Welcome to Howl Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney, a highly decorated Air Force fighter pilot, and the founder and CEO of Folds of Honor. Now Folds of Honor is an amazing nonprofit that gives scholarships to family members whose loved ones have died or become disabled while serving in the armed forces. And get this, they just expanded their mission to include first responders as well. You know, Dan is just the perfect person for us to talk to this week, as we're reflecting on Veterans Day and all the incredible sacrifices our military servicemen and women have made for our freedom. Dan's got the kind of leadership wisdom you can only earn when you're flying through a dust storm in a rack going a thousand miles an hour with the wing of your aircraft literally six inches away from your buddies. I mean, the stakes are high and the challenges are non-stop. But hey, that's where great leaders shine. We're defined by how we respond when we face tough moments. And this conversation, Dan shares how we can actually be ready for those difficult times, embrace them and come through them even stronger. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney. Dan, you're a fighter pilot. So I got to ask you this before we get started. Have you seen the sequel to Top Gun? Have you seen Maverick? So I've never had more interview requests in my life than since this movie has come out. Yes, I have seen Top Gun 2 and it's an extraordinary movie. Have you seen it? I wasn't going to go before I got your review of it. Which one's better? Top Gun 1 or Top Gun 2? Well, I'll tell you, making a sequel is hard. I think they're both extraordinary in different ways. You have to go see it. We'll get into this, but you know, I'm blessed with five daughters. You've got one. They're a girl, dad. They've watched me, David, for 21 years, you know, go off around the world as a fighter pilot, but never really kind of understood what it felt like, what it looked like. And the awesome thing about Top Gun 2 is just the leap in technology that they were able to put in. They fly super hornets, right? So you got a real Navy pilot in the front and in the back seat you have an actor. You got Tom Cruise and the cast in the back, but you can't tell that they're not flying, but all the G-forces, all the air-to-air formation photography that they execute in this movie, it is phenomenal. I walked out of the movie and it was like the first time my kids thought I was cool in 20 years. They're like, "Dad, you actually do that." I'm like, "Yeah, but even cooler than what it is on TV." And the other thing I loved about Top Gun 2 is there was no agenda. It was just awesome. I mean, the language was good. There wasn't a bunch of, you know, fooling around. It was like you walked back into 1986 and just made you proud to be an American walking out of the same. You will love it. And I understand, Dan, that you're actually a Top Gun recipient in the Air Force. Tell us about that. We have within our squadrons the Top Gun Competition every year and everything is great. The bombs you drop, the air-to-air missiles you shoot. And at the end of the year, there are 25 extraordinary accomplished individuals , but there's one person that gets the trophy. And I was blessed to back in my day be pretty darn good at flying. And I've gotten the Top Gun trophy a couple times. And it's extraordinary. Two, when you think about being a fighter pilot, David, that there's a discrepancy in skill considering that all of us go through the same program. It's two and a half years long. The government, thank you very much. It spends $8 million per pilot training us. Only 4.8% of the people will make it through. And so it's the most expensive, highest attrition rate of any training in the US military. But then when you get to your squadron, there's still a, you know, huge pecking order. And guys that are really good and kind of the middle and kind of the average, I guess it's not unlike the PGA Tour. But yeah, I was blessed to have a couple Top Gun trophies in my shelf behind the gathering dust at this point in my career. You know, in addition to being a fighter pilot, you found it in the CEO of F oles of Honor, which provides scholarships to spouses and children of Americans following disabled service members. You started this in 2007. And the story behind Foles of Honor, you told me this as a friend in the past. Share it with our listeners. Yeah, you know, I think in this world where I figured out if you can tell someone a fact, they might learn it. But if you tell them a powerful story, that's what lives in people's hearts and minds. And I call them moments of synchronicity, chance with purpose. I do not believe in coincidence. I don't believe in serendipity or blind luck. I'm a man of Providence, right? Every person, every experience is placed in your path for a reason. And it's really up to you what you do with that. And for me, and I'm incredibly proud to share it, I was a super average person at this point in my life. Not a bad person, but I think in conflict with who I wanted to be, who I could be in life. But I'd combine this ultimate job description of being a golf pro and a fighter pilot. And so I was busy doing both of those. And God interrupted my walk this time, not in a fighter jet, but on a commercial airline air going from Chicago, oh, here to Grand Rapids, Michigan. I get on this airplane. And as I walk through first class, David, there's a corporal in dress army greens. I don't think much of it, right? Press on back to coach. About an hour and a half later, at this point, it's about midnight. The captain comes over the PA and makes an announcement as we're pulling into the gate that we're carrying the remains of Corporal Brock Buckland, who'd been killed in Iraq. And his identical twin brother, Corporal Brad Buckland, is in first class and had brought him the 7,000 miles home. I've told the story, you know, a bunch, never, not without emotion here. Because I've seen a lot of terrible stuff in combat, man. I understand that freedom is not free. There's a half a percent of this country that wakes up every day willing to give their lives for the United States of America. But I'd never seen this side of war. And I watched that family on the darkest night of their lives, including his wife and his four-year-old son. His Brock's American flag, Dave Coffin, kind of inched down from the cargo ramp . And that's when it hit me as a father, that this little boy would never play catch with his dad again or go play around the golf or out to dinner. All the things that we hold so sacred on this short journey of life. And as the ceremony finished itself up, I grabbed my backpack and I'm shocked that despite the captain's request, more than half the people had gotten off the airplane, right? I had nowhere to go except that blanket of freedom will all sleep under courtesy of Corporal Rock Buckland and the 1.1 million veterans who have paid the ultimate sacrifice . And I felt a hand on my shoulder walking off the airplane in amongst a lot of emotions. One of them was I was incredibly disappointed to be an American at that point in my life, which I'd never experienced before. And the only thing I know for certain, it was the hand of God he picks the least among us. But he gave me a mission on that night. And I called my wife Jackie and I said, man, this is not going to sound like the guy that you know, but I know this is what I've got to do with my life. And from that moment of synchronicity, we would start folds of honor above our garage in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, man with nothing, right? I got no influence, no money. Not very smart. But the very first day we wrote down our mission, honor the sacrifice, educate the legacy. I'm really proud and 14 years we have not wavered from that, giving scholarships. As you mentioned, espouses and children who've had someone killed or disabled defending our freedoms and been on this incredible journey that would connect us in a moment of synchronicity. At Valhalla, you were just there as a member playing around a golf when our paths connected for the first time. And you believed in this guy above his garage. I'm very honored to be able to help people who served and I never had the privilege of serving and is one of my good friends, Jimmy Dunn, says, it's almost like a hole in your resume. So if you've been blessed, it's great to be able to give back and like so many in our country do, which I think is really great. I want to talk more about folds of honor and how you lead it, Dan. But first I want to go back a little bit and talk more about the fighter pilot part of your life. You mentioned about how much money has spent training fighter pilots. What's that experience like to go through that kind of intense training and what's it take to beat the odds? In two and a half years, I learned three lessons that changed me for the rest of my life in this training. And the first one, day one, the commander's a colonel walks into this class and he said, Hey man, welcome to your boyhood dream. Who's the competition? And he stuns us with the fact that four or five of us are going to make it through to become a fighter pilot. And I remember going home that night to Jackie and saying, Hey baby, you may not need to unpack all those boxes. I'm a college golfer from Kansas and everybody else is from the Air Force Academy, Naval Academy. And I started a routine the next morning and I haven't stopped it in 22 years and I've set my alarm 30 minutes early and figured beat the world out of bed. And that's a routine. The greatest gift the Air Force ever gave me was starting this process of discipline routine. So that's the first thing I learned started that second day, haven't stopped in 22 years. Next thing I learned was the second day of training. We sit down and they basically brief us on all the way people kill themselves flying these airplanes. It's a very dangerous business. It's called road to wings. The guy at the end of the day said, Hey, the way that you avoid or give yourself the best chance of avoiding becoming a statistic is stay ready so you don't have to get ready, which is very prophetic for life in general. These high achievers aren't like cramming for the test and then doing it. It is incrementally every day sharpening that spear. And for us, when we have a bad thing happen in the jet, you don't have time to think. We have what's called bold face. And these are things that we write once a week that we know what we're going to do with an engine fire, a tire fails, a hydraulic failure, all these things. You're not fumbling through the checklist trying to figure out how to deal with it. You know how to deal with it because seconds are the difference between being alive or potentially not being alive. And the third thing that I learned was once you make it to the F 16, you get four rides with an instructor and to understand this machine to ride there $65 million a piece. There's more horsepower and one fighter jet than the entire starting grid at a NASCAR race. The top speed of the F 16 is about 2.4 Mach, which is about 1,800 miles an hour , 0 to 50,000 feet and under one minute, accelerating the entire way there. So I'm sitting in this jet right after four rides with instructor, my fifth ride, and I'm looking around and I'm all by myself. And I got to go where I wash out of the program. So I'll put the candidate down, I go take off, come back and land. And as I'm on strapping from the ejection seat, it hits me, this hand on my shoulder again that I've experienced so often in my life. And it's go before you're ready. And if I was going to tell you like one strand of DNA that ties the greatest people together, it's that. And this belief inherent that it's going to work out, you're never going to have it all figured out, but you go. And I think we would all agree that regardless life goes way too fast and nobody's figured out the solution to that, man, it is at Mach 2.4 for all of us. And in order to live the fullest life, you can't sit around and plan it all out , brother, you have got to go. And that changed me for the rest of my life. And I'm at the point now, David, like where the more reckless the idea is, the bigger, the more unknown it is, the more convinced I am, I just got to go. There's a difference between not being prepared. I'm not saying I'm a very prepared guy, but there gets to be a point in time where, man, you got to go chase life because it's moving fast. So that's the biggest lessons I learned flying the F-16 that really were foundational and I would say even transformational for the rest of my life. And I'll tell you the next two lessons because I went straight to combat. Yeah, you had three tours in Iraq, right? Yeah, three combat tours in Iraq. And I put it in perspective, I got a buddy that's flying 21 years as a fighter pilot. He's on his first combat tour. So my whole life has just been compressed, right? So I'm getting ready to launch on a night mission. I was an alert pilot and we were supporting a squadron of Navy SEALs and special operators. And there were two ground battles raging, one in Fallujah, one in Ramadi. And there's a big dust storm that had rolled through Iraq. It's called a chemal. There's virtually no visibility. We would never fly under normal circumstances, but there was a tick, which is troops in contact. So it means people are fighting for their lives and close proximity and they need us and they need us now. And so this big horn sounds and we run to the jets and as I'm on the way to the jet, this next one hits me. It's like courage and comfort can never exist in the same place. Bro, you got to pick one of them. And it's these courageous moments that we grow in a world that's trying to make everyone comfortable all the time. And you do such a great job of this, by the way, is fighting complacency because people get to a place where they've achieved and it's like, oh man, I can chill out. I don't have to use my gifts to the maximum extent anymore. So that was one. And the next one is I pulled the jet out on the runway and I literally can see the door on the other side of my office. I've got no visibility. It's night. There's dust everywhere. And I'm sitting there and this F16 is rumbling underneath me. My ears just lit up and I'm typing in all these coordinates in the jet to where we're going to go to support the ground troops. And this next one hits me is probably the most empowering lesson of my life, honestly. If you were talking about leadership and just succeeding or being significant was that no one is going to come to help you. No one is coming. Right? You're going to get to that place and I'm not downplaying your team, your spouse, your friends. But at the end of the day, your life is up to you and I'm a single seat fighter pilot sitting in this $65 million jet. Lives are on the line and I just burst through this bubble in my life that would never be there again when I just realized I could count on myself and you get it. You're a golfer when you have to hit that golf shot. You have to make that pup but this night was I'm going life or death and I've got to drop this bomb on time on target. I've got to go turn bad guys into pink mist or our guys are going to die. I cannot choke and it's up to me. And that was another moment flying the F16 that everything changed for me in my life. Now, I'm sure you'd agree. You can't get better as the leader without a plan to help you develop. That's why I send out a weekly leadership plan. This weekly plan gives you practical steps you can take to develop leadership skills that will help you grow. Each week focuses on a different leadership topic. Topics like culture, control, innovation and handling conflict. Now you might know a lot about these things but how often are you taking time to actually get better at them? This free weekly leadership plan will help you do just that. It will improve your leadership skills and give you simple ways to navigate any leadership challenge you'll face. Sign up for the plan today at howleaderslead.com/plan. It's such a challenge what you went through and I've seen fighter jets and what I think you guys call a fingertip formation where it looks like you're no more than a couple feet away from each other. You're three feet vertical and horizontal. How do you build trust with your teammates to be able to pull something like that off? You all get through the training and I think that's the ultimate filter that once you make it through the training, which is as you heard earlier, the attrition rates are ridiculous that once you get through that, you trust everyone to take care of their contract and it's deeper than a contract. It's a covenant that ties military together and especially when the guys you're with, if they don't do what they're supposed to do, they can kill you. That's what's just so unique about the military and probably the reason I'm still serving and could have retired a couple of years ago, but that covenant and that trust and that fellowship that is so unique to the military. That's why the military is the greatest team on earth and I will tell you, I've never fought an enemy in my life, which sounds kind of crazy. I've always fought for the person on my left or my right. Why do you guys fly so close to each other anyway? What is the purpose of that? Yeah, so there's a very tactical reason. If our landing system, navigation systems go out and we're in the weather, we can put someone on our fingertip and actually bring them in to land before, if you even look back before we had radars and now we keep track of each other with radars, but in order to take formations through the weather and like an A10, for instance, it doesn't have a radar, that's the only way you can stay together and know where you are and the weather is on somebody's wing like that. I'll tell you, we go through some of the thickest, darkest clouds on earth and you think three feet is scary, six feet is a lot scarier because you start to lose visual on the guy you're next to in the weather and we call it tucking in tight. It sounds crazy, but it's my great friend and fighter pilot buddy who punched out over a rack. He was an All-American at the Air Force Academy. Spike Thomas says, but you get to a point where it's just like you tuck it in there and it's just smoke a lucky. I mean, it's autonomous. You're one of the best short range punters I've ever met. You don't think about it. You just go up there and you punch in that five footer to win the bet. It's that same kind of learned effectiveness that we get as fighter pilots to be able to do it, but you trust your teammate and you trust yourself, but it takes a lot of learning and it's certainly not natural until you get to that point. You say that sudden change is a constant in the fast jet business. What advice would you give the leaders who feel like they're caught in the thrust of change right now? So it's inevitable and I'm a huge believer, David, that our lives are defined by what we do when it doesn't go our way every day. When you can accept that it's going to be a turbulent and difficult ride, I think that is step number one. You're not fighting against it, man. This is going to happen. I'm a leader and my job as a leader above all else is a problem solver. And to accept these challenges, these problems and use the skills that obviously you were given that got you into this leadership position. We have a saying in the fighter pilot world, flexibility is the key to air power. I took off on every mission and it was going to be an 11 hour mission and I knew it wasn't going to go my way. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. I was going to be able to do that. We didn't sit there and feel sorry for ourselves and worked our way out of it and are an extraordinary place. Sudden change is inevitable. How you react to it is completely within your control. Dan, you wrote a great book called Fly Into the Wind. What was the motivation for you to write the book itself? I went through a very challenging 10 year period in my life, David. I say this in the most humble way, but I had never set a goal and hadn't achieved it in my life. Whether that was going to play college golf and I dueled with this guy, Tiger Woods, and bested him a few times and married the beautiful girl and said, "I'm going to be going to be a fighter pilot." Ran this gauntlet to be a fighter pilot. I've been very successful. I had a moment after my second combat tour and I came back from Iraq and I made a mistake. It's like a half a second mistake. I raised the gear a little bit early on my F-16, about a half a second. The jet actually settled back down on the runway on a 360 gallon fuel tank. If it's another half a second, I'm probably dead. This was the beginning. It was like the wick that was lit on my life just coming apart. I'd been fast burner, best in the squadron, started having a lot of performance issues after this is a fighter pilot re-engaging, getting back in the cockpit. I built a golf course in Tulsa called The Patriot in 2008 and woke up every day of my life going bankrupt for six years. I was starting folds and facing all kinds of headwinds there. It's spilled everywhere into the relationships that mattered. It was really hard on my marriage. We say it in the military. Beatings will continue until morale improves. Ten years. I had this storm that was just around me. It was just nonstop. You know me. I'm a pretty positive guy. I put on a good face, but I did not want to get out of bed in the morning. I was at a point in my life that I didn't care if the airplane landed anymore. I was in a really dark place. During this period, I created a process or a routine of things that I could control in an uncontrollable world. I was like, "God, if I can't get a vector out of this storm, it must be purpose ful that I am here." I really drilled down. I think if you look at this book, there's two distinct parts. The first one is what's really important in your life and is that house in order? It's amazing how few people ever stop because life's just this inertia and identify, "What is your essence in your life and are your choices congruent with what you just said?" The next piece of this beginning is a fighter pilot. I think there's one skill we have that is unique is our ability to prioritize. We take in copious amounts of information at very quick speeds, right? But we figure out what's important, so it's about prioritizing. Then what I wanted to share were the ten things I do. I call them lines of effort, "LOWE's" every day without fail to become the best person, hopefully, at the end of the day. What I found out during all this, David, and I would not want to go live at all again, is we're so quick to put labels on what's good and bad, what's success and failure in life. But I find myself now without fail, religiously sticking to the same process that I created within the storm, regardless if the day that you were given appears to be a loss or a win, it's about being true to yourself and executing a discipline code of living every day. Without the storm in my life, that would have never happened. I'll finish discussing this as I go back to the title, which is very intentional. Yeah, I love the title, "Fly Into the Wind." Break that down for us. I fly the most powerful jet in the world, at least one of them. We take off into the wind because we need resistance to ascend and our lives are no different. When you can come to terms with that, and I would discover in this what I perceived as a storm, and this resistance was there to help me ascend. I've been amazed where this book has gone and 10 or 11 vets now that have reached out that were going to kill themselves. And this book got to them in time. Your book definitely does reach into your soul and your heart, and it's a fantastic read and has all kinds of insight in it. And I want to go back to this idea of needing resistance to ascend. What's been one of your biggest challenges with folds of honor, and how did you navigate through it? The greatest challenge was learning to go from a single seat fighter pilot, a doer, to a leader, and for us to scale this, and you've seen me, I'm all over. I go to every event, and I'm all over the place. And you hit this kind of terminal spot where you can't grow anymore because you can't be more places yourself. How do you effectively lead people? And that was the transformational piece that really happened during COVID, but learning how to lead. It's ironic, right? Because the military spent millions of dollars teaching you how to lead flights of men into combat and in squadrons. But leading in the military is a lot different than leading in the civilian world because it was do it because I say I do it as opposed to being influential and getting people to do it because of the why we all hear about. And for me, I look at leadership and my personal evolution is you have to be humbled to be an effective leader that unites people. Let me ask you about that because people talk about humility and I talk about it a lot myself, but I also feel like you got to have an uncanny combination of confidence to go with that humility because nobody's going to follow somebody unless they think that they can get them there. Do you balance being confident enough in your own ability and humility? What's that mean to you? Someone that is starting from zero that hasn't done anything, that's the greatest challenge to be a leader because nobody's going to follow you, right? We talk about it in the military all the time. It's the status that comes from being someone that someone wants to follow and you don't want to follow someone unless they have done it, right? So to have that status of executing, I put that in the fighter pilot world, the squadron commanders will go lead the toughest missions. No place else in the military does that exist, right? And because that is the status of being able to get out there and get it done, but also combining that to your point with humility. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney in just a moment. But if you want to really dig into how great leaders act in challenging situations, you can learn a ton from Dave Calhoun, the president and CEO of Boeing. Dave had to lead his company both through COVID and when the 737 MAX was banned from flying passengers due to two plane crashes. Now that's a challenge. And when you listen to his episode, you'll get a real lesson in how to restore stability in the face of a crisis. In one of my great experiences at GE, I worked for a great leader by the name of Larry Bossy. Larry conducted a meeting. Every meeting ended with an endgame and every meeting ended with a, how does GE win that endgame? So all of the crunching and grinding that was going on in the marketplace at the moment, everyone had a chance to step back and think about the endgame we're all working for. I like to practice that as much as I possibly can. We're going to take the time we need to rebuild our relationships with the customers and our regulators and most importantly, the flying public. We're going to take our time. We're going to be disciplined about it. But if we do it right, we're going to get right back on top of this world. I see that endgame every day, all day, I think about it and my job is to make sure that we position ourselves as well and as disciplined as we can to realize that future and we will. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Dave, episode 65 here on How Leaders Lead. You know, golf has played a major role in folds of honor. How does golf connect into all of this? Every significant moment in my life is connected to the game of golf. I went to Kansas, met my wife there playing golf, was on the flight on the way to my PGA Club Pro job up in Michigan with the Bucklands and I would turn to the game to start folds of honor. I had approached the PGA of America with this idea called Patriot Golf Day, but above my garage, right? There's no way they ever say yes, there's no way they ever call me back, but they did. And Brian Whitcomb said, "Man, I love this idea of letting America tee it up for golf's most heroic round and donate at least an extra dollar when they play golf." And the PGA championship was coming to Tulsa. So David Ferrety shows up at the front gate for a ride in an F-16. And this is the launch to everything folds. And if this guy doesn't show up and I don't take him in an F-16, I'm telling you nothing never happens, but we have a D model, it's a two-seat model. And he goes out to launch and he orders a double jalapeno cheeseburger, french fries and a chocolate molt. And I'm like, "This is a bad order. You're probably going to get air sick and these Irish." He says, "I know how it's going to end so I wanted to see it's good when it comes back up." So we go out on the runway. I light the afterburner. You go from zero to 200 knots in about four seconds. By the time you hit the end of the runway, we're doing 500 miles an hour. And then I pull the jet up straight into the vertical and we'll go to 20,000 feet in about 35 seconds. And on this particular day, when I pull the jet up into the vertical and you pull about eight Gs when you do this. So David, your one gravity is holding you in your seat right now. Eight Gs is about 2,000 pounds of kinetic energy. It feels like an elephant dropping on you. And it sounds like Ferrety, like there is a leprechaun dying in the back seat of this aircraft. And I get to altitude and I roll inverted, roll right side up and it's complete silence. And I'm like, "Oh my God, I just killed this guy on CBS Sports. Not saying a word behind me." And I would later find out that as we're going down the runway, he starts getting air sick. And I'd given him an air sick bag all the way down my left-cheese-suit pocket. And remember I talked about synchronicity at that exact place, at that exact time that he leans forward to get this vomit bag that I pull vertical. So 2,000 pounds just crushes him on top of his manhood, right? And I'm like, "David, do we need to land?" And he says, "Noonan, he says, 'I have no idea what the hell just happened to me.'" So we launch for the PGA Championship Patriot Off days and we'd sign up 3,000 courses. We raise $1.1 million and I would argue that 95% of the significant relationships in my life have occurred through this great game of golf. Now you also have a television show as I understand it. It's called Fly Into the Wind, same title as your book, where you interview successful people about how they come out of some of their darkest places. What's the story from this show that's most memorable to you at this point? I mean that one of your guests really had to overcome. Our world, there's such a crisis of mental health out there, right? But it just seems to be so isolating now for people. And that was the intent of the show was, "Hey, guess what? Just because you see their atoras or a Dirk's Bentley or whoever, you see them up on stage doesn't mean that they don't struggle." And so I sat down with each of these individuals. I said, "Hey, what was your fly into the wind moment? What was your most difficult moment in your life? But what did you learn in looking back on that moment? What's the advice that you can get people who are struggling?" And most successful people in life, they realized this resistance wasn't there to keep them down, but rather to raise them up. You seem to be, Dan, less interested in people's accomplishments and more interested in what they've overcome. Is that fair to say? Oh my God. You have the ability to put things together like few people I've ever met in my life. And I'm always saying, "Man, I would love to sit down to have a beer with you, but I do not care what you accomplished, but I would love to hear what you've overcome." That is the level three conversation, the one I just adore having with people. You have all these concepts. You talk about quintessence, finding your quintessence. You talk about drag, the drags on leaders, like the ego that can get in the way . You talk about go before you're ready. Do you sit back and think about all these leadership concepts? I mean, how did this come to you? All I did was sit back and I put it in the context of my own life. You hit on one of my favorite things because it's the paradox of life, David, for all of us. And I talk about parasitic drag, which is a fighter pilot term in that when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, they had to reduce the parasitic drag on the bell X1 to break through. And all of us have parasitic drag in our lives. And I think that's the only thing that holds us back. And to honestly look at yourself every day and inventory the stuff that's holding you back from breaking through. And it can be relationships. It can be not forgiving people. It can be egos. It can be shopping, alcohol, pornography. I mean, the list goes on and on, right? But if you can really be honest with yourself, identify that parasitic drag in your life and then understand the science to get rid of something in your life. You have to replace it with something else. And so I systematically, and I still, I attack this stuff every day and some days are good some days aren't as good. But if you can get rid of this parasitic drag in your life and you can break through and do anything on this journey. Dan, this has been so much fun to connect here. And I'd like to have a little bit more fun with you with some rapid fire questions, my lightning round. What are the three words that best describe you? Resilient, fearless, loving. What is your biggest pet peeve? Egoes. How long does it take to get from Los Angeles to San Diego in a F-16? Top speed. I'm doing the math. Two minutes and 45 seconds. Your lowest score in golf. 61. I broke Scott Verplank's course record at Alvemar. All right. Tell us something about you that few people would know. I have a motivating but debilitating fear of failure. Tell us a term only a fighter pilot would understand. This is a fun one, dead bug. So when anybody says the term dead bug, wherever you are, all fighter pilots fall on the ground with their arms and their legs up in the air. Doesn't matter where you are. All right. I'll remember that the next time around you. What's your unfinished business and what's something you've not accomplished that motivates you to do all that you do? What motivates me is just the unfinished business of being the best version of myself and specifically getting to a place where I can lose my selfish wants and needs on a daily basis just to go out and be a vessel impact and have a positive impact on the people in the world around me. And there's a lot of goodness left to be done on that front. Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to improve as a leader? My motto is this. Work hard, be nice. And I think leaders so often you come up with these convoluted mission statements and purpose statements and they're all good. But can people remember that walking in the front door? And it folds in our squadron. It's work hard, be nice. How can people who want to learn more about folds of honor and donate to folds? Where can they go? foldsofhonor.org is the website. 91 cents of every dollar we raise goes directly to fund scholarship programming . We have a perfect rating on charity navigator and guide star. So know that when you listen to this and you're considering a donation that it will go directly to support a military family and change the life by giving the gift of an education. And I'll wrap with this, David. My greatest fear as an aviator, if my take offs don't match my landings and I don't come back, I've got five daughters and making sure that they get an education is my greatest concern. I think I speak for the majority of our military that ensuring that their children and their spouses are set up for success in life. I don't think there's any better way to do that than through the gift of an education. So thank you. Thank you for your service and thank you for the creativity and drive that you 've had to start folds of honor from scratch and turn it into this powerful organization that is highly regarded by everybody in the United States these days. So thank you very much for your leadership. Thank you, David. I'm honored that you would include me in your show. You have no idea. It's just one more chapter of you believing in me that pushes me forward and lifts me up, brother. I'm so grateful that Dan Rooney and I cross paths. It's not every day you meet someone who can fly an F-16 and play golf with the best of them and start an incredible nonprofit like folds of honor. But it hasn't all been easy. Dan has been up against impossible odds and dark times, but he's persevered through them. And like every great leader, those challenges have been jet fuel for his growth and development. If you want to do the same, Dan says you've got to start by accepting the reality of the tough spot you're in. Then you've got to rely on the routines and habits you've developed. And most importantly, you've got to lean into those challenges when they come because it's your job as a leader to solve those problems. So let me ask you, what challenging situation are you facing right now? Maybe it's something in the state of your business or maybe it's more personal. This week, lean into that problem. Don't try to avoid it or minimize it. Remember that you're defined by how you respond to challenges. Like Dan said, remind yourself of the skills that have gotten you to where you are. You can trust that you've got what it takes to embrace this challenge and come out even stronger. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders and brace challenges. Coming up next week on how leaders lead is Gail Trowberman, president and CMO of iHeart Media. Doing what you've always done is an easy way to not get fired. Doing the new big innovative things that could get you fired is usually how you do the best work of your career. So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]