Cultivating Culture with Tom Crea

Tom Crea, a Leadership development coach, decorated career Army Officer, and Black Hawk helicopter pilot joins us today with some sound advice on cultivating culture. 

During his time in the military, Tom was hand-selected to run the Army’s leadership development program at two Boston colleges. Today, he is a Servant Leadership ambassador, and sought-after speaker. In 2016, he authored the book Unleash your Values: How to Lead and Succeed in Business Today: A Helicopter Pilot's Spin on Developing the Leader in You.

Listen in as Tom passionately shares a plethora of stories from his days in the Army—experiences which instilled in him a deep appreciation for leadership development, which he often refers to as the “people business”.


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Transcript

Introduction: 0:01

Welcome to the Raise up podcast. The only podcast focused on how you can get a raise at work every week. We're dishing tips and tricks straight from the industry experts, CEOs, and HR directors. So, you can finally get paid what you're worth. So, buckle up buttercup, let's break it down. She's a little sassy, but a lot of fun. Here's your host, Amanda LeFever.

Amanda: 0:26

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Raise Up Podcast. My name is Amanda LeFever, and I'm here to help you make more money at your job. We are back again with a great guest, and I'm super excited about this conversation. His name is Tom Crea, and he's a leadership expert, decorated career Army officer, and Black Hawk helicopter pilot. Because of his proven skills, he was hand-selected to run the Army's leadership development program at two Boston Colleges where he and his team transformed college students into combat leaders. Today he's a servant leadership ambassador, an author, keynote speaker, radio show host, and leadership development coach who loves coaching basketball and spending time with his wife and two boys. Tom, welcome, welcome to the show.

Tom: 1:12

Thank you so much, Amanda. And you can add baseball to that too now.

Amanda: 1:15

Baseball? That sounds awesome. Did you start in the little, little leagues and go all the way?

Tom: 1:21

Well, I'm coaching my sons now. Yeah, I started, but, yeah. Yeah. And it's fun to live vicariously through them at this point.

Amanda: 1:28

Yeah, how are they doing? They like baseball? Basketball?

Tom: 1:31

They're doing, they're doing pretty well. You know, one of them is in coach pitch, and the other one moved to kid pitch, and he's had his machinations, but he's actually doing pretty well as a pitcher. So, I'm happy with that.

Amanda: 1:44

Hey, that's awesome. I hear it's quite the investment and involvement in baseball, is that correct? Is it a lot of, a lot of time, and money?

Tom: 1:53

Oh, investment of time? Yeah. There are sports that are much, much more expensive and you know, fortunately we're here in Pennsylvania, and we we've, we had a hiccup where we didn't get to play a week because of the virus and then we're back on track, but it was a shortened season, and hopefully we'll be playing in the fall. So, yeah.

Amanda: 2:12

I'm glad that you're able to do that with them. I'm sure it's a great bonding experience.

Tom: 2:17

It is, it's something I know, and something I can share, and pass on. And I think every parent wants to be able to do that with their children.

Amanda: 2:23

Yeah, for sure. So, I have a question, and it might be random, but did you always know you wanted to be a Black Hawk helicopter pilot?

Tom: 2:32

No, no, I did not. I mean, I didn't, I never thought about the military seriously until a guidance counselor sent me off to something called boys state, if you're familiar with that. And I went there, and I came back, and just things started lining up where I applied for ROTC scholarships. And then I went to school on an ROTC scholarship, and that really changed my life. And so, I always thought I wanted to fly, and I wanted to go in the Air Force, and the Air Force didn't want me, but the Army wanted me, go figure. Believe it or not, the Army has more aircraft than the Air Force, and has more boats than the Navy, but they're much smaller in both cases, much less expensive. Yeah. Well, cause there are a lot of helicopters, and there are a lot of tiny little boats, and that people don't think of not ships, so it's a trivial thing.

Amanda: 3:21

Yeah, I had no idea. So, you were hand selected to run the Army's leadership development program, and I feel like that is huge. What, what did you do to, how do you position yourself to be in that, that type of role?

Tom: 3:37

So, you know what it is, it's an issue of a career progression, you're trying to, as an officer, you want to command for promotion, and to be perfectly candid that wasn't the first string, if you will. So, the first string that has, I would command a line battalion, a helicopter organization, it's still command, and it was good, but it's not considered as highly as commanding a line battalion. Whether it's infantry, armory, aviation, whatever. So, I commanded an ROTC battalion. It was one of 270 at the time when I was doing it. So, there are a lot of them across the program, and I'm sure you've seen him on different college campuses. And so, I haven't had one it was very unique. It was one of two that the host school was less prestigious than the school that was the sister school. So, those two colleges were, I had Northeastern University, and Boston College was more prestigious, and then in the Army gave more money. So, it was awkward with my bosses on the Northeastern campus. And, the other school was Santa Clara University who matches, they're paired up with Stanford.

Amanda: 4:45

Nice. That's awesome. So, you say career progression, so you started out and what did you do? How did it work?

Tom: 4:53

Yeah, so, I looked at some of your previous episodes, and the way you do things. And so, career progression for us is you know, I remember from almost day one where they would talk about, you need to have a 10-year plan, you need to have a 10-year plan. And for us it was a little, because you know, it's an organization, and institution that's been around for 200 years. Everything is kind of like set in, there's not that it's set in stone, but you can see a bunch of paths, and you can see different ways to do things. And so, the normal career progression is you go from being a platoon leader, which is a supervisor, to being a company commander, which would be more like a mid-manager type of thing. And then to going on to battalion command, which would be more like the VP position, which I would, I would say that that was the parallel position that I retired at. I wanted to leave it on a high note. I enjoyed thoroughly my career. If I were young and healthy, I would do it all over again. But yeah, that's so they wanted you to have a 10-year plan because I didn't command my battalion until I was at year 16. So, you were thinking about these things and how was I going to get there? And you have to not to go into gory details, but you had to, you had to know what tracks they were going to put you on. And when you were going to get assigned here and there, and you had these other different assignments that I would call a penance assignment because I wasn't flying helicopter. My other specialty was computer science, but that was never my strength. So, that's why I called it a penance assignment, but I I'm glad I met some great people with that experience, and I enjoyed it, but it was much harder for me cause it wasn't my natural thing.

Amanda: 6:33

I'm curious about the long view? Like you had talked about that a little bit, like your perspective is different than what's gonna get you immediate gratification or immediate rewards, more of taking the perspective of the long view when you're looking at your career.

Tom: 6:50

So, let's take a huge step back. And what I mean by the long view is in what, like you, I'm a speaker. And so, when I speak, one of the things I talk about is values. And a matter of fact, you mentioned my book,"Unleash your Values", and I feel that everybody needs to follow your values because when you're doing what you believe to be true, you're just going to be better at it. And not only are you going to be better at it. So, the question I ask when I'm speaking is it's like why do you, why do people join organizations? And you know, why do you choose your friends and that sort of thing? And the bottom line is if you think about those answers is because you want to be around people that are like minded that think like you. And as I went into the army, and there are probably other industries or companies that I could have gone into that would have been comparable, and I would have been a good fit. But then of course, then there would have been others that maybe I could have survived, but I wouldn't have been a good fit, and survive is not a good way to spend eight hours of every day and you know, a career. And so, what I mean by that, I mean the very first thing that I would suggest that anybody do is look, are you in the right place? And if you're not, don't despair because life's too short to just spend the rest of your life in the wrong place, and you could take steps to move on. So, back to this long view. So, if you're in the right place, and I did feel that I was in the right place and I had a, I don't know if cathartic is the right word, but I had an experience that told me that really knocked me on my heels, a couple of experiences. And then I had an experience that said, wow, you're in the right place. This is, this is really what it was, and those all happened within the very first two years of my career. And I said, I'm committed, I'm in it for 20 years, for sure. I'm going to make it a career. So, go ahead, please ask me another question.

Amanda: 8:46

I was going to say, do you mind like sharing what your experiences were that kind of solidified that?

Tom: 8:52

No, no, I don't mind at all. So, one of the things you're looking for is, well, what drives me, what's important to me? What do I do? You know, my passion is leadership in serving others. I mean, I was in a leadership role and I honestly believe that, you know, instead of having that pyramid where you're the person at the top, no, you gotta flip that pyramid upside down. You're the person at the bottom, because if you support the people that are on your team, then they're going to do the work. They're going to get things done, and they're going to, they're going to look good. They're going to make you look good. And if you get joy out of that, then leadership is the right thing for you. And if you don't get joy out of that, then that doesn't that's okay, because not everybody's cut out to do that. Maybe you just are going to be, and we had technical experts, we had career experts or management experts if you will. So, here's what happened, you know, I grew up, and things came naturally to me in high school. And then when I got to college, I was a big fish in a small pond, and I get to college and boy did I get knocked back on my heels. And now I have to study, and life is harder, but our ROTC was the right place for me. And that was my niche because the reason I got the scholarship, just because I wasn't great at academics, I wasn't great at athletics, and I wasn't great at the student council, if you will, in high school. But I was good at all those things. And because I was good at all those things, that was the combination of the Army or the military is looking for when they're finding. And that's exactly what I entered the army in ROTC, and I exited running ROTC. So, it was kind of nice to start with finishing the same spot, but in a different chair.

Amanda: 10:34

What were those experiences that you had, that kind of solidified that you were in the right place?

Tom: 10:37

Right, right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. This is important, and this is what I talk about when I speak to, because essentially, I have a story about humility that I have another story about humility that I can share. And then another story about humility that I can share. So yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't have, we don't have time to do all of them, but let me try to give you the couple, the ones that really matter. So, I was doing, doing very well. You know, they rate their peers, your peers, you know, I'm in my basic course at the infantry officer, basic school at Fort Benning, Georgia, which we like to call Fort beginning, cause that's where we started. So, I'm there, and the very first time we do a peer review, I'm rated in the top third of my platoon. And then one day we have this opportunity to excel, if you will. And so, I'll tell you this story. So, it's a June 1983, Fort Benning, Georgia, 90 degrees, 50% humidity, and it's four o'clock in the afternoon. And so, I positioned two pounds of water on my hips, these canteens. And then I hoist this 40-pound brick chuck sack, and the platoon leader comes to me and says, Tom, will you carry the machine gun? So, now I'm one of the biggest, most fit persons in my platoon. And I'm thinking I got this, no problem. So, I pick up another 23 pounds off we go. I find myself reaching for water again and again, I drain both canteens. I'm drenched with sweat at a rest, stop refill, find some shade, two-liter pushes. How you doing Tom? Fine time to go, as we begin another six miles. Yeah, the extra 65-pounds and the brutal Georgia sun are kicking its toll. After a mile, my opportunity to drops back to check on me, want someone else to carry the gun? Now I don't want someone smaller than me to suffer this. No, I'm fine. A mile later, he drops back again or behind schedule. You want to trade? I got it. I don't want my peers to think I'm weak. We don't go another mile. And he drops back a third time and he makes me trade weapons with one of the smallest guys in our books. Yeah. I'm frustrated, but secretly I'm relieved. I gladly trade 23 pounds for eight. I have a new bounce in my step, but the first nine miles wore me out. I'm not a gas. I continue to slow everyone down. We arrive late. We fail the exercise. It's my fault. So, the question I asked when I'm speaking, as I say, have you ever done something with the best of intentions only to let others down? Any thoughts?

Amanda: 13:44

Yeah, oh man. I have plenty of thoughts. Yes, I have.

Tom: 13:49

You don't have to share, but if you want, go ahead.

Amanda: 13:52

No, there's I can't think of a specific experience, but I can definitely relate, not to the Georgia heat, and carrying a heavy load. But there've been plenty of times that I felt like I could carry the load all by myself. And I was saying this the other day, that one is too small of a number to really do much of anything. And so, sometimes you do have to eat some humble pie.

Tom: 14:17

So, then I continue, and I go on and I say, look, I say, I thought I could handle it. What was I missing? And I said, my only excuse, and I looked directly at a woman, you're gonna think this is sexist, but there's a reason for it. Is it can you guess? And I look at that woman, I say, yeah, you're right, testosterone. So yeah. So, it's there mentally, it's for funny. It's, you know, it's not your intent, but you, when you take on too much, you communicate a lack of confidence in other people. And when you take on too much, you communicate a lack of trust. Neither of those are good traits for somebody to do as a leader. And so, I'm learning these things. And so, at the end of that exercise, I dropped from the top third of that platoon to the middle third. Now I go on, we have another exercise. I won't tell you that story because we don't have enough time for that because I only have so many stories I can share. But I have a similar experience, all bad. I've written about both of these in there in my LinkedIn, you can find them in my profile. And, now at the end of this, at the end, of the course, I dropped from the middle third to the bottom third. Now I tuck my tail between my legs because here I am starting great, I'm starting my career, and I'm not starting off on the right foot. And so, I go off, I go to flight school. Well, I go to flight school and you know, and one of the things my roommate gives me the impression I'm reading this book called"How to Win Friends and Influence People." He walks in and he says, why are you reading that book? You don't need to read that, you're going to be the boss. And then I'm thinking, oh my, am I in the wrong place? Did I choose the wrong organization? Let me fast forward to my first assignment, go through flight school. I get to the first assignment, and now, I didn't do well as well as I would've liked the flight school because instead of getting the Blackhawk transition, I fly the older Vietnam era, Huey helicopter. So, they sent me off to my first assignment and I'm at K 16 air base, itt's now October, it's 1984. And now it seems like forever, and I finally get on the flight schedule. It's Dawn and a crisp fall morning, I'm excited to fly. I finished my pre-flight and upon my returned, Mr. Welda, my instructor pilot intercepts me, he said, sir, I smell alcohol on our S ergeant X. Now, I guess what I need to tell you is I'm the platoon leader. I'm in charge of the 23 people of the p latoon, and I'm two years in the Army, no real experience. And I have an instructor pilot and a platoon Sergeant, both of them had 10 o r more years of experience, me less than two years. Now, why should they follow me? I mean, think about that, doesn't every young manager have that challenge? Where now all of a sudden they're responsible, they're in charge, and t hey're people that are older than them with more experience. Now, the question i s, is how are they g oing t o respond to you? So, let me share this story that shaped how I would continue my career. So, now the problem with having alcohol o n your breath is it violates our 12 hour bottle t o throttle rule, which means there's no alcohol or any residual effects of the alcohol for at least 12 hours prior to flying the aircraft for working with the aircraft. And you can imagine it's a safety issue. So, I have a problem, Sergeant X works for me, but I don't know what to do. And Mr. Welda, knows it. Sir, you need to take Sergeant X in for a drug and alcohol test. I'm thinking, oh, he lives off base, what about his wife? What about his family? What about his career? Sir, you really need to take h im in. So, I'm 23, it's a Saturday morning, and all I wanted to do was fly. I approached Sergent X, h e sure smells like alcohol. I find myself taking him to the nearest medical facility, the Army hospital in S ol, 12 miles away. So, I have to get a Jeep, no sooner that w e're on the Sol Pusan highway, our m ash e ra, no kidding, Army Jeep breaks down, two enlisted soldiers, and me on the side of the road. Do you feel my pain? Y eah. So, we finally get help, we drive forward, he takes h is test, we return. And I spend the rest of the weekend wondering, did I do the right thing? Monday morning, I'll never forget being in my b oss, Major Bigelow's office. Report sir, he a sk, well, what happened? And then, my knees are shaking, and I'll never forget his response. He says, Tom, I'm just tickled pink, you did the right thing. Huh? I'm surprised you had the gumption to take a minute. And I'm thinking, wow, maybe I did do the right thing. Now, despite the fact that he reports to me, I'm more concerned about w hat my Sergeant, Sergeant Watson thinks, and you know, cause he's the one teaching me, training me, teaching me the ropes. And we go behind closed doors, and he s aid, s ir, I didn't like what you did on Saturday, but you did the right thing, and I'm going to support you. What a relief, now three different career professionals, a c ommission officer Major Bigelow, a warrant officer, Mr. Welda, and a noncommissioned officer, Sergeant Watson, all communicated these things to me, they said, if I was going to be a leader in their Army, I had to live their values. Remember, I talked about values? Well, in our business, the values has of course, so you can imagine the Army, we have an acronym, and it's, LDRSHP: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. And so, I'm telling you all that. So, let's get back to, y ou k now, w hat you want your listeners. And, you know, I said the long view, the long view is you g otta be in the right place. And I didn't know that immediately, it took a couple years and it was those experiences. First, getting knocked down a peg, and then a peg, and then a peg, because they were all humbling experiences. And it's, you know, if you're going to be in the leadership world, or any world, it's about character, and it's about who you are, and people knowing what they can expect of you. So, that was a very long answer to your short question. And I don't want to run you out of time. So, go ahead and ask me the next question.

Amanda: 20:40

No, that was a great, those are great stories, and you're doing fantastic. So, the question that I have is, did you always know what your values were or was that something that you feel like you cultivated in those various situations?

Tom: 20:56

No, I think we all go through that. So, you know what, I'm okay with sharing this because I'm proud of this. In a matter of fact, what I do today is I work with Christian business owners, and I grew up Catholic, and I had my doubts about that. I went to Catholic grade school, high school and college, which I didn't know until after I actually got on campus, cause it's got a University of Dayton. Doesn't sound like a Catholic school, but it is at any rate. So, I find myself going through those questions, and I stopped going to mass in my junior year. But the very first day I'm in the army I am just drawn back to the Sunday mass. And I gotta tell you, it was my faith that was able to get me through those toughest times. Have you ever heard that poem? Footprints? Oh my gosh, you got to look it up, all the listeners, and it's the bottom line is this, it's like either there's footprints in the sand, and at the weakest points of your life, you said, Lord, why weren't you there in the toughest times of my life? And he said, son, that's when I was carrying you. Yeah. It's, it's a fantastic poem. And it's things like that, it's like your faith, it's gonna carry you through in your most difficult times. And especially if you're in a leadership role, and you feel alone, you're not alone. There are people out there, there are people like those three people, the Sergeant, the noncommissioned Officer, they may not want to be in the leadership role, but they're really rooting for you to do the right thing, believe it or not. Because they don't want to join, you don't want to join an organization and have a terrible boss, do you? You really want to have a good boss, but you're going to test them. You're going to test them to see whether or not they're cut out to being a boss. And they do, we do that in the Army, they do it everywhere, you're going to get tested, but so now it becomes an issue of character. Do you have the character? So, yeah, I know your conversation is more about promotions. So, let me just share this one thing that I would say to you. You know, one of the other things that I, we don't have time, I don't think for another story, but I tell another story about what do managers most w ant most from their leaders? And I would tell you that they want you to be responsible, to demonstrate responsibility so that they can count on you. Now, what are your employees wants most, he wants you to give them responsibility. They want to be, they want to know that you trust them, and they can take care of things. And it's all about, you know, everybody wants to. There are a couple of things I say individually, we all want to be treated with dignity and respect, right? And we all want the opportunity to learn and grow. Now, collectively, and your team, everybody wants their contributions to matter, you want to feel significant, and we all want to feel like we're part of something greater than ourselves. So, everything I'm sharing with you is like, okay, find what your values are, find the right team, and make it the right team. Now, one of the things you also asked me, and if I'm going on, please cut me off. But the thing that I would tell you is like, okay, so I'm trying to learn, how do I shape my career? How do I have the 10-year plan? How do I do the right thing for this organization that I've joined. And the question that I would ask you is, you know, before you go and ask, like, you know, I feel like I deserve a raise or whatever the case is. The question I would ask you is this, well, what did you do? Why do you feel you deserve a raise? So, one of the great things that we learned in the Army as part of this whole leadership development, and you know, just imagine, if you're the leader and you're trying to grow a plant from a seed, you got to nurture it, you've got to give it the soil and all the things, and you get the whole metaphor. But if you have a boss that say is not doing that, and so you're concerned about, well, I want my annual evaluation, or however your performance reports are done in whatever organization you are in. The way we did it was annually, and so they taught us to now, if we're going to do it this way, so the annual report is written in pen, if you will. And then we're going to do these quarterly appraisals. You're required to do it for the junior officers, the people who've been in less than 10 years, because they need to cut their teeth, learn to do this the right way. And then we have something called Footlocker counseling, which may be foreign to you. But you got to imagine back to the old World War II Army barracks, where you have these Footlockers at the end of the bunks, and you have two people sitting there talking and chatting, and it's a very informal conversation. So, if I were to share with you how that goes, is essentially is, okay, when you're leading somebody you're trying to grow and nurture that person, that seed. You don't just have the conversation annually with that person, you have the conversation on an ongoing basis, and you sit down and you have these informal, how's it going Amanda? Is everything okay? What can I help you with, that sort of thing? And then, you know, after a few months, and you do this four times a year, you say, okay, Amanda, you know, at the very beginning of this exercise, we sat down and we said, here are your roles and responsibilities, and you said, these were your objectives. This is what you thought, and you and I had a conversation, one-on-one where let's say, assume I'm your boss, I agree with you, or I didn't agree with you, and I suggested, what about this too? And we came to mutual agreement, and those were your goals, and then we're going to assess in 12 months whether or not you achieve those goals. But along the way, my goal is to help you be successful, and if I don't help you become successful, I'm not being a servant leader, like philosophy that I like to talk about, and I failed you. And if I failed you, then I'm not going to be successful. And you know, a lot of when I talked to you about that inverted pyramid, you know, if you view leadership as I'm going to help the people on my team to do their job, you know, first of course, you got to go through the process of learning a lot of those things, and earning their trust and confidence along the way. Then, okay, well now I'm going to help you learn and grow. Well, let's just say you don't have a boss who does that. Then you need to take this process that I just described, and you need to go to the bosses, hey, you know, I'd like to sit, can we have coffee just you and me? I want to have an hour of your time, and I want to say, hey, you know, this is what I think I'm supposed to do, and these are my objectives, what do you think? And you've got to work that out with them. And then you say, you know, do you mind if we do this every quarter, between now, every 90 days? And then if that person's still, you can't get them out of their shell, then you've got to have those informal conversations and you gotta be the one to initiate, but you know what, that's a person who takes responsibility. If you don't have that boss and you do those things, you know, they may not admit it if they're say narcissistic or passive-aggressive or whatever, but they're going to appreciate that you're on their team.

Amanda: 28:07

Absolutely, and it will set you apart too, I feel like. That you're like you had said, taking responsibility for your position and how you're contributing, and that you're hoping to contribute more. So, I think that's a really good point that some people don't have bosses that are servant leaders, it seems like.

Tom: 28:29

We can describe it as a moral leader or ethical leader but to me, it's kind of all the same genre. It's like people who are looking after people, and because it's a people business, and everything's about relationships in a people business.

Amanda: 28:44

That's true. I think that's something that sometimes we miss too, is that a lot of this is about relationships, and not always about numbers. That if we improve the relationships, that the numbers would improve as well.

Tom: 28:56

Well, you know, I want to know something, you just hit on something that because I'm so passionate, that's how I met your husband. And that's how I think you and I met because of your husband. I'm so committed to this as the right way to treat people. And it not only is it the right way to treat people, guess what the best companies in the world have been had to have the greatest profits are because they have people who are servant leader mentality. And that's how I found Travis. And, you know, he shared a fantastic story and I'm going to write about him someday, but I'm not there yet. I just started my series last Tuesday. And I published an article last Tuesday, and I published another article this yesterday on LinkedIn. And I plan to do this weekly until I exhaust these. And then I'm probably going to go out and reach out to other people who think like this because it's a philosophy. I don't like to call it a style it's a philosophy that's long overdue and the more we have people who are believing like that, it's going to be a better team. It's going to be a better community, and it's going to be a better world. And that's important to me.

Amanda: 29:59

Absolutely. I love that. So, how can people connect with you? Is LinkedIn really the best place to do that?

Tom: 30:05

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn quite often. I am not the greatest with my cell phone, but let's just say that's the only place you're going to find me on my cell phone cause I can't seem to figure out, or I don't know that Facebook is the right place for me just because my orientation is very professional, it's about leadership. So, my leadership profile, it's not Tom Crea, it's at Thomas Crea, and then you would find me. And of course, if you're interested in, you'd like to hear more, absolutely reach out to me. I'm open to anybody except mostly solicitors, and at least still connect with them. But then when I find out their solicitors, I'm not as interested. But, yeah, and the other thing I would tell you is I'm on Twitter, I'm on Facebook and I'm on YouTube. And there, my handle is@BlackHawkthehelicopterspeaks. But Thomas Crea on LinkedIn is the best way to find me and reach out to me, connect with me.

Amanda: 31:03

Nice. So, I'll put all of those things in the show notes, and I'll also put a link for your book. Where can people get your book?

Tom: 31:10

It's on Amazon? Yeah, you've got the name and you'll put the link, so that's great.

Amanda: 31:17

Absolutely. So, we'll do all that. So, I really appreciate you being on the show Tom, it has been an exceptional conversation. I feel like a lot of gold nuggets, to be honest with all of your humility and experience.

Tom: 31:30

Well, let me share you with one last thing. Here's why I honestly believe I am a product of the best leadership development culture in the world. And if you think about it, if you think about if you're whether or not you're Christian or not, if you happen to know the parable of the talents, you can find and read about it, but that parable talks about the amount of talents you've been given and what you're going to be expected at the end of the rainbow. And so, since I was given these talents and I was blessed to have learned leadership in the Army, I feel obligated to share as much of this as possible with the world.

Amanda: 32:05

That's awesome. And I think that I don't know, I'm really inspired by that. I knew that the Army had great leadership development, but I didn't understand how robust it was. So, this has been really enlightening as well. So, thank you so much for being on the show.

Tom: 32:22

It's my pleasure. Yeah.

Amanda: 32:25

All right. Well, we will talk to you guys again soon. Bye

Outtro: 32:33

Thanks for listening to the Raise up Podcast. If you want a raise, head to www. RaiseUpPodcast.com and download our step by step roadmap where we've taken all the expert advice we've collected, and put it into a simple PDF eBook called, you guessed it, How to ask for a raise. Before you join us again, make sure to subscribe, share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot, and share it on your social stories and tag@AmandaLeFever. See you again soon.