Embracing the Warrior’s Edge | Jannell MacAulay | Episode 104

Scott McCarthy [00:00:00]:
All leaders need an edge to be at top of their performance. If we leaders fail, so do our teams and organizations. Sometimes we need to seek out help in getting that edge, and at times, that edge comes from those who are trained to the highest standards. Today, my guest, Janelle McAuley, and I discuss her experiences as a US Air Force officer, leadership lessons from being a USAF squadron commander, where the Warrior’s Edge comes from, what it is, and how you as a leader can benefit from it. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Moving Forward Leadership podcast, episode 104, embracing the Warrior’s Edge with Janelle McAuley. Welcome 1, welcome all to the Moving Forward Leadership podcast. It’s your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy, and welcome to the leadership podcast revolve around the 3 domains of leadership, and that is helping you as a leader, helping you lead your teams better, or helping you lead your organization better. And today, we are focusing on you, the leader, and helping you be a better leader yourself.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:19]:
That’s it. We’re all about leadership here, folks. All leaders, no bosses. That’s the mantra of moving forward leadership. So again, thanks for tuning in today. I got an awesome guest. She’s awesome. You guys are gonna love this show with Janelle.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:37]:
She’s a former USAF pilot. She would command a squadron. She has a TED talk. She basically broke the mold in military leadership in identifying and bringing in mindfulness, which as you’ll hear in our conversation, isn’t something you get in the military that often. So now she’s taken this to the world with her program, The Warrior’s Edge. So that’s why I brought her on. But before I hit play on this interview, which you are gonna absolutely love, just want to ask you one thing, and that is hit pause. When I say go, hit pause on this show.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:16]:
And what I want you to do is share this episode with that special female in your life. And maybe you’re a man, and that could be your wife, or you know what, maybe it’s a close friend, but someone who can relate to strong military background, character, mindfulness, and someone breaking the mold. So think of someone right now. Who fits that? Who you think would be interested in this episode with those things in mind? And when I say go, hit pause and share this episode with them and say, hey, listen along because I think you are going to like this. Ready? Go. Alright. Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:59]:
I think your person is going to love it. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. That’s it for me. I’m going to let you enjoy this conversation because Lord knows I did. So sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Janelle McAuley. Janelle, welcome to the Moving Forward Leadership Podcast. Great to have you here today.

Janelle McAuley [00:03:29]:
Awesome. I’m really excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:31]:
After the IT hurdles delays that we’ve had, we were finally here. I’m stoked to have you.

Janelle McAuley [00:03:38]:
Yes. I’m really excited to be here too. I know, how much, your time is valuable, so I appreciate you, taking the time to speak with me and having

Scott McCarthy [00:03:47]:
a Oh, yeah. Well, yours too. Right? So with that note, let’s dive in. Let’s go let’s go deep. Let’s go quick. Let’s talk about first off, why did you end up in USAF in the 1st place and becoming an officer, eventually becoming a squadron commander?

Janelle McAuley [00:04:06]:
Well, I grew up in Southern California, which has a lot of marine bases in that area. And I came from a family of public servants. So both my grandfather served in the marine corps starting in World War 2. In fact, one of my grandfathers was what they call a Mustang. So he served through all of the enlisted ranks, got to the level of e nine, and then he transitioned to the officer corps and then ended up retiring as lieutenant colonel. So he spent 30 plus years, in the military. And then my uncle also was a marine. He, was a helicopter pilot.

Janelle McAuley [00:04:42]:
In fact, he flew marine 1 for president Reagan. So during my childhood, you know, the marines were very present. My uncle flying the president when he would come into Southern California, we’d go meet him. So I got to meet president Reagan and got to kind of tour the helicopter. My uncle also used to take me to all the air shows. And so that kind of, like, started my interest, and those kinds of things. And around the same time, and I talk a little bit about this in my TED talk, my dad, who who is a police officer, used to tell everybody, this is, you know, back in the early eighties, that I was gonna grow up to be a submarine warfare commander or a combat pilot. And those jobs were off limits to women at the time.

Janelle McAuley [00:05:24]:
And, you know, I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize that society had put barriers on what I could do or be as a female. And so between my uncle and my grandfather and this exposure to the marine corps and flying airplanes and then my dad’s emphasis on being able to do whatever I wanted to do and accomplish anything I wanted to dream. I kind of found a path to doing the unconventional. I always knew that I didn’t wanna just graduate from high school and do something that everybody else was gonna do. I wanted to to do something different. I wanted to go away and have an adventure. And so I I got accepted to both the air force and the naval academy.

Janelle McAuley [00:06:06]:
Decided to go air force for multiple different reasons. One, to fly airplanes. And actually, my my family of marines kind of, persuaded me to go into the air force as well. My uncle had recently gotten back from Somalia, the conflict over there. And he had said, you know, the army is sleeping in tents. The navy, you know, we’re sleeping in they’re sleeping on ships and hot bunking it with the marine corps. Right? So they’re sharing sharing bunks, and rotating out. And then the air force is a nice air conditioned billets.

Janelle McAuley [00:06:41]:
Well, like, they take care of their people a lot better. Like, the quality of life is better. So I remember my uncle, you know, kind of saying that I think the Air Force might be the way to go. And so I ended up at the Air Force Academy and, wanted to fly airplanes. So I went off to grad school first and then pilot training, and then I never really looked back. I I’ve always been one that wants to try different things, do different things. And so the Air Force is a wonderful organization to do that. Under one company, basically, I was able to fly, like, 5 different aircraft, you know, deploy around the world, fly missions around the world, get highly educated.

Janelle McAuley [00:07:22]:
I have, you know, 2 master’s degrees or actually 3 master’s degrees and a PhD, and get to lead people. And so, you know, when I got to run international missions, I don’t know if you, read in my bio, but when Syria turned over their chemical weapons, I happened to be kind of at the right place at the right time and got sent to The Hague and pretty much negotiated with the Syrians and the Russians on behalf of the American government on the plan to how they would we would remove their chemical weapons. So I got to do a whole bunch of different unique things under one organization, which I thought was also just, you know, an adventure in and of itself. So anyway, yeah, I was, you know, Southern California beach girl. I twirled batons and was a cheerleader and did dance and gymnastics. And then here I was, like, traveling the world and flying airplanes and doing, you know, a lot of different things. So I think it’s a great demonstration that, you know, if you put your mind to anything and you put the work in, you have some talent and resourcing behind it. You know, each of us is capable of of really accomplishing whatever it is we want, in this life.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:34]:
That’s awesome. We we actually have a couple parallels. Right? I I don’t know if you recall or caught on that I’m actually still serving Canadian Army. So I did I’ve pretty much joined the same type of reasons. Well, similar reasons. It’s not the same. I didn’t have family in the military, but I just said, you know what? I wanna do something different. I wanna go somewhere different.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:54]:
So I applied to the Royal Military College, like your guys’ various colleges, and I got in. And I went to the one college where everybody was exactly the same. But that’s not here and over there. But still similar experiences all over the planet, doing all kinds of great things, helping train another Kuwait nation’s army in Afghanistan in 2009 to 2010, working with American forces side by side across the globe, doing evac operations, planning evac operations, all kinds of great things. But this is a leadership podcast. We’re gonna stick to that theme, or we’re gonna end up in a military specific podcast, but there’s something that we both share in common, and that is both the burden and the honor of commanding troops or air air personnel in your case. Right? So my last hard job was I was a army squadron commander, so or company commander in another terms of 200 members. You also have been a squadron commander or a unit commander, which is the next level up.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:52]:
So what are some of the key leadership lessons that you brought up that you take from that and that you can pass on to the audience?

Janelle McAuley [00:10:00]:
I think there are 2 aspects of leadership that are extremely critical. The first is authenticity, and the second is is innovation. And, they kind of go hand in hand in my eyes. Right? If you’re being authentic, that you’ll find a pathway to innovation. And I you know, leadership really is about pushing the envelope on, you know, the norm. Because we don’t grow, we don’t change, we don’t evolve both as human beings or as organizations unless we stress ourself a little bit, and we push against, you know, the boundaries of our potential. And, you know, learning how to do that as an individual is exceedingly difficult. And then translating that into leadership and getting your organization to do it is also a challenge.

Janelle McAuley [00:10:52]:
But I think that the leaders who have been the most effective, the leaders who make the biggest impact both on the people and on the mission are the ones that find, you know, that unique pathway. But it has to start with that authenticity. And I think a lot of people fear, you know, who they really are. And, you know, it’s much easier for a lot of leaders to just do things like their predecessor did or do things like the leaders they’ve had in the past. And I think that’s one thing that I’ve been, you know, good at throughout my career and then what I also help and consult and help other people do nowadays, with my current work is how do they find that authenticity for themselves and how do they use that as a valuable resource in their leadership to affect change, you know, build, strength and and growth, and then also, get the mission done.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:47]:
No. Those are definitely great lessons for sure, and ultimately getting the mission done. But and keep in mind your people and and strength and growth and all those things are hugely, hugely important for sure in everyday life. It doesn’t matter what type of job you are in. Now during your time, you’ve come up with this concept, the warrior’s edge. Where did this come from? Obviously, this is this has been inspired with your experiences in your career, but where what’s the backstory behind it?

Janelle McAuley [00:12:17]:
So my new program, Warriors Edge, which is a partnership with Pete Carroll, who’s a coach of the Seattle Seahawks, and doctor Mike Dravet, who’s a high performance sports psychologist. They helped, me kind of fine tune, the theory and the idea behind it. And what it is, it’s it’s a way, an elite mindset, high performance mindset training, to really help us train our minds for high stress and rugged environments. And also along the journey of exposure and experience in high stress and rugged environments, how to find joy and contentment in our life. Right? And that came out of really self necessity. That’s really where it was born from. You know, I operated in the military for about 13 years, very successful doing everything I was supposed to do, accomplishing great things and, you know, being at the top of my class, hitting all the boxes to be on the path for promotion and to to be a commander someday. However, I struggled.

Janelle McAuley [00:13:19]:
And in my day to day life, I was frankly miserable. I couldn’t see the joy in anything that I did. Most of the time when I would have some big accomplishment, I was so worried about what was happening next. I didn’t even enjoy the moment I was in, to actually kind of take pride in what I had accomplished up until then. That I was always waiting for the next thing to happen or worrying about, what was next, in life or on the to do list. And I realized shortly that that is no way to live. And I wasn’t being an effective leader that way, nor was I even at the time, I had a, you know, small child. My daughter was 2, 3 years old at the time, and I realized I’m not even being a really good mother, or wife.

Janelle McAuley [00:14:06]:
And so out of self necessity, right around that same time, the air force sent me back to school. And so I started kind of studying the concept of, like, self care and how that fit into servant leadership and how when I actually took care of myself and I use the analogy of an oxygen mask. Right? Like, flying in airplanes up to that point for, you know, 15, 16 years, I’d never translated that analogy of, like, hey, secure your oxygen mask before you take care of others into, you know, my everyday life and how I cared for my own well-being and my mindset so that I could be the best leader both at home and at work. And so, really, that’s what I studied that concept. And along the way, really what I focused on was how do you build and create for yourself, right, this badass human weapon system. So that I can be amazing when I’m out there in combat, but I can also be pretty darn amazing when I’m in the carpool lane and the stress is pretty intense, in that environment. And I realized the skill sets really are the same, and it really starts with how we train our minds. And so when I took command of my unit, I just finished my PhD.

Janelle McAuley [00:15:14]:
And as you can imagine, I wanted to go in there authentic, you know, teaching others what I had learned. But in the military environment, it’s a little scary. Right? Like, it’s scary to kind of, like, book the norm and to do something, especially what I was gonna do. Right? Teach people how to meditate, use the word love, like, you know, connect with the people that I led on a different level or a level that was not the norm for a military environment. And so I started just by being authentic and and doing me, being the leader that I I knew I needed to be, and that was true to myself and my guiding principles. And I tried not to push too much on to the organization. Right? Lead self, lead myself first. But what I found is that when you are doing things differently and it’s working, people respond to it.

Janelle McAuley [00:16:05]:
And so a lot of the folks that worked for me wanted to learn more about how I was not losing my, you know, you know, what on a daily basis when the stress was high, how I could stay fairly calm. How I was a single parent with 2 small children leading, you know, commanding a unit of 400 people and running 2 airfields, like, how I was keeping it all together. And, so they started asking me, and I started just teaching them, like, little things. But the real moment of change for me, taking it from self to teams and organizations was when I lost an airman. And, we had an individual who came back from a deployment and was in a really dark dark space, and he drank himself to death. And, I just remember thinking, gosh, if I had taught him the things that I had just learned. Right? How to train your mind, how to change your thoughts, especially when you’re under intense pressure and stress. If I could help him see the catastrophes, right, that he was building up inside his head weren’t real all the time.

Janelle McAuley [00:17:13]:
Right? The majority of the catastrophes we’re gonna experience in our life are the ones we create in our minds. They are going to feel very real. But the way our minds are so powerful at time travel, mental time travel, they can they can actually, our thoughts can be detrimental to how we perform and behave and make decision make and make decisions on a daily basis. And so after I lost that airman, I started to just get brave because I realized the pain of the fear I felt with challenging the status quo and bringing this to the forefront in my leadership was, not as bad as the pain of regret that I would feel had I lost someone else. So that’s kind of where it came from, and that was, like, the motivation for taking it kind of to the next level in my organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:00]:
I am so happy I asked that question because that’s such an amazing story. Wow. And and also sad the sad part of it. Losing losing a member is never never fun. There’s no nothing good about it regardless of the circumstances. I was lucky I didn’t lose any of my members. However, I I have lost friends in in theater. We did lose a unit member when I was over in theater.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:23]:
So this still the same pain still exists. Right? It’s still there. But it’s definitely tough when you’re when you’re the commander when you’re the squadron commander. I can only imagine. But you kind of hit at something that you were talking about. And that is, you know, bucking this the the norm. And I don’t disagree with you. It’s definitely difficult, especially in a military context to try to go outside that box because we’ve been taught since day 1 on basic training.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:47]:
You’re like, here’s the box. You go inside the box, you get smacked. Alright. You’re outside the box, get back in the box, black upside ahead. But then when you hit, like, our senior levels where I’m currently moving towards where you’ve been at, it’s almost what we need now. We need to push that box. And, like, does that box even exist anymore? Is it relevant anymore? Do we need to transform? And it I think it’s not even just as pertinent for military, but all organizations have cultures, and a lot of them don’t want that that pushing of the norm even if the norm is continuous pushing. Right? You’re expected to continue to push.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:24]:
Well, then you can even swing it to the other side of you becoming a leader showing up. Well, do we actually need to change every single day, guys? No. No. Let’s let’s tame that. Let’s not change today. Can we not change? So that would actually be seen as outside of the norm. So it’s tough. It’s definitely a tough position to be in.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:40]:
It’s it’s a tough task for leaders to grab and run with, but it seemed like you really ran with it. What I’d like to get into now is, you know, the nuts and bolts of of your warriors edge. What is it exactly? What does it consist of? What parts are there for it that are gonna help people? Obviously, there’s mind mindfulness meditation, but what are the you know, why that beneficial plus what else is included? Sometimes you have goals, but you know what? You have a hard time reaching them, and you just can’t figure out why. Why is it that you can’t achieve those things that you want to achieve? Maybe it’s dedication, maybe it’s motivation, maybe you have picked the right goals. So this is where I was not too long ago, and then I realized something. I’ve been developing the Power Goals program my entire life, and here it is now for you, where you can learn how to pick the right goals, figure out how to achieve those goals, how to stay on track, but most importantly how to get back on track when you get off. So are you ready? Are you ready to up your game and achieve those things that you’ve been meaning to achieve for so long now? Simply go to moving for leadership.comforward/power and learn more about the Power Goals program and achieve everything that you’ve been wanting to achieve. And now back to the show.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:17]:
What parts are there for it that are gonna help people? Obviously, there’s mind mindfulness meditation. But what are the you know, why is that beneficial plus what else is included?

Janelle McAuley [00:21:29]:
Yeah. The Warrior’s Edge course really is is rooted in scientific, research and evidence based practices of high performers. People who have tested, these types of concepts in alpha competitive environments, whether that’s the world of sports or the will world of, you know, a combat and elite military operations. And so we basically took our our combined experience plus our research background, both Mike, Pete, and I, and created Warrior’s Edge really to help individuals who struggle with, operating in those stressful and rugged environments and then coming back, right, to just be mundane and everyday. Because that’s a unique, it’s a unique profession. Right? People who operate under extreme stress, where lives are on the line or resources are on the line. It puts a lot of pressure on us. And what we’re finding, you know, in today’s world, we have such high rates of post traumatic stress as well as, you know, suicide and depression and different things for people who have worked and operated in those environments.

Janelle McAuley [00:22:44]:
And then, you know, either separate, retire, get out. And life comes to almost like a standstill. And so I really struggled myself, but also I saw a lot of other people struggle, to kind of balance rate or harmonize is kind of the word I like to use instead of balance. Because balance just comes, like, it gives us connotation that things need to be equal parts, and it’s really not about equal parts. It’s more about, like, how do you harmonize, like, the high stress environment with the low stress? How do you, how do you harmonize, you know, high performance with recovery? And so that’s something that we just never learned in the military. Right? And we start basic training with this, like, go go go, high stress. We’re gonna, like, rob you of sleep. We’re gonna, like, bang on your door.

Janelle McAuley [00:23:33]:
We’re gonna yell at you. We’re gonna indoctrinate you into this culture of operating under pressure, which is great. Right? That’s a sympathetic nervous system training. You know, we train our sympathetic nervous system to get comfortable in that environment. But what happens is many times we don’t know how to come down from it. We don’t know how to normalize from it. We don’t know we don’t understand what’s happening physiologically when we come home from a combat zone or we come back from a mission. And now all of a sudden we feel that same level of stress when we’re just engaging with our family members.

Janelle McAuley [00:24:04]:
And it tends to send people toward high risk behaviors, towards alcohol substance abuse. So that’s just kind of like identifying, I think, the problem, that exists. We don’t have what I think is a systemic solution for providing resourcing to individuals who operate in those environments. And so that’s really what Warrior’s Edge was built for is to kind of fill that gap, in a lot of these high stress occupations. So with the military, we like to, you know, as much as we train in that sympathetic nervous system, you know, that heightened sense of alert, we also with Warrior’s Edge are training you how to be comfortable and normalized in your parasympathetic system, your rest, restore, recover. Because it’s vitally important. If you look at some of the greatest athletes in the world, the people that have been able to have longevity in their app their athleticism, Serena Williams is a great example. Tom Brady, people who have who have pushed the envelope.

Janelle McAuley [00:25:02]:
They spend as much time recovering, right, and focusing on their mental space and recovering their body and their, the, their physiology as they do when they’re operating in peak performance. Vitally important. But it’s just not something we have put, emphasis on in some of these high stress, professions. So that’s what Warrior’s Edge is is built for. We have 18 different principles that we teach. So that we basically have decided or determined from our research that we can train actually mentally train 18 different principles of how our mind works. And so our course will take you through that. We have both live training, an 8 hour workshop that we will come to you, to your organization and teach.

Janelle McAuley [00:25:47]:
And it’s taught in teams of 2, an elite military operator and an Olympic athlete. And so we give kind of our experience of being on the world stage or in high stress combat environments and then how and that can relate, to their ability to perform at their jobs. And ultimately, the end result of Warrior’s Edge, right, we have the well, we have 8 hour workshop and then we have an 8 week digital course as well to scale it for large organizations. And at the end of the course, the idea is that you have built skill sets to enhance your performance and high stress and high pressure situations. But we also like to think that we’re building these mental pre hap skills. Right? The things that we know you’re going to need to be more mentally strong in experiencing and being exposed to combat environments and high stress and then being okay when you come back.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:41]:
That’s a lot of interesting stuff in there. And I really like the part about the rest. Right? The people who are peak performers, those who operate in high stress situations, you know, EMS, fire, police, military. You could even argue, like, stock workers. Heck, there are there’s there are, you know, ATCs, dentists. Old. Yeah. Actually, doctors, etcetera.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:06]:
You know, it’s all high stress. Entrepreneurs, right, high stress, high stress. And the world that we’re into today is all about hustle, grind, busy. Gotta be busy. Gotta be busy. But what you’re saying to me is, no. Actually, to be the best, you need to inverse that. You need to, as you said, not balance it, but harmonize it so that you actually can keep at your peak for longer, which which I think is the biggest takeaway here.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:35]:
Right? Through this through your principles, through your team principles, through your program is that you need to harmonize it so that you hit that longevity so that you can keep going for longer and continue to be at your peak, which and not crash and burn.

Janelle McAuley [00:27:50]:
Exactly. I think many people realize that hard work is part of the equation. They also realize that you have to have some talent and resourcing. And those two things alone will achieve you’ll achieve a level of of high performance. No doubt. But you’ll most likely hit a brick wall. It’ll happen at different points for different people. They have different abilities to sustain that hustle for a long time.

Janelle McAuley [00:28:14]:
But really, what I like to call the middle piece that we’re missing is, do you have command of your mindset along the journey? Because that’s where the sustainability comes in.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:25]:
So here at the podcast, I talk about leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization. I feel like you’ve hit across a little bit of all three there. So for the leader that’s listening right now and says, you know what? Maybe this could be beneficial to me. Maybe this could be beneficial to my individual team. Maybe this could be individual to my whole organization. What kind of benefits that person would or should should for foresee getting out of this program for them, themselves, their team, and their organization?

Janelle McAuley [00:29:01]:
So the order I would put things in is you have to know yourself to lead yourself and then to lead others. And when you’re leading others, that’s whether it’s your team, your organization, or even your family. Right? Because we’re leaders in our communities and our families. So it all starts with that know yourself piece. Because if you’re not secure in who you are, what guides you, what makes you you, how can you show up and be your best every day? Because I will tell you when the pressure is on you, and that pressure comes from a lot of different places for a lot of different people. It doesn’t necessarily even have to be a combat zone. It could just be the pressure of, like, you know, your office work and your, deadlines and your taskers and your to do list. Right? That can that can put a lot of pressure on us.

Janelle McAuley [00:29:44]:
When that pressure comes, if you are even questioning who you are, like, how you’re supposed to be on a day to day basis, you will be lost and you will definitely degrade your performance. And so that’s why I start with this know yourself piece, because I think it’s foundational to all the other aspects of leadership. Right? You can go to a class on trust and leadership. You can go to a class on, you know, how to lead in certain situations or just general leadership. All of that is great, but the foundational piece you have to do with the work in is to know yourself and then how you show up. Are you present in your leadership? Because you can’t be a good leader if you don’t know how to pay attention to what’s going on right in front of you. I think a great example I use is that, you know, we’ve all experienced a leader where you have something very personal you wanna share with them, something going on in your life. You walk into their office, and maybe they’re still typing on their computer as you’re telling them what’s going on in your life.

Janelle McAuley [00:30:46]:
Or maybe they even turn away from their computer, and they’re looking at you, but you can tell they’re looking through you. Right? Because their mind is going in another direction and they’re thinking about something else. The problem today is that that is not what any leader intends to do. Right? Like, I don’t say, hey. I want someone to come in my office. I’m not gonna pay attention to them. I want to pay attention to them. The problem is is that the way our minds work and research backs this up is that we mind wander half of our waking moments.

Janelle McAuley [00:31:15]:
So 50% of our day, we are not paying attention to what’s going on right in front of us. We are thinking we’re in mental time travel and thinking about other things. And so one key aspect of leadership is knowing when that’s happening to you. Right? Having an awareness about it, understanding and catching yourself before you start mind wandering and lose potential connection or trust being built between you and someone else, someone on your team. And so that’s why we have to do that work ourselves. Right? We have to figure out who we are. We have to figure out how we can be more present, how we can show up, pay attention, and focus more before we can actually start leading others leading teams, in my opinion. I think that has to be the foundational piece.

Scott McCarthy [00:31:59]:
I love that whole know yourself bit first, and I I preach that all the time here moving forward leadership. You gotta know who you are, what type of leader you are, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are so that you can, you know, offset your weaknesses, double down on your strengths, find team members to offset your weaknesses, and go like that go with that. So I think that is absolutely foundational, much like you. We’re we’re on the same wavelength here. So I like what I like what you’re putting now is basically what I’m saying. And I’m sure the audience definitely does too. Right? So we talked about all kinds of benefits, for a member, their team. You know, I can see this coming out of Teams.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:40]:
I can see how, this would still benefit even organizations. Because operating at your peak in today’s world is crucial because we’ll change so fast. Right?

Janelle McAuley [00:32:53]:
Mhmm.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:53]:
And be able to be at your peak and and not get flustered because one of the things you talked about earlier was how you were able to keep your cool during those stressful times. And as a leader, I always say I always told my guys, I’m like, no. You need to stay calm. You need to be that calming force within an organization, within your organization when the proverbial fecal matter hits the rotating object. Right?

Janelle McAuley [00:33:24]:
Exactly. Exactly. I always ask the question to a lot of the audiences I speak to, you know, how often is your boss the storm instead of the call in the storm? How many times are they the ones creating the storm? And almost everybody, you know, with their hand or and nods their head because they can all relate to how some some thing comes in, whether it’s like a late task or a phone call you get, like, we need this right now. And then instead of the boss being the calming force to say, hey, we got this. Here’s what we’re gonna focus on. This is what our priorities. The boss is the one that’s running and creating extra stress. I think we do a lot of that in the military today.

Janelle McAuley [00:34:02]:
We create our own churn that then, you know, turns into these huge balls and of stress that we do to ourselves. When at the at the top, right, with the at the leadership point, we could change, that direction very easily just by taking a couple deep breaths. You know, the way our, our mind works under stress many times is that, you know, when we get a stimulus. Right? Something that wants to get a reaction out of us. We immediately emotionally overreact.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:41]:
Right.

Janelle McAuley [00:34:41]:
Like, that is the human condition. Right? When we’re in those situations, we get stimulated, and then we wanna have that emotional overreaction most of the time. So the the actual antithesis to that is being able to slow down, get a rational response to whatever the stimulus is. But that’s not what the human body wants to do. Right? Like, it’s easier for us to just fly off the handle and have that reaction. We actually have to train ourselves to have that more calm, rational response. And a lot of people don’t realize that. They don’t realize, a, that it can be trained and, b, that they have control over it.

Janelle McAuley [00:35:17]:
And so, that’s a a big bulk of my work is to help people understand that while on the surface, it seems like you’re slowing down, you’re, you know, not in this, like, go go go busy, like, you know, high high demanding, type environment. That slowing down piece actually speeds up your ultimate performance.

Scott McCarthy [00:35:41]:
You I would, how can I phrase this? You’ve just immortalized the model of moving for leadership, and that is lead, don’t boss.

Janelle McAuley [00:35:53]:
And when

Scott McCarthy [00:35:53]:
you said boss, and you you described the first the storm showing up, that’s exactly how my vision of moving forward leadership is to take bosses and turn them into leaders. And that is exactly what, you know, one of those scenarios, one of the key corrugated scenarios is that boss showing up losing their mind and yelling and screaming. It’s like, no, that’s not how you operate. That’s not how you act as the leader. You need to inspire, you need to motivate, you need to trust your people, Empower them to get the job done. I think that’s a great segue to begin to wind us down because believe it or not, we’re actually hit already hitting up on time here, which is which is a good sign because it went fast. It means it’s a great show. Right?

Janelle McAuley [00:36:33]:
It did. It did. You know, real quick, I’m gonna, you talked about here’s a quick here’s a quick tip for some of your listeners too as a leader. So I did this, I did lots of different things to create connection. Right? Because I wanted to create presence, connection, trust, love, like, all those things within my unit. And one thing is I had a policy called no email Friday. And I just got sick of 5 days a week. You’re everybody’s constantly on their BlackBerrys answering emails.

Janelle McAuley [00:36:59]:
We’re at our desk chained, you know, doing lead leadership by email and and by meeting. And so Fridays were, like, no email, no meetings. It was a day for all of the leaders and throughout my organization, me included, to just be out and about with our people. Right? Like, understanding who they are, learning more about them, showing them how much we care, like, demonstrating that that organizational love that I think is so vitally important. And one of the greatest things about No Email Friday is that it empowered people. Because instead of sending me an email to ask me a question, they had to think through their problem. Right? And then so it was a way for me to empower them to make their own decisions. But the the the trick was is on Monday morning, I couldn’t act like the boss and get all mad at what they did.

Janelle McAuley [00:37:41]:
Because if I did, then they’re they’re not gonna be empowered anymore. Right? They’re gonna be too scared to make their own decisions. Instead, I would Monday morning either give them kudos if they were doing great things or it would be a learning experience. Right? Like a opportunity for me to say, hey, what did we learn from those, you know, different or or, mistakes that we made. And then you just keep building on that. Right? Because we talked about, you know, you need that to grow, as as a team and as individuals. So anyway, go like, if anyone wants to steal the idea of no email, no email, and no meeting Friday, like, it was a great leadership tool for empowerment and connection.

Scott McCarthy [00:38:18]:
I am putting that in my bank from when I become a unit commander of the things that I will likely, in my own way, put in place. I I actually have my own mental mentality around no email. Not no email Friday, but if I need to talk to somebody, and they’re in the same building as me, I do not send an email. I walk to their office. Yeah. Walk to their office. And that whole empowerment, you know, getting your people out. And I I’ve talked about this numbers of times on on the podcast is is, leadership force multiplier, getting out and walking about you know, in the Canadian army, you call it walking the lines, and I’m sure it’s in in your military, culture as much as mine is that leaders, from time to time, get out of your desk and go walk your lines, I e, whatever buildings you have, whatever area of responsibility you have, see your people, see what they’re doing, experience what they’re doing.

Scott McCarthy [00:39:10]:
I remember as a young platoon commander, I was underneath a 16 ton heavy truck changing oil with the troops, going out on tank hauls with with a with a tank on the back of a tractor trailer, moving snow with with heavy for heavy equipment and all this stuff. Doing one of my troops that I was doing it too. And that’s the type of actions you need to do as a leader so that you can have an understanding. You can build that trust. You, as you said, love your organization. So, no, that’s a great way to wind a showdown for sure. And, yes, it is in my bank of no email Friday. That’s that’s super neat.

Scott McCarthy [00:39:44]:
Before we do shut it down, I got a last couple of questions for you. And a lot and this question I ask all my guests here moving forward leadership, and that is to you, Janelle McAuley, what makes a great leader?

Janelle McAuley [00:39:58]:
Presence for me. You can be the greatest leader in the world, but if you can’t if you don’t understand how to pay attention, how to actually listen, and be present with the people that you’re leading and with your own performance on a day to day basis, I think you’re you’re missing out on the opportunity of reaching your true potential. Because I think it’s really found, like, path the pathway to that full potential, that sustainable high performance is present. It’s getting outside of your head. You know, we spend so much time, you know, trying to master this external environment around us. Like, that’s what most of us do a lot of times as leaders. But if we can learn to master the internal environment so that we can actually live present and be focused, calm. Right? And pay attention to what’s going on right in front of us, whether that’s with our families or with our team, it can amplify your ability to create an effective organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:41:06]:
That was such a great talk. They’re, like, tucked right in there just as what we just finished discussing. Boom. Right in there. Awesome. Janelle, this has been a fantastic conversation. I’m sure the audience wants wants to learn more. If they wanna learn more, they wanna follow you.

Scott McCarthy [00:41:18]:
They wanna know about your story. Where can they find you? Where can they find more about the program? Feel free to give yourself a shameless plug. Have at it. This is about you right now.

Janelle McAuley [00:41:27]:
Thank you. Yeah. I’m on all the social media platforms. I, you know, I talk a lot about Harmony and, our relationship with technology. So I have very healthy boundaries than a relationship with my social media, but I I am on there. You can find me on Instagram at mccauleyjc. I’m at janellemcauley on Twitter. I’m on LinkedIn.

Janelle McAuley [00:41:49]:
You can search me up on that, platform as well as on Facebook. I have a Facebook page. I tend to post, some of the latest and updated research, in the human performance space, mindset, mindfulness in particular. So, you’ll see a lot of that and hopefully inspire folks to kinda change just little things about their life to make their life and their leadership better. Warrior’s Edge, you can Google the Warrior’s Edge program. I also have a website janellmccauley.com. You can find my TED talk there, TEDx talk, and more information on Warrior’s Edge. If there are any folks that are either looking to amplify their mindset and their performance as an individual or through their organization that the Warrior’s Edge program is available, and I highly recommend it.

Janelle McAuley [00:42:32]:
But I love connecting with folks out there, answering questions, learning more about, their journey as well. So I I look forward to engaging with some of your listeners.

Scott McCarthy [00:42:42]:
Awesome. For the folks, as always, it’s easy for you guys. Just go moving for leadership.comforward/104104104, and all the links are in the show notes. Janelle, again, thanks for coming out. It’s been an honor. It’s been a pleasure. From one serving to a former server, thank you. Thank you for your service.

Scott McCarthy [00:42:59]:
It’s been an honor to serve with USAF, US forces side by side in multiple countries, so it’s awesome having a former service member on the show with me.

Janelle McAuley [00:43:08]:
Thank you so much. It was my pleasure to be with you, today and learn more about, you know, your service, and thank you for what you do in each and every day. This is a great platform to spread a great message.

Scott McCarthy [00:43:20]:
Awesome. Take care.

Janelle McAuley [00:43:21]:
Alright. You too.

Scott McCarthy [00:43:32]:
Alright, that’s all I got for you fine folks today. I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope you enjoyed the interview and most importantly, I hope you got something out of it. And if you did, remember r squared s squared, right? Right and review the show so that it gets a little bit noticed a bit more, but most importantly, I can help more people because that’s what I’m here for, that’s what my guests are here for is to help more people become better leaders and not being bosses, right? So remember that r squared rate in view. S, share the show. Share this show with someone who you think can relate to the podcast as a whole and today’s topic. And then finally, subscribe. Subscribe so that you never miss another episode and you can do that via your podcast playing app of choice through movingforwardleadership.comforward/subscribe.

Scott McCarthy [00:44:26]:
That’s it for today, ladies and gentlemen. And as always, stop bossing and start leading. Take care now.