot of people you L A lot of people uh throughout your career how did

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you integrate servant leadership how did you even think about leadership in your different roles in and being a good

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leader well servant leadership for me was you still have to be a good leader

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and even if you're a serving leadership but it was just a different perspective it was one of giving it wasn't about me

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it was about building teams it was about being a cheerleader it was about enabling it was about

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recognizing and and that's really what it is you know there was a a book that was written by I think his

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name Stephen pressfield called Gates of Fire and it takes place back in Sparta

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times I think they were trying to defend thermop or somewhere and uh and I always

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keep this on my desk and if you don't mind I'll just read a couple of lines there it says a

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king does not abide within his tent while men bleed and die on the field a

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king does not dine when his men go hungry nor sleep when they stand watch

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on the wall a king does not command his men to loyalty

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through fear nor does he purchase it with gold he earns their Love by the sweat of his own

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back and the pains he endures for their sake when challenged by a difficult task

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the king lifts first and sets down last the king does not require service of

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those he leads he provides it to them he serves them not they him the king does

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not expend his substance to enslave men but by his conduct and example makes

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them free and and I would go over this I had two things on my desk this and the

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Prayer of St Francis of aisi that was written for me about 800 years ago and

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and we'll talk about this later but it talks about Lord make me of your peace

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and and when you talk about

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peace and understanding that's our ultimate

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Quest and then style points doing it like a king should do it by servant

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leadership by commitment to service before self then the rest of leadership is easy

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now I'm saying that the you've got to for me servant leadership meant building

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teams if it meant building my team and making sure people were trained organized and

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equipped and and that they were well resourced and and motivated and

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inspired and I like to work with other teams making sure that I didn't worry about turf wars or who got the

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credit but then I do two things the first thing is doing the right things

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and that's really what leadership is and the second thing is doing things right and that's more management but but the

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you know the whole thing about doing the right things you know a lot of times we

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like rain dances but if you talk to a farmer my grandparents were

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farmers it's not about the rain dance it's about the rain it's about bringing

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water to your plants it's about getting results that's what leaders

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do and you got to have that Vision you got to have a strategy you have to have strategic objectives and then you really

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have to motivate and Inspire and innovate and you got to help

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those around you be efficient and effective in what they do making sure that they have everything

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they need it's not about you it's not about your results it's not about your evaluation it's about people that work

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for you then the last thing about doing things right boy style points matter I

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love the air force uh core values because they say Integrity

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first excellence and service before self and

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really if you do those three things boy you really can't lose if you

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can create an environment where Integrity is Valu is valued where Innovation and Excellence are

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rewarded and then you Foster new ideas to get Effectiveness and efficiency it's great if you can trust

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people because they have integrity boy that takes a lot of the discipline things away when people wake

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up in the morning trying to do the right thing man you can't go wrong I mean you

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have to sometimes give more training but you don't have to give direction and discipline and so uh I encourage people

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to strive toward Integrity first because really if you have integrity Nothing

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Else Matters and if you don't have integrity Nothing Else Matters and integrity is one of those things

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where you have to live

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it in order to get it and you can't just

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nobody can take it you have to give it away and so the bottom line is if you

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can wake up every day having Integrity whatever happens to you nobody can take

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your integrity and if you have integrity nothing else matters that that's really

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the bottom line of serving leadership is is helping build a team being a

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cheerleader inculcating integrity and excellence and service in all you do and

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the rest is easy I mean the rest is easy right so

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the you've had a front row seat from your standpoint uh on literally the world's greatest

Interaction With Presidents

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leaders um regardless of how people view US presidents uh they are some of the

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world's greatest leaders of all time um and then you also are talking about integrity and I think a lot of people

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look at presidents and and often wonder uh where their integrity lies and if

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there's issues and you literally had a front row seat what was it like looking at leadership uh working with presidents

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up close yeah I I can I don't really want to comment too much about people's

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Integrity because uh uh some of this probably not real positive uh but the

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bottom line is there was a couple people who I really enjoyed working with uh

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because they weren't there to be somebody but they were there to do

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something and and also I tended to gravitate toward people that

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took care of people because that's really where I come from I think it's very important to make your subordinate

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successful so not only do I want a boss that will make me successful and and try to Mentor me and

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help me and give me opportunities for me to grow but I want to do that for people

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that work for me uh and and I think a little bit really comes down to

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encouragement um I'm one who learned from folks early in my career to take

Taking Time To Write "Thank You Letters"

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the time to write thank you letters uh I I worked for Dr Hans Mark uh when I was

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a White House fellow at Nasa and and he would come in in the morning and I used to be the guy that traveled with him and

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then I had to write RS and Rams of thank you letters to everybody we met and and

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they were all p i remember the first time I wrote one that was a little bit negative and he said no that's not what

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this is about find something to which you can Praise Him and and he would send

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letters out to everybody who he met on the trip to say thank you and and I took

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that on when I was a senior leader one my last bace I had about 25,000 people

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uh in the cman area and I wanted to make sure that to the maximum extent

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everybody heard from me at least twice on a personal basis so I started by giving out birthday

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cards and so every night I'd go home with a stack of birthday cards where i' would sign their name and my name

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wishing them uh all the best in the in the next year or the next trip around

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the Sun or whatever it said um and and I would sign out those with my name and

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their name not hand all handwritten and then I had uh a young

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Airman that that helped me in the morning look through the base paper look through birth

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announcements uh to find out what kids were doing that I could be thankful for

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and praise and recognize and who had a baby and who just did this and that and

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I would send out another batch of letters and then I would try to write to spouses and

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parents and kids and talk about their their their kids and and and I I

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remember going someplace and and a man came up to me and said General Grayson do you know that we

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still have a letter that you sent us from the Desert Storm where you wrote about our son and his contributions to

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America in the desert it's still on our refrigerator I mean that little letter

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that I pumped out when I was in combat was a huge big deal for this family and

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taking time to write and appreciate is huge and my belief is that's what really

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helps motivate the team and and don't just look you know we we just had this thing with Oppenheimer and Barbie this

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last week and we saw the Oscars and all those kinds of things and we're all proud of them but what it really

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reminded me is that we love to look at the Canon Barbies in the world and it's

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the people that look good and sound good who are articulate

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uh who are thin and and wear the right kind of shoes and the right kind of clothes and have the right kind of car

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that we tend to recognize but there's a whole lot of people like me ugly people that just are

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working as hard as they can trying to do the best job they can with integrity and

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service and excellence and because they're not in the Limelight because

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they're not pretty or handsome they sometimes get overlooked and and so I

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work very hard to make sure that all the people that work for me get recognized

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and I would have the same management by walking around where I took time every day to spend time walking into people's

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office and trying to catch them doing a good job so that I could say thank you or that I could recognize

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formally I also came up with three Awards uh that has sort of been the

Three Awards To Recognize People

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hallmart of my leadership the first one is called the copion award it's a Greek word that sort of if I

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could put my definition to it it means to work until you're utterly exhausted

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it's to have that plate that keeps growing and when you put more things on the person's plate their plate keeps

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expanding I've had people who work for me and we just sometimes tend take advantage of them we give them more to

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do because they do it so well and sometimes you say God I need this done well and I don't have time to do it give

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it to her and you got to take time to recognize those people you got to take time to

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give them some time off and because they get taken for granted

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because they do such good work the other award was called the aort to award you

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know back in the old days ships used to sit outside the harbor waiting for the tide and waiting for the wind so that

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they could get blown into the harbor now that mean that Captain had to

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be awake and he had PE people watching for the wind and the tide so that he could get

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his boat into the harbor we have people that take

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advantage sometimes early in the morning late at night but take advantage of situations and aort to has is the word

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opportunity that's where it comes from aort to opportunity we have people that are

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there and jump on a situation capitalize on the opportunity and make stuff

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happen that initiative is worth rewarding you need people around you

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that can do that and that's why I had the abort to award that I could give them with and then I had another one

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called the Tango Tower award you know the Tango towers are in Pakistan somewhere but from what I can see they

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go straight up and only a few people can climb these mountains and I've had people work for me that I've given them

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jobs that man that was a straight up climb and they would make it I mean we

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have amazing people when you challenge them with a straight up climb boy they got those ropes and and climbing things

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on and Men they're up the hill uh they need to be recognized not everybody can

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do that so I look for I develop these three Awards but I also had other teamwork Awards because I think teamwork

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is just as important uh these are individual Awards but teamwork is

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critical because what really makes your team is being able to cheerlead when

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people can contribute to the unit in a way that makes it more effective and

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more efficient and achieves results

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obviously that that is just amazing I mean just hearing that I'm thinking

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through my own team and I'm like gosh what kind of award W do we need to give what kind of award system do we need to set up it's just fascinating to think

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through that on the you know you've lived so much life uh it's not not often

Difficult Stories Behind The Book "Flight Path"

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that you bump into people who have written a book um and you wrote a book about a lot of the stuff we're talking

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about and way more um for our listeners share a little bit about why you wrote a

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book and what what's written in the book and I know there's a powerful story of forgiveness in there too that I'd love

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for you to share if you're willing with our audience you know I wrote the book

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actually for me initially uh I'll just step back and explain what happened is

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that I had my dream job after I left the

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the military as a major general I I was responsible for 94 countries uh in

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Europe and Africa and uh your Asia and I I had responsibility for strategy plans

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and policy and after this I I and through this I

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met a senator called Obama and uh it was crazy because I was a Republican and he

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was a Democrat I was a general he was a community organizer I was white he

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wasn't I mean we just weren't people who you would think would naturally uh come

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together and uh he asked me to take him to Africa he said you're more African than than I

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am and my father is from Kenya and because I spoke Swahili and all the rest

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of it and so but through that experience um I got to know him and and he not only

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asked me to become the special Envoy to Sudan to help Sudan work through getting

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peace with dar4 and then uh becoming the 54th nation in Africa South Sudan to be

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independent and all that but after that I became the ambassador to Kenya and for me that was my dream job uh I went over

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to Africa when I was 18 months old I learned to speak Swahili before I learned

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English my as I said my parents are missionaries over there I then went back

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and did humanitarian service after college and then I flew F5s which is

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that uh single seat fighter with the Kenya Air Force and and so I my life was intertwined

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with Kenya in fact as my wife's parents are missionaries and they went over to Africa in 1953 and she was born in

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Nairobi and so here was my wife and I were both sort of from Africa we both

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knew the people we knew the Customs we knew everything and here I was the US

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ambassador to Kenya now I was at the top of my game I mean this was I was living but sometimes

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when you're Innovative you work out of the box and think out of the box and and when you're

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working with an organization that's pretty much by the book like the state department was there were a few people

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that didn't like it and there was some false allegations that were spread and

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then um the rest is history a team came out to

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investigate and I didn't even get a chance to answer all these allegations

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that were egregiously false and and lies and in fact is I was asked to step

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down I was actually fired without after 3 days of this

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inspection without an opportunity to to express my views to even give any kind of

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reclam and it was hard I had to move out of the Ambassador quarters it was very embarrassing for me

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and my wife many of my friends thought that I had embezzled money or had an immoral Affair or something and nobody

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could believe that that in the course of three days I was gone I mean it was like

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I was hitting head with a baseball batter or I was in an F 16 spinning out

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of control I just couldn't believe this was happening to me it was hard

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and so I had to to leave my career and even though after

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two months of Investigation I was totally exonerated but I didn't get my job back

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and a lot of the information on the internet stay out there nobody said they were

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sorry in fact is there was no public apology and the only exoneration letter

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came in a letter to me in a brown manila envelope and there was

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no Public Announcement that says we were wrong graay shouldn't shouldn't have been knocked out of his

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job and for two years I'll be honest with you CH I I ended up having

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despair anger I was bitter I was

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depressed it clouded my view of life it clouded my relationships with my family

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and with other other people and and it really hurt it was really hurt I I I just

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couldn't almost couldn't function I couldn't understand how people could tell lies about me and not be sorry and

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I was waiting for somebody to come and say that they were sorry so I could say I forgive

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you and then I understood this thing called The Lord's Prayer that I was

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forgiven before I was even born and then St Francis Vissi wrote this thing that

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in pardoning we are pardoned I never understood that before

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I always understood Lord make Meister of your peace and showing love and all that stuff but that thing about in pardoning

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we are pardoned and that's how we work toward eternal life and later on in the

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prayer it was really meaningful to me and through this process of

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forgiving I was able to cut the anchor now the anchor of my boat stayed mired

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in the embassy troubles and shols but my boat was able to

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drift and I started improving and I started becoming better and not bitter and I started working through

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relationships and I started a company and and life was becoming pretty

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good and then we had a campaign where um a lady was running for

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president and she ended up having some trouble with emails and somebody

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said didn't you fire an ambassador over emails which was one of the allegations

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against me that was then since you know proven

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uh totally false and she said uh yeah there was a lot of things

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and I said whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa you know I mean I was already thrown under the bus once I said just let me write my

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side of the story and then I started writing I said wait a minute this isn't about

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me let me just write things I've learned by looking in the rearview mirror and I

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started writing stories and they all came up with lessons that I learned over

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the the Decades of my life things about having Integrity about humility about

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having gratitude about living life with short suspens is but planning for a long

34:43
life and and so there's 12 lessons learned that came out of this and also the lessons that I learned from

Lessons Learned From Forgiveness

34:51
forgiveness that we a lot of Us carry around Unforgiven

34:56
relationships they make us depressed they make us ineffective they make us

35:02
hard to live with people around us and hard to see the beauty in life because

35:07
we haven't forgiven and it was like when I was a little kid my parents sort of ingrained

35:13
this to me that I was supposed to say I forgive you after somebody came to me

35:19
and said I'm sorry so you do something and you say you're sorry and then the other person says you're forgiven

35:26
well it happened there was there was never an

35:31
asking for forgiveness or being sorry and I learned that in life we just

35:39
have to forgive proactively and it's hard but when you do it's so

35:46
free and and that prayer is so meaningful because really in pardoning

35:52
we are pardoned and we need to follow the example that Jesus set for us in in

35:57
forgiving our trespasses as we forgive those who forgive our tresp you whatever

36:03
that says you know it doesn't say wait until you're sorry it says forgive those

36:09
that trespass against us and and for me that was an amazing lesson and hopefully

36:17
I've been able to share with people through this book so the book has a lot of fun stories about growing up in

36:24
Africa and being the youngest person to have a hunting license and and doing a

36:30
lot of things and not learning how to read and then getting stuck in the military and then having the Lord bless

36:37
us in a wonderful career that I couldn't even imagine for 32 years and then have

36:44
a diplomatic career where we were able to sort of stop the conflict in in Dar

36:50
War uh work on the terrorism issue but but have the referendums that allowed

36:56
the people from South Sudan than to elect to become their own country but

37:02
more important than that to do this after they had been fighting for 40

37:07
years to be able to have a breakaway without having Bloodshed and and that

37:14
was 24 consecutive Miracles and I don't take credit for these but I give uh

37:19
honor to a lot of people that work with me and of course the good Lord for making that all happen so uh the book is

37:25
that story the story story of my flight path from the son of Africa to a warrior

37:32
Diplomat and uh I've been able to use it since for telling the story of

37:37
forgiveness because that's really what it all comes down to and then there's another aspect of it I learned that

An Attitude Of Gratitude

37:44
nobody can wreck your day it's your attitude that wrecks your day no matter

37:51
what happens to you if you can have an attitude of gratitude and if you can figure out the good things that are

37:57
happening happening in that situation then life is good and uh and

38:04
that's what I try to do I try to get up and find at least one or two things that I can be thankful for and that I can

38:10
express my gratitude for I I made a carving during Co of Three Links that

38:18
are tied together and the whole concept there is that you can't get it apart the

38:24
links are tied together and there's Pol itical there's economics there's medical there's all these little links that

38:31
people tried to understand and solve but when you step back and look at that thing it's a beautiful piece of art

38:38
these interwoven links and if it wasn't for Co I wouldn't have called my

38:43
grandmother every day for three years until she

38:49
died and not my grandmother my mom my kid's grandmother and and because of Co

38:56
we decided to take the positive step since she couldn't have visitors of calling her every day I tell you I was

39:02
so blessed by Co and the relationship that grew out of being able to call my mom every

39:09
night it was so cool and and what I've learned is all those bad things that

39:15
happened to me I work very hard to find something positive that can come out of

39:21
it as an end result or as a as a day-to-day process

39:27
that I can do to make that thing in my life that is a thorn into a blessing and

39:34
I tell you what I'm I'm not perfect at this and I get mad a lot of times and I

39:39
get frustrated a lot of times but then I do have a habit pattern of looking at

39:45
things again and it really changes your life if you can look at something in a

39:53
way that's positive and find that little nugget to be thankful for for and I tell you what now I don't have

40:01
any problem finding something to be thankful for when you're as old as I am just waking up and breathing is a big

40:09
source of being thankful and and having other things go your way uh especially

40:15
and I'm involved in in trying to bring peace to Sudan I'm involved in other things and and when you look at the

40:20
refugee crisis around the world in Sudan and Gaza and other places when you look at at at the the suffering that people

40:28
have the things we complain about the things we take for granted is

40:34
unbelievable you know after I had my near miss and I haven't talked about that near Miss but I almost lost my life

40:40
over San Antonio and I went to Uganda after that

40:46
situation people were existing in gunfire they were eating just bananas they had half a glass of water a

40:54
day at the most to drink and I came back and and I realized

40:59
how much we have and how much we have to share and how much we take for granted

41:05
there's been several things in my life where I have come face to face with the realities that Americans are so

41:12
blessed and we so complain about what is wrong I mean when you start complaining

41:19
about traffic you could be walking you know you know so there's it's just a

41:26
perspective and an attitude that I've tried to develop and I tried to develop

41:32
it when I was a leader to find things that I could be grateful for and to find

41:37
ways of praising people for what they were doing to make our organization a better

41:42
organization it seems like a lot of servant leadership has to do with thinking of others first obviously but

Surviving Two Terrorist Attacks

41:48
then also just the thankfulness aspect for sure I mean even you haven't necessarily brought this up but you've

41:55
survived two terrorist attacks as well directly in your life right at the Pentagon you were at the Pentagon when

42:01
that happened when 9/11 happened isn't that right it's very true I was uh a

42:06
couple hundred yards from where the airplane hit um and it really it was 196

42:13
people had their dashes closed out that day uh when that airplane hit our

42:18
Pentagon but it really brought back a lot of memories of daharan I was the operations group commander in daharan uh

42:26
when the terror exploded a huge big bomb they say 20,000

42:32
lb of TNT equivalent uh just outside of our gate it blew the face off one of our

42:37
dorms it ripped through my building uh blew the the windows out there was glass

42:45
uh through the through the room uh and unfortunately that night 19 of the

42:51
people that work for me died and uh it it tells you a couple things that that

42:58
life can be short and just like in situations where I came very close to

43:03
losing my life in airplane accidents uh 30 minutes before the accident my

43:09
life was great and then I was within seconds of being a

43:15
fireball I was fortunate and I didn't become a fireball but that night 19

43:20
people were taken from us through that terrorist attack and and life is short

43:28
and we have to uh make every minute count and we have to recognize that that

43:33
we don't control the end of our Dash we control maybe the beginning at least it

43:39
started for us in one way but then that Dash that middle piece that that is on

43:46
our Tombstone we make that Legacy count we make that Legacy lasts and we make

43:53
that Legacy meaningful and and uh I'm trying to speak to Young Folks and other

44:00
people to try to motivate them to put things in motion to have a

44:07
meaningful Dash so that when you pass on you've made a difference a positive

44:14
difference uh that's all we're called to do to do our best to to leave a legacy

44:19
and to make a positive difference some people have an opportunity to make a bigger difference but it's all a

44:25
difference and uh don't waste it it's your dash it's your legacy make it count

44:32
and that's what I try to do every day and that's what I'm trying to do in passing on these words to other of my uh

44:40
long duration here on Earth where I've learned a lot of lessons but it's about

44:45
building a legacy making a difference and making it last I I could seriously ask you

Ten Rapid-Fire Questions

44:52
questions for hours but I know I know you don't have hours um one one thing

44:57
that we do with all of our podcast guests is ask them 10 rapid fire questions uh and I think ending with

45:05
with that based on what you just shared I I know that that will be a blessing to people these 10 rapid fire questions are

45:11
not near as serious as much as the stuff that you've been sharing so far with your life story so do you mind if I if I

45:18
ask you 10 quick questions and ask or respond any way you want there's no

45:25
right answer so I'm going to respond in swah oh boy I won't know what you're saying so no no I'll do it in English

45:32
who's the first person you think of when I say servant

45:38
leadership Jesus Christ okay favorite author or book outside of yourself

45:44
knowing your own book is great and I'm going to make sure people have the link to that too in in our

45:51
description boy it has to be rapid fire I don't know how to read very well so

45:57
I've only read two books Swiss Robinson family and kidna by Robert and Stevenson so probably be one of those okay what

46:03
about favorite

46:08
movie Out of Africa I haven't seen that I'm excited

46:13
to see that it's a good one okay favorite food uh it's a a little triangle pastry

46:21
called a samosa it's made in uh by Indians and uh I love the meat ones not

46:26
the the veggie ones but the meat samosas definitely my favorite what's your favorite thing to do in your free time I

46:33
restore cars and I wood carve what kind of cars I've uh rebuilt an MGB which I

46:40
have in my driveway and I'm now working on an old Cadillac and um yeah anything

46:46
that doesn't work I like to work any block of wood that looks like nothing I like to make into something beautiful

46:52
wow uh there's a whole lesson in that too um surprising fact of about you I

46:59
married my sister how does that

47:04
work my wife's father died in 1958 when she was 5 years old and then her mother

47:10
was killed in a car accident and my parents became her guardian because they had her parents and my parents had

47:16
gotten their masters together in 1948 in the states and so my father gave her

47:23
away to me walked her down the aisle and I became own brother-in-law wow that's

47:29
and that was uh we're celebrating our 50th Anniversary I've known her since she was two and uh so it's long time 70

47:39
years wow congrats on that what one other surprising fact that maybe this is

47:45
more of a question don't you hold a record for most flight time or something related to flight time you you've been

47:51
in the air a lot yeah I I flew a lot I mean I was one flying fool so I flew

47:58
over 5,000 hours in Fighters but I have the record for the most combat missions

48:04
over Iraq I have uh 274 combat missions over IR Roa wow thank you for your

48:10
service on that and all the other service just yeah amazing actually you

48:16
know I take the credit for and I say thank you but really my wife is the one

48:21
who sacrificed I got to do what I absolutely love doing I wouldn't trade a day at what I did she helped raise the

48:28
kids I was gone for a year in the combat I was gone here and there and and I really owe it to my wife and other

48:34
spouses who give so much so that um their men in uniform and women in

48:41
uniform contribute to our country and so uh I owe it all to my

48:48
wife favorite I know you've been all around the world but favorite place you've

48:54
been boy I'm going to have to say Kenya we're going back to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary in June and we

49:00
looked and said where can we go is it Tahiti is it one of the other places we live and our hearts go back to Kenya uh

49:08
it's where my wife's uh parents are buried and her placenta is buried uh but it's where we have deep friends and it

49:15
is just stunningly beautiful with wildlife and wonderful people and great food and

49:22
sosis this one might be a little harder given that you've been so many places say where do you want to go that you

49:28
have not

49:34
been well I can't be Arctica and Antarctica because I hate the cold now

49:44
um I'd say nepo okay great and what's the best

49:50
advice you've ever gotten get over

49:58
that's good well Scott anything else that you want to share with our audience before

Additional Thoughts - The Most Important Things

50:03
we sign off related to Servant leadership or anything out of the book that you want to share that you think our audience would benefit from before I

50:10
let you go well I've been very blessed uh to

50:16
have as you say worked with six of our presidents and and the book does entail

50:22
that I've also been blessed to have been hit over the head with a hammer as I almost lost my life in an F5 and in

50:29
combat and that kind of thing uh and it's a story of of God's blessing and

50:34
God's grace but I think in the end of it you know it really doesn't matter how

50:39
much you accumulate it doesn't matter how much you have it's relationships and

50:45
then when you get as old as I am uh and you recognize that when it all comes down to the

50:51
end we don't care what's on the wall in our office we don't care about car we

50:56
have in our garage we don't care about our bank accounts we want our kill children our spouse and our friends to

51:04
be with us and to share and to sing and to and to recount memories uh and so so

51:14
much time is spent doing the wrong stuff and it's me with me too I mean I spent a

51:21
lot of time uh getting things and and I was blessed have gotten a lot of great

51:27
assignments a lot of great Awards but really when I come down to it it's your relationships it's that first thing we

51:34
talked about what's in your heart and what's in your head is the most important and a lot of times we forget

51:42
that and we try to figure out what we can put in our pockets and what kind of clothes we can

51:49
wear and we're forgetting it's what's in your heart it's those relationships with

51:55
God and with the family and friends it's what's in your head those memories of

52:00
good times you've had that's the most important thing so spend time

52:06
cultivating the stuff that fits in your heart and your head and then worry about what you can put in your

Closing

52:12
pockets love that that's a great final message well thank you so much I'm so

52:17
blessed to know you so thankful for your time and excited for people to get to know you better well this has been a

52:23
great honor and uh I appreciate apprciate the opportunity to talk about servant leadership thank you for

52:30
listening to this episode of the servant leadership podcast if you enjoyed what you heard please give it a thumbs up and

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