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How to Be a Fearless Leader with Carey Lohrenz

Lace Gilger
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In this interview, we dig into what it takes to be a fearless leader with the first-ever female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot in the U.S. Navy, Carey Lohrenz. We dig into fearless leadership, what it was like being a pioneer in her field, how she came over the many obstacles in her way, and the mindset you need to lead and succeed. 

Carey Lohrenz is a WSJ bestselling author, a CSP designated keynote speaker, teambuilding expert, and was the first female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot in the U.S. Navy. Carey has delivered Keynotes, Leadership Training, and Executive Coaching to both top Fortune 100 businesses, and associations. She is the author of “Fearless Leadership: High-Performance Lessons from the Flight Deck.” Carey has worked at developing senior executives & management teams for companies such as Cisco, AT&T, and State Farm Insurance.

  • How to go from being the first female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot to becoming a bestselling author. 

  • The typical day for an F-14 Tomcat Pilot and the unique challenges of being the first female F-14 Tomcat Pilot.

  • What it's like to fly over the ocean at night when your biggest fear in life is dark open water...

  • Defining Fearless Leadership.

  • What you can learn about leadership as a pilot.

  • Themes of sustainable leaders. 

  • Many people are put into leadership positions but then as time goes on patience wears thin, and their leadership skills begin to decline. 

  • How to prepare for your fears and face them head-on. 

    • People get mad at themselves for being afraid, but fear can often be a good thing. 

    • Many people think being brave or courageous means the absence of fear.

  • The keys to building a great culture for every type of team:

    • Be a great wingman

    • Trust

    • Get help with your blind spots – have open lines of communication built on trust

    • Hold each other accountable

  • How to handle failures and push yourself beyond your capacity.

  • How to assess the outcome of a situation and debrief yourself & your team to strive for continuous improvement:

    • What was supposed to happen?

    • What did happen?

    • Why was it different?

    • What can we learn from this?

    • How do we incorporate this next time?

  • In times of crisis, we need to focus on what we can control. 

  • Anxiety & strong emotions can inevitably creep up in times of stress caused by things we can’t control. 

  • How we can keep our sights on what we can do and what we can control.

  • Carey’s one daily habit or routine you can embrace that’s had a measurable impact on her life.

  • Homework: Take 3-5 minutes and carefully consider and reflect on what you can do right now that is under your span of control. 

    • When you shut down the news and social media what can you focus on, under your control, that will make your world a little bit better and make a difference or innovate? 

    • Name three things!

Thank you so much for listening!

Please SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE US A REVIEW on iTunes! (Click here for instructions on how to do that).

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Science of Success. Introducing your host, Matt Bodnar.

[0:00:12.1] AF: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Science of Success; the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the Internet with over five million downloads and listeners in over 100 countries, so you are in great company here today.

My name is Austin Fable and I’m excited to tell you about our interview today with Carey Lohrenz. Carey Lohrenz is not only a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, a designated and highly sought after keynote speaker, but she was also the first female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot in the US Navy. She's the author of Fearless Leadership: High-Performance Lessons from the Flight Deck. 

This was an incredible conversation. Carey is just a phenomenal and fascinating individual to begin with. We dig into a ton of the lessons from her book, how we can ourselves become fearless leaders, but also what the journey was like to becoming the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot in the US Navy, what the training was like for that, some of the mental setbacks and what it's like to really be a pioneer in her field. I know you're going to love it. It was a pleasure speaking to Carey and we're already in discussions to have her back on for a round two.

First before the interview, are you a fan of the show? If so, go to www.successpodcast.com today and sign up for our e-mail list. It's the best place to keep up to date with all of our brand new content, get exclusive content for our e-mail subscribers. When you sign up, we're going to send you our free course called Create Time For What Matters Most.

Now are you on the go, maybe you're at the gym? That's totally fine. Just text the word ‘smarter’, that's S-M-A-R-T-E-R to 44-222 today to get started.

Again, Carey was just an absolutely fascinating interview. I know you're going to get a lot out of it. She was just incredible to talk to. Without further ado, here's my interview with Carey Lohrenz.

[0:02:10.8] AF: Carey, welcome to the Science of Success.

[0:02:13.3] CL: Woo-hoo! Thanks for having me here.

[0:02:15.5] AF: You've got an incredible background. I mean, you've really done it all; from being the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot, to being a best-selling author. To start out, can you just share with the listeners a little bit more about you, your work and your journey thus far?

[0:02:29.9] CL: Oh, gosh. Yeah. I was super fortunate, timing being what it was to be selected as one of the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot. I was lucky to fly on and off of aircraft carriers around the world, day and night. After that, transitioned to both motherhood and being an author, keynote speaker. I coach Fortune 1, Fortune 500 companies and do lots of keynote events for those Fortune 1 and Fortune 500 companies around the world; not only helping them build their own individual leadership skills, but also how to grow and develop high-performing teams.

[0:03:06.6] AF: It's fascinating work and an incredibly fascinating background. I’m really looking forward to digging in today. I’m curious though, did you always know you wanted to be a pilot? I feel like, I’ve got a couple of friends, just a handful who are actually pilots right now in the Air Force and they seem like they were made for it. Was that the case for you, or was there a moment where you decided that you wanted to be a pilot?

[0:03:26.3] CL: I always knew from the beginning that I’d be an aviator. Flying was in my blood. My dad was a Marine Corps C-130 pilot and flew over in Vietnam. I’ve got an older brother who just a year older than me, we grew up playing with all of my dad's flight gear and he had bought this [inaudible 0:03:42.9] over in Japan and we had these bar stools that were, I don't know, some big wood things and we'd always tip them over and put all this flight gear on and pretend like we were in our airplanes with silk maps flying all over the place.

I think we both knew that somehow, we would be involved in aviation. That path is not always clear for really, for anybody. There was a bit more of a challenge for me, because there weren't a lot of female role models at all. At some point in time, I grew up in Wisconsin, and so every year we would go down and we would see – we would go to the EAA Air Show, which is one of the world's biggest air shows, and you see all these old airplanes and new airplanes and these old pilots and all of my dad's friends from the military would come in.

We were fortunate that we would always be able to sit around the edges and they'd start having their scotch, or their whiskey, or whatever and they'd start telling stories and their hands would start flying. It was so fascinating. Yet, even though I knew the wasps had flown in the 40s, nobody ever talked about it. There were really a few role models.

As I went through college and I was thinking about it, I was a rower in college and I’m like, “Well, how can I do this?” I only told a few people about my dream to fly, because when I was in school and I would mention, I’m considering this and I don't just want to be any old pilot. I want to be a naval aviator. People would be like, “Well, why do you want to do that? That's too hard.” It was like, I’d get my little dream stomped on right away, because nobody was familiar with it.

No matter who you are, or what it is you want to do, when you think you want to do something, you will always run into barriers about people telling you, “Why do you want to do this? Or I don't know, you don't seem – that doesn't seem like that might be a good fit for you.” You have to figure out what is that path going to look like, what is it going to take to get there, and then be willing to do the work, regardless of those barriers and obstacles.

It was a bit of a challenging path, but I went to the University of Wisconsin. There are only three ways you can become a naval aviator. You either go to the Naval Academy, earn a flying slot, go through an ROTC program at any college in the US and then get a flying slot out of that, that designation, or you do what I did, where you're a regular college graduate. I went through Aviation Officer Candidate School, which is essentially a 14-week program that takes you on this path from being a regular college graduate, to earning your Officer Commission.

It's 14, 16 weeks of non-stop academics, non-stop extreme physical training and just constant pressure, where they are trying to break you every single day. That's actually, it's cool because historically, it's the place where legends were made at AOCS. Neil Armstrong went through there, Buzz Aldrin, John McCain. A lot of history. It's a very, very intense extraordinary program that has one of the highest washout rates in all of the military training, because it's this extreme combination of drinking from a firehose of academics, physical training, discipline, all of this stuff. Then if you make it through there, then you're on your way to flight school.

[0:07:09.1] AF: Definitely not an easy path. Speaking candidly here, I think it's so incredible to hear, because you talk about these dreams you had as a kid and you never gave up on them and you always pursued them, despite the lack of female role models in the industry you were going for. Now you've really evolved and through your hard work and perseverance, you've really become that role model for people, young women that may have been, or may be just like you were, that have these dreams and they actually have somebody to look up to now that they can relate with.

Why do you think it is that you were one of the first female F-14 pilots? I’m just curious as to why this didn't happen sooner. What were the limitations behind it?

[0:07:49.8] CL: Well, there was a law in place that said women could not fly in combat. When women first started flying in the military in the late 70s, there was this law in place that said women could not fly in combat aircraft. It wasn't until the late 80s, some of those women who started kicking to open that door kept advocating for it and advocating relentlessly, because what we all know is that from a promotion and a leadership perspective, if you don't have combat service in some place checked, that you've checked that box, you are not as promotable as other people, which then puts an artificial choke point on that leadership promotion pipeline, which means you are never going to be represented, you're never going to have all the voices at the table.

There were these women ahead of me who did not have the opportunity, who relentlessly and at great risk to their careers, kept advocating for that to happen. It wasn't until April of 1993 that they completely lifted that combat exclusion ban. Because that happened actually while I was in flight school, I’ve gone through two years of flight school. The whole time I was in flight school, there was a ban on women in combat. But because I had performed well at every stage in flight school, I was able to select the jet pipeline.

You're graded for every single flight, every test that you take. Once you're in primary flight school, only about the top 10% get to choose the jet pipeline. Then them people are assigned propeller airplanes or helicopters. The pipeline keeps narrowing and you keep losing people by attrition every week, essentially, because of grades, or it's not a good fit.

Just about a month before I was scheduled to graduate and earn my wings from flight school was when they lifted this combat exclusion clause. Because of my grades, because of my class standing, I was able to after much ado and this would probably be a different podcast, I was able to put my top choices. Because of my class standing, I was awarded the F-14, which was super exciting. I mean, it was the world's premier fighter jet.

I am very clear on that there were women in the pipeline in the years prior to me that had that rule not then in place, it could have been them. Not only do I stand on the shoulders of those women who went right before me, but I will tell you had it not been for the wasps who flew over 2 million hours in World War II and then were told to, “Pack up your flight gear. We don't need you here. Go home,” that is what gives you, I think an extra percentage, or an extra bit of metal inside of you that you realize you are not here alone, and but for were not them flying in the 40s when they were told, “You're not good enough. You're women. Why are you not here?” But they were actually the ones who affected our capability to win World War II, I wouldn’t never had the opportunity. I want to be super clear on that that it wasn't because, oh, I’m so awesome and look at me, this is fantastic. I stand on the shoulders of the great people who went before me.

[0:11:20.6] AF: Yeah. I think you just put on a masterclass of really what I think is a perfect mindset when it comes to leadership and being humble and making sure that you appreciate those who may have paved some of the paths before you got there. Also, just the fact that you went through this rigorous, physical and mental training the whole time, not knowing if this ban was going to get lifted. Then just so happens a month before graduation, it does. But to be able to stay that physically and mentally dedicated and sharp, knowing that you might not even get your ultimate goal due to some, pardon my language, bullshit ban, but still pushing through, really I think that's how you find opportunity in life as you've had some uncertainty in front of you, which you did not let it affect your work ethic. You still continued to strive to be the best in your class and the universe opened itself up at the right time.

[0:12:10.9] CL: Absolutely. I’m not trying to be self-deprecating in any way, but I’ll tell you what, I showed up at AOCS, there are guys there who were aerospace engineers. There are guys there who ran Foreman at 32nd miles. They were like Greek Adonis's. They were built like brick houses. You look around and you're like, “Oh, my God. I’m never going to run a five-minute mile. I’m not going to be able to do whatever, 200 push-ups in two minutes.”

There are things I can do. What happens is that there are three personal elements that I really would drop anchor on, that I think anybody has the capacity to leverage and that is courage, tenacity and always operating with integrity. Those of us who when you're in the midst of it, when you're drowning, when you are doing – you're literally entering hour number two of doing jumping jacks non-stop, because somebody in your squad did something, maybe they flunked a test, maybe they dropped their rifle during drill, but your drill instructor is furious and you are doing two hours of jumping jacks and people are dropping like flies, if you think if at that point in time your only purpose or dream had been, “I want to fly fighters, or I want to serve my country and be a naval aviator,” that's probably not going to get you through.

You have to be able to have this flexible mindset that you keep this dream and this purpose and this goal deep within your heart, but where you in the present can focus on your span of control. What do I mean by that? You have to be able to understand in the depths of despair, in the depths of overwhelm what you can control, what I call your span of control. That means that instead of thinking, “Oh, this is way too hard. This is BS. This is not what I got my aerospace degree for.” You think, “I can do jumping jacks for 30 seconds. I’m going to do them for the next 30 seconds. I’m going to prove this guy wrong, that I don't care, that he can't beat the dream out of me just because this is hard.”

Because too often, what I think we see now is that people see this vision of success and they think, “I want that,” because as we were talking about offline earlier, it's the yellow Lambo, it's the big house, it's the position, it's the positional authority or their perception of power, but they haven't thought about the work that it's going to take to get there, and/or that it's your ability to focus on what matters and stay in the moment and make it that next five minutes, make it that next 15 minutes, make it to the end of the day and to be able to dig in and do the work when no one's watching you. It's critical and it is a step in the path of success that you cannot skip. If you do skip it, hand over heart I promise you, you're only going to be at the top of that mountain for a very short time.

[0:15:18.2] AF: Yeah, you can't skip the hard work. We had a great conversation before we started recording about all this. I think it reminds me of the world we live in now and you and I had a nice discussion on social media and what that really means for the world, but you hear all about these overnight successes. It gets a pretty common topic of conversation, but there really is no such thing, right?

I mean, you might hear about how this guy just came on the scene and boom, like all of a sudden, millions of downloads and they're everywhere, but you don't see – It reminds me the picture of Jeff Bezos in that small little office with Amazon spray-painted on a piece of cardboard. You don't see that. What you see is the Forbes’ richest man lists.

If you don't have that dedication to the work and like you said truly, believe in your heart and what you're doing, you're not going to get through the work. That's why so many people that post five social media posts and they want to become a CEO and famous, they get frustrated and they quit, because they don't actually – they want the title, they want the Lambo, but they don't have the ability to get down the dirt and do the work it requires.

[0:16:20.3] CL: That's right. It's this misperception of what work actually is, like we were talking yes, I’m on social media and up until the last couple of months, because we're obviously, we're recording during a pandemic, in my job, I was doing up to a 100 keynotes a year. I only share that for context. Because I was on the road and I have four kids. Because I was on the road a lot and as soon as I come home, I’m constantly – I’m on the phone texting my kids. I’m Facetiming, I’m managing all of these things, that's not where I put my effort. My effort is put on what can I do serving my clients to generate value, not worried about, “Oh, have I posted a great picture? How does this look? Ooh, people need to see my super awesome car.” I’m actually in the trenches doing the work.

My question for people when we think about success, it's easy to think it's come easy for other people. At the end of the day, I think everybody needs to determine a couple of things. First, what does success actually look like for you? Not for somebody else, not what you think it should look like, but for you? Then how bad do you want it? I would put that on a square and put that on Instagram, because I’ll give you a quick example.

Again, when I started flight school, I did not have the advantage of having an aerospace engineering degree, or a structural engineering degree or something like that. I was a psychology and social work major. I have been an international business major, but my first semester in college got off to a rough start. I had to make things up a little bit for my next semesters. I’ll give you a quick example. When I was starting flight school, and so you've already gone through AOCS and now you're combining with the people who went to the Naval Academy and were ROTC grads, the first morning of orientation at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, you walk into the hangar space. It smells like fuel. There are airplanes everywhere. There are all these smart, super fit people and it's exciting and it's intimidating and no different than Top Gun, everyone's looking around at who are the people, who are your competition, who are going to be your new best friends, who is going to make it through, right? Who's got the stuff? Who has the advantages? And I know it's going to be a lot of work.

People are, they're nervous, they're joking around, they're sweaty. In walks a Marine Corps aviator instructor pilot, a captain. He starts with all the niceties. He's his buff, built guy, welcome aboard. This is going to be exciting, yada, yada, yada. Then things took a turn. Because sitting on every desk is this stack of books that's, I don't know, a foot, a foot and a half high. He starts to tell us that, “Hey, look around, because in this stack of books, you are responsible for every word, every list, every procedure and you need to have this memorized soup-to-nuts in the next six weeks. Otherwise, you're going to wash out of the program. If you weren't able to drink from a firehose, this wasn't going to be for you.”

I am telling you, it was crickets in the room and everybody starts looking around. Then he starts to say, “And, what you also need to know is probably in the next few years, or by the time your career in aviation is done, a third of you will not be here. As in would no longer be with us, either through attrition, or by mishaps, by dying.”

I’ll tell you what, there were people in that room who were visibly shaken. In my end of the class, there were actually even a couple of people that that reality, the reality of the workload, the reality of the risk, it hit too close for home for some people. You had to ask yourself right then and there, do you have the courage in the tenacity to do the work and to grind it out at great risk? Do you actually have that?

Your mind is scrambling and yes, you've thought of these things, but now it's literally encapsulated in a foot, foot and a half tall stack of books right in front of you and understanding that a third of the people around you will not be here. What's that reality? Understanding what is it going to take?

People, there are all these books that have come out and some – a couple of them very, very good on grit in the last couple of years. What people don't tend to internalize, because it almost feels fluffy for some people or very accessible, I say this and you can beep this out if you want, but I’m like, don't forget that gritty rhymes with shitty, right? That's what that means. It doesn't mean, “Oh, it's hard and yes, I know what hard is.” It means it's not going to be fun.

The people who inevitably end up being successful, whether it's top-performing athletes, top-performing executives, top-performing parents realize that work that it's going to take and that each and every day, how you show up matters and what you are focusing on matters. That will ultimately determine what success looks like for you.

[0:21:39.2] AF: Yeah, I think it's such a powerful message and so many insights there in that story too. I mean, just the idea of a foot tall stack of books just gives me a little bit of a shiver down my spine in the first place.

The book is called of Fearless Leadership: High-Performance Lessons from the Flight Deck. You went through these three personal elements of courage, tenacity, integrity. I want to dig into courage a little bit. We've dug into fear many times on the show. I’m curious, how do you go about preparing for facing your own fears? Then also, if you could define courage a little bit, because I’ve seen people really who almost at times get mad at themselves for being afraid, right? They're like, “Oh, why am I so shaken up? I have the butterflies. What's going on with me?” But it's not always the absence of fear that really matters. How do you go about facing your fears and what does courage really mean to you?

[0:22:31.1] CL: Because it's actually the flipside of fear, it's the first vital element in fearless leadership, in not only leading yourself, but in leading other people. If you can cultivate courage in yourself, then you are going to have what it takes to see those limitless possibilities for your future and to tamp down the voices telling you that you can't do it, and whether those are internal or external.

It takes exercising this and understanding that the first step in any leader’s journey is accepting the fact that you are worthy of being a leader and that it's going to take you starting from where you are with what you've got and go where you want to go. All it takes is having that courage that just that momentary flash of enough to jump at the opportunity, or take action when the opportunity comes along.

Too often, I’ll hear people and this is at all levels of coaching, of guiding teams, of developing leadership on an individual skill set, as well as from teams. People think that leadership is a gift, right? That it's some innate gift that some are blessed more than others, which I’ll push back on. I think that's more charisma, because no matter what your role is in life, you all are engaged in, we all are engaged in leadership in some way. Stepping up and taking ownership and accountability of your leadership personally and your career is going to take courage.

If you shirk that responsibility or that opportunity, worried that you're not cut out for the role, or you're not ready yet, which is what I hear way more from women than men, you are going to pass up those chances to grow into a fearless leader. What I don't ever want people to think is when I’m talking about fearless leadership, that means you're going to be super comfortable, right? Like, “Hey, I’ve got this all figured out.”

No. What that means is you are going to feel sweaty, you're going to feel a lump in your throat, or a pit in your stomach, or even some verp coming up and that's okay, because if you don't, if you're not considering the possibility of failure, if you're not considering the risks, you’re crazy. You better be de-risking things, you better be thinking about that. You can darn well bet your bottom dollar that we do that as fighter pilots. We're not running around with our hair on fire. Well, sometimes we are, but we are high-performing, high risk managers.

Understanding that it takes courage to do that and it doesn't mean that you have to be brave all the time. It is about you summoning up the courage to be willing to step into the ring, be willing to go after it time and time again. That does not mean you have to be brave 100% of the time. It's in these tiny moments that we decide to take action, that will define whether or not we'll be successful and whether or not we'll be more courageous the next time. Because every time you choose to stare fear in the face, or stare that anxiety that you're feeling, that sweat, all those things that we just talked about, every time you do that, you feel that and you take action anyway, you build more strength, courage and confidence to go a little further next time.

[0:26:03.1] AF: So true. I want to dig into a little bit more of the de-risking and then the debriefing that I know you've talked about in the past. I also want to touch on tenacity real quick. Obviously, throughout your career, I’m sure you've hit different barriers that you've broken through and you mentioned that you hear, especially from women, you're not quite ready yet. Explain detail what tenacity means, because I can think of it and think it's just plow forward, move forward, move forward, move forward. I think of it in physical context a lot of times, but I imagine that there's some nuance that's nasty when it comes to treading new ground and doing things that haven't been done before and really breaking what are standard norms in any organization. What role does tenacity play and what's the nuance in that?

[0:26:46.8] CL: Tenacity is at the end of the day, it's just sticking to it even when it's hard. That's my very non-scientific, but working with high-performers Olympians, top executives, other people in military fields, that's what it boils down to. It boils down to sticking to it when it's even hard. If you think about courage, it takes courage for leaders of any stripe to think why not me and to go for it, but it takes tenacity once you've made that decision to keep pushing and keep striving and keep working hard, when the novelty of those first decisive moments wears off.

It's when that path ahead looks really bleak, or uncertain, or there are challenges and you keep running into roadblock after roadblock. Think of courage as that 20-second sprint, but tenacity is the five, six, seven-hour marathon, when you're the last one, when they're picking up the cones behind you, just waiting for you to stop. Yeah, and we all have, right, in some way, shape or form, maybe not at 26.1 miles, but at someplace in life.

It's about having that willingness to keep at it, because if you can't do that success in any way, shape or form, is not going to be possible. The more tenacious you become, the more you develop this bias for good judgment and action, you have to actually go out and do it. It's the doing it part that comes first.

When you learn to take action, even in situations where you're feeling stuck and frustrated and intimidated and you're facing what could feel like a searing unknown, you increase your ability to get through situations that demand commitment. I think we're at a time in place right now where for so many people, there's been this really clear path ahead. If I do this, then I know the next step is this. My little business workshop said just to do X, Y and Z and success will appear.

Right now and I’ve advocated this with the leaders that I’ve worked with and people have heard me speak before non-stop. Oftentimes this is also about finding a third way. This is not just about being stubborn, but finding a third way means you have to actively innovate and look for other ways to get done what needs to be done. This is about showing tenacity when you feel like giving up. If we're going to stay relevant, if we're going to stay successful and be able to bring people with us on this journey and serve our communities, our friends, our families, our clients, you're going to have to stick with it and do the hard work and be willing to grind it out and stay focused on what matters.

[0:29:46.0] AF: What's up, everybody? This is Austin Fable, producer and co-host of the Science of Success. This episode of the Science of Success is brought to you by the mobile app Best Fiends. That's best friends, but without the R. Best Fiends is honestly one of the best mobile games I've ever played. If you're looking for a truly fun and engaging way to pass the time while enjoying a great story, some awesome visuals, Best Fiends is absolutely for you.

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[0:31:27.9] AF: I love the idea of finding a third way. It reminds me of we interviewed a gentleman by the name of Alex Banayan, who wrote a book called The Third Door and it really exemplifies a lot of that too. It's full of really crazy stories. He hacked how to get on the price of right and do all these things, but his message was very similar. It's just that when traditional ways don't work, you need to get creative and find that third way to get things done.

So many people don't look for those new ways. It makes it even more impact if you bring business practices from one sector and apply them to another, all of a sudden it's like, “Oh, my God. You're a genius,” but really, it's just common sense in one area and not in other and you're just finding a new way.

[0:32:02.1] CL: One of the things that I always advocate for as well, I call it the 80% rule. What I mean by that is 80% is good enough and this isn't OpEx, or Lean or Six Sigma, not the Pareto 80% thing, but I want you to think that 80% is good enough for you to achieve a 100% of your dreams and goals. What do I mean by that?

Too often right now and again when it comes to even de-risking things, we think that we need everything to be perfect before we launch. We think we have to have our marketing campaign perfect, we think we need to have the perfect fitness regime, we think we're trying to de-risk everything to the point of perfection. Yet, I will share with you and our fast-moving environment and working in very challenging environments where things changed by the second going at Mach 2, yes, we've done all the planning, we've done all the preparation, we've done all the hard work, so that when change happens, when we can throw that well-made plan out the door, we know that 80% is good enough. We know enough, we have enough situational awareness and we know what success looks like, that we can adapt and adjust.

As long as we keep taking action and we keep learning and that is critical. The people who end up being successful, not as a flash in the pan, but over time, the people who remain relevant over time are the ones who have created within themselves and within their team. I don't care if it's teama 1 or teama 2, or teama 2,000 or teama 200,000, a culture of excellence and a culture of learning. If you are not willing to learn and if you think you have it all figured out and you think you're the shizzle, you are done.

[0:33:51.2] AF: I think the keep learning thing is just so huge. I mean, I think – I’ve said before, I think the – I guess, the best superpower a human can have is the ability to change one's thoughts and continue learning. To be able to pivot and take new action based on new information, or shift different beliefs.

You touched on a ton of things and I think inevitably, when you're pushing yourself, when you're being courageous, when you're being tenacious, you're going to fail oftentimes and learning from those failures is so important. If you could just drill down a little bit more and I believe I’ve heard you in the past call it the debriefing process, to make sure that you continue to learn from each experience. What's that look like?

[0:34:26.7] CL: Absolutely. I’ll try to boil it down into super easy and actionable items for our listeners today, because as fighter pilots, man, we need to keep things simple. We study the complex, we learn the complex, but when you're flying at the speed of sound, that's not where complexity can come into play, because you need to be very prepared and you need to be able to adapt.

This is a really dynamic process. It's accessible for everybody. It is what I call the prepare, perform and prevail. Three steps. Think of it in three steps. Prepare, at the beginning you are going to plan. We are going to bring people together, or ourselves if we're alone, we're going to bring people together, we're going to set up a plan, we're going to craft a plan to achieve and identify our mission objective.

In the middle part, so if you think of these as bookends; on the one side you have prepare, in the middle part you have execution. This is when we're actually doing things, right? We want that to be as boring as possible. We don't want to be firefighting. We don't want to be looking for the big saves. We actually want it to be boring.

At the end, after every flight, the thing that allowed us to be more successful than anybody else in the world is that we debrief. We come together, we analyze how things went and we figure out how we can do it better next time. The debrief is not about trying to figure out who's right. The debrief is trying to figure out what's right.

This is a place and boy, this is such a foot stomper, because there are so many people who could learn from this right now. Because again, this is where we need to be able to set our egos aside to figure out what's working. It's in the debrief that we quickly identify those things that are working and those things that are not, so that we can improve our performance for the next operation, for the next flight, the next afternoon very, very quickly.

The debrief is actually at what I would call the fighter pilots’ secret weapon to success. It is how we ensure high performance. I cannot think of a single flight in the military that I finished that we did not debrief, because it's your opportunity to learn. If you are not debriefing both your successes and your failures, you are leaving success to chance. Because if you're not debriefing after the things that went well, how are you going to replicate it? Because if you just high-five, hit the bar and tell each other that we’re awesome, how are you going to replicate that? Were you successful, because you got lucky, or because you are actually awesome? And/or are there a couple of things that we skirted on that, but we've identified it so that next time, we'll make sure to keep our eye out for this, so that that's not the thing that takes us down next time. Because our goal is obviously, to be successful, as well as to bring it everybody back safe and in one piece.

[0:37:40.3] AF: Yeah. I think it's just such a powerful thing to do and a great habit just in general, not only to debrief when you're being successful, but also when you failed, every experience should be followed by a debrief, just so it stays fresh and make sure that you actually learn from what you're doing. As opposed to just plowing forward blindly and hoping you strike gold again.

[0:37:58.4] CL: Absolutely. This is not a finger pointing session. I mean, sometimes obviously in the debrief, you can imagine with fighter pilots, there are a lot of egos involved, tempers can fly if things did not work well or go the way they were supposed to. However, it's always done with deference and with respect, because the goal is trying to figure out how do we quickly identify shortfalls or gaps in performance sooner than our competition is, so that we can be better next time.

When you're debriefing, by uncovering new opportunities faster, you and your team can become more agile, you can adapt and adjust to a rapidly changing marketplace faster than anybody else out there, which right now is critical, because if you can't do that, if you can't figure out how to adapt and adjust really quickly, you are not going to be in business and we have a very short opportunity to improve your ability to anticipate or make that decision to take action. It's a great tool. We're going to ask our self essentially five questions really quickly, what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, why were there differences, what can we learn and how do we incorporate that lesson into execution the next time?

We always end it on a high note. Always, always glad to be here, right? Okay, that was a brutal one, glad to be here. This is not about some Pollyannaish, BS, super motivational, “Oh, hey. Everything's awesome. So glad to be here. Tap into my dibbles.” No, because a positive attitude will not guarantee your success, but a negative attitude kills your ability to adapt. That is critical.

[0:39:44.6] AF: So critical. Carey, this has been a great conversation. You've been more than generous with your time and I want to make sure I’m respectful of it. I just have a couple of last rapid-fire questions and then I’ll give you back the rest of your day, but just thank you again not only for your service, but for your time today. It's just been such a great conversation, both on the air and off the air to get to know you a little bit.

[0:40:03.2] CL: Oh, gosh. I’m glad to be here. Thank you.

[0:40:05.8] AF: What is one daily habit or routine that you embrace that you think has had the most measurable impact on your life?

[0:40:14.9] CL: I am a huge post-it note fan. What I do is I net down the complicated into three things. Every day, I take a fat sharpie marker and I grab a post-it note. If I end up not having one of those available, I’ll write it on whatever, but stays visible; my top three most important things. Again, I’m a mom of four, I run a business, I’ve got a team and I have way too many things that need to be done on a daily basis for me to actually get done.

No different than what we did flying, what Top Gun does every day. Every day, I write down my flight plan for success. I try to figure out what is under my span of control and what are the top three things that if I focus on these three things, will move the needle faster than anything else. I will share with you that right now and in the – we're taping this in a time of a pandemic. Those things have changed. Right now, my top three things are essentially pretty much stay the same with rare exception, but a couple of things; family, fitness and finances. Those are my top three things right now.

Making sure my kids are on track. Because we're all on lockdown, I’m trying to get a workout in every day. Biggest stress manager and health protector thing that you can do is try to grab that sweaty workout. Then keeping an eye on what's happening with finances. If I keep those three things on track, then I know I can still be in service to my clients and providing value. If any one of those three things gets out of whack, I won't be able to have the impact that I’m hoping to make.

[0:42:10.7] AF: So true. I think those three things are something everybody should keep in mind all the time. I couldn't agree more on the workout front either. At least for me, I find with me in my circle, it all starts at least with that physical health. The mental follows that, but that big as you say, that sweaty workout really is what catalyzes most of the mental clarity and purpose behind most days.

[0:42:32.7] CL: Physiologically, it does wonders. There might be some people who are listening right now and I don't mean that if you're a woman, that you have to strive to be a size 6, or size 2, or any of that BS. Or if you're a guy you're like, “Oh, if I’m not in a 32 or 34, 36 pants, then I’m less than.” This has nothing to do with that.

I’ve been baking bread every day for the last three months, so I promise you, that's not my goal. It is that actually changing your physical state, getting sweaty, getting your heart rate up, doing some cardiovascular work, it lowers your cortisol levels, it increases your body's ability to fight off inflammation and stress and it does allow you to think more clearly. Which is why I get super irritated even with myself if I get distracted and throughout the day and now I said I’m trying to get a workout in at 6:00 at night, because I know it's not going to be as good. I know it's not. I’ve been thinking about it all day. Then I just get frustrated with myself.

I do think it's a big component. Again, you don't have to work out for 45 minutes. It doesn't need to be 90 minutes. I tell people, just start with 12. Shoot for 12 minutes. If you get to 12 minutes and you're like, “I literally can't do this anymore. I’m so maxed out.” You know what? You got 12 minutes in that you wouldn’t have gotten before. 12 minutes for me for – Usually if I’m like, “Ah, I’m going to work out for 45 minutes or whatever the case may be,” and I’m just like, “Oh, I can't do it. I can't do it. Now I’m in minute number eight and I’m still irritated.” Once I get to the minute number 12, then I’m like, “Yeah, I’m already here. I’m sweaty. Let's go.” That's a psychological thing, I guess. I don't know.

[0:44:06.8] AF: I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's a message we should be preaching a lot more. I mean, like you said, it's not about fitting into your size zero or your 32 inch waist. It's about just what it does for the rest of your mind. I mean, just the effects just compound on each other. I’m curious too, we talked about this. I gave you a heads up this was coming, but what is your favorite movie?

[0:44:27.0] CL: Hands-down, Top Gun. I am an unabashedly Top Gun fan. I have watched that movie so many times and I can tell you every place where there's a little disparity, or there's something that's not accurate, or somebody has sunglasses on and they shouldn't, or whatever. Even now, I mean, and I think they might have just taken it off. I don't know, because they haven't flown for three months. But Delta has had it on and I love the soundtrack. I’ll play it on flights, I’m trying to write, or answering e-mails and I’ll look up, the cinematography is awesome and I love the soundtrack. It's so awesome.

We were talking about this just for a second and why it also resonates with me, it came out when I was younger. What was so exciting for me when I got assigned to fly the F-14 Tomcat, I went out to Miramar. The senior guys, [inaudible 0:45:23.3] on the squadrons, in different squadrons, were the ones who did the flying there in that movie. Now you'd spy somebody across the – at the old club or wherever and they're like, “Oh, yeah. He flew in that scene, or different. You feel you're bumping shoulders with legends. It's just cool.

[0:45:41.8] AF: Highway to the danger zone. Yeah, when I turned 16 and first got a car, that was the soundtrack I was playing, which looking back on it, probably didn't help with speeding I did in high school.

[0:45:51.8] CL: No. You can't. If you cannot not speed when you're listening to that song, I don't know. I know that even now, I mean, and yeah, there are plenty other things that get you going, but that first, the initial lead into it, it's a baller soundtrack. It's awesome.

[0:46:05.6] AF: You know they're making a sequel, right?

[0:46:07.1] CL: I also have a couple of friends that have done some of the flying in that and I’m not going to kid you, hand over heart, and I do not cry easily. I’m a Midwestern stoic through and through. When I saw the trailer to that, I got all sweaty and I thought I was going to cry, because I know the cinematography is going to be amazing. I’m a little scared to see the movie, because I don't want them to jack up a storyline, but I’m super stoked, because I know the cinematography is going to be amazing.

When you've lost a lot of friends in that industry, in flying and who gave their lives, I’m just excited for it, because it's an honorable way to serve your country and it's just – I hope it's cool. I wish they'd make a scratch-and-sniff movie version, because anybody should be able to have that feeling of smelling the sweat and the jet fuel and all that. It's fantastic.

[0:47:01.1] AF: Well, with VR these days, you never know. We might not be too far. Also, Tom Cruise doesn't really seem to age, so he'll look probably pretty similar than what he did in the original.

[0:47:11.1] CL: Right. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't seem to age. I’ll tell you what though and this may be a little bit too much information, but if there was a VR version, I don't know that I would see it, because I think I’d probably throw up. I think they would be too much, because my body would think it was there and it's not and it would get all – my brain would get discombobulated. I’d probably just see it in regular theater.

[0:47:30.9] AF: There you go. That's probably what I would do too. Have the normal experience.

[0:47:39.4] AF: This episode of the Science of Success is brought to you by our friends at LinkedIn Jobs. To post a healthcare or essential service job for free, or if you're in another industry and having hiring needs, visit linked.com/success. That’s linkedin.com/success.

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[0:49:16.7] AF: Carey, you've been super generous with your time. I want to let you go after one last question though. If you could give our audience one piece of homework, something preferably they could do this week to start changing their lives, what would that homework be?

[0:49:30.3] CL: Here's what I would do, I’m going to give you just a tiny piece of science. Duke University did a study a few years ago that followed Generation X kids. What they discovered was that your ability to concentrate and to focus and to ignore distractions is the biggest predictor of success.

Here is what I would ask people to take three minutes, five minutes and to sit down and really carefully consider and reflect on. What can you do right now that is under your span of control? When you shut down social media, when you shut down the news, what can you focus on that is under your span of control, that will make your world a little bit better, or your ability to affect a change, find a job, make a difference, be able to be innovative, what can you do? What can you look at that's under your span of control? Name three things that you actually actively can take action on and go do them.

[0:50:45.5] AF: That's incredible piece of homework. We usually end most shows asking that question, but I think especially right now and obviously, like you said multiple times, we're in the middle of pandemic and I think we started off talking about taking control of the things that you actually can control. I think I see it even in my family unit and the people I’m interacting with, but right now there's so many things going on in the world we cannot control and we’re cooped up and we're tired of it and we're all starved for human attention. But which can lead to some negative emotions popping up and lead to some anger, some sadness and depression.

Really taking the time to do this homework you've just given and sitting down and thinking about what you can control to affect some outcome, to innovate, to make a difference is just so, so crucial in life in the first place, but even more so now in the time we find ourselves.

[0:51:37.5] CL: I appreciate that and I will share with you. This comes from that advice is not an off the cuff, hopefully this will work. This comes from over a decade of coaching leaders and I’ve seen and myself. I’m seeing again and again that frustration and that resignation that comes with that feeling of being out of control. When all of the research that I’ve done and I’m actually working on a second book that is titled Span of Control. and I do not mean this to be gratuitous, or sales pitchy in any way. It is because I so firmly believe that the concept of span of control can be life-changing. How you can navigate overwhelming change, how do you focus on what matters and how do you deal with pressure?

I believe in it so much that I mean, I have a little tattoo on the inside of my wrist with those three letters. It's like an emblem, SOC for Span of Control. So that when everything is going completely sideways, when you feel overwhelmed, when you feel nothing you do matters, take a breath and trust that you can figure it out, that you are not the exception.

If you can focus on what you can control, you can make a difference and you can keep your sanity in the midst of all of this chaos and change. I mean, I’m right there with you and hopefully, that's a very easy tool, or accessible tool. I shouldn't say easy. That will allow people to think about, “Okay, how can I navigate this change? How can I focus on what matters?” Take a breath, you're going to be okay, I promise you.

[0:53:22.5] AF: I love it so much. Let me go ahead and extend the opportunity. Should you choose to come back on the show when the next book comes out, we'd love to have another round two with you. I think it's such an important topic we could easily spend an hour just focusing on that.

For those who want to learn more, for those the ones who learn about your work, learn about your past, possibly reach out to interact with you in some way, where can we go to find you, your work and learn more?

[0:53:45.8] CL: Oh, thank you. At careylohrenz.com. C-A-R-E-Y-L-O-H-R-E-N-Z. I’m on Twitter, I’m on Instagram a little bit. I mess around usually in stories, especially when I’m on the road. You can find me on LinkedIn. My book is available at all – Fearless Leadership is available at all major booksellers and/or Amazon. Order from an indie, they'll love you for that.

[0:54:08.1] AF: There you go. Thank you so much for your time. You've been very, very generous with it. Your story is absolutely incredible. You're a role model for so many out there and just thank you for all the work that you've done, that you're continuing to do and thank you for the time coming on the show. It was great to have you.

[0:54:23.4] CL: Oh, it's been a privilege. Thank you for the invitation. I really appreciate you and the work that you're doing and the message. It's so important. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[0:54:31.6] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story, or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My e-mail is matt@successpodcast.com. That’s M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener e-mail.

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