Leadership Lessons from the 19th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, JoAnne Bass

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass shares her journey from a four-year enlistment to becoming the Air Force's highest-ranking enlisted leader, offering insights on resilience, professional development, and national defense. Her candid reflections reveal how personal growth, continuous learning, and community support create the foundation for effective leadership and sustainable service.

• Served 31 years in the Air Force before retiring as the 19th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force
• Originally enlisted for just 4 years to earn GI Bill benefits and pay off a Honda Civic
• Experienced the challenges of dual-military family life while raising two children
• Recognized her own resilience deficits after an exhausting command chief tour at Goodfellow AFB
• Learned that self-care isn't selfish but essential for sustainable leadership
• Emphasizes the importance of "strategic IQ" regarding national security challenges
• Believes America's military strength comes from empowering junior enlisted personnel
• Advocates for continuous learning with a goal to "learn something every day"
• Views mentorship as both formal and informal, with many mentors who never knew their impact
• Credits community support as crucial during challenging periods like family deployments
• Recommends balancing all resilience pillars: physical, mental, social, and spiritual

Connect with Chief JoBass on LinkedIn or Instagram @thejobass to learn more about her ongoing work supporting veterans and the broader military community.

https://mindforcepodcast.buzzsprout.com

Chapters

• 0:23 Introduction to Chief JoBass
• 3:32 From Four Years to Thirty-One
• 8:53 The Challenge of Military Reintegration
• 15:11 National Defense and Strategic IQ
• 21:44 Personal & Professional Development
• 35:35 Building Resilience Through Community
• 42:04 Final Takeaways on Self-Care

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:23

Hi everyone. I'm Nate Shearer, host of MindForce, where we take on love, life and learning because your mind matters. Today we have the 19th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force retired, of course, and today we'll be talking about resilience, development and national defense. So let's start with the easy stuff, the background. Let's start with a quick introduction. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, what do you do and what brings you here today.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Awesome. Okay, first off, nate, we're just going to have fun. I've never heard this very serious voice of you, and so we're going to have fun. You know, what I want to say first and foremost is thanks for having me on your podcast and also thanks for having a podcast and I say that because there's not a ton of folks that are currently active duty and somehow find it in their spare time to do so. But I always think it's a great thing because anytime we have an opportunity to share our voice and our influence to bring together community, it's just such a great thing. So thanks for having a podcast, thanks for having me on it. It's really an honor and a privilege.

Speaker 2: 1:31

So, joe Bass, many of our Air Force family probably know me. I had the honor and privilege of serving as your 19th Chief Master Sergeant in the Air Force, something that I never thought I would be in a million years, so we can talk about that later, but I took that role and responsibility very seriously, caring for the morale and welfare, training and just basically the care of over 689,000 total force airmen, also being the personal advisor to the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff. It was definitely an honor and a privilege and why I emphasize that the total force airman is. I used to always share with people that I'm not just the chief to the enlisted force. Like I care about our officer corps, I care about our civilians that are serving, and so I really did feel like that. That responsibility still fell on me to make sure that I was advocating and sharing the perspectives and helping to engage at that level. So that was what I did for a while.

Speaker 2: 2:35

I served in the Air Force for 31 years. I started off to do four quick years, get my GI Bill, figure out life and roll out. I tell people all the time that I only re-enlisted at the four-year mark because I had a Honda Civic to pay off At that time. I also met my amazing husband, army guy, at Fort Bragg, north Carolina, while I was stationed at Pope. We got married many moons ago and had two kiddos. So lived the dual military life where you feel like you don't have any time in the world because I'm giving it to the Air Force, he's giving it to the Army and we're somehow managing to raise two kiddos at the same time. Very active in our communities, always have been very focused on faith, family and the fellowship of the community that we've always been part of, and so, yeah, that's a little bit about me.

Speaker 1: 3:25

That's awesome. So you've since left the military. What are you up to now?

Speaker 2: 3:30

Yeah, I retired a little over a year ago and I am still in the space of kind of some things that I'm pretty passionate about, and we'll talk about three of those topics. But I'm pretty passionate about national security, I'm pretty passionate about people, and so when I retired I told myself that I will do, I'll make sure that whatever I do falls into kind of three bins, if you will Things that I love to do, things that I'm good at and things that make a difference, and so I love anything that has to do with national security and people, and so I'm still in that space advocating and influencing where I can. But I'm also pretty good with strategic advising, and so I'm doing some of that work on the academic side as well as with corporate America and then some public speaking as well.

Speaker 1: 4:22

That's awesome. I had Hope Skibitsky on the show and I had to ask her, so I got to ask you too what do you think was the most difficult thing about the transition?

Speaker 2: 4:33

For me it was probably the reintegration with your family. It's interesting for you know, I know the Army does this, the Air Force does it, not to, I think, the level we need to, but when we would deploy you'd come back and you'd go through some level of reintegration training. Well, I came off of, you know, serving as the Chief Master in the Air Force, which you know had me on the road about two to three weeks out of a month, just fast-paced and really not always being there with my family, and so going from that speed to I am home all the time. We had to do some reintegration training and it was just-in-time training where we had to learn what it was like to live together again, to communicate in ways that we hadn't been able to do before, and it was a great thing, don't get me wrong in ways that we hadn't been able to do before. And it was a great thing, don't get me wrong, but it was definitely. You know, we went through our storming, norming, performing stages to figure this thing out.

Speaker 1: 5:33

It makes sense and I wanted to thank you for coming on the show. I think the older I get, the more I realize time is the most precious commodity. I mean, we got money but all these things, but we never have enough time. So being able to take the time to help others, I think, is super noble and awesome that you're able to, you know, take time and help others. But we'll transition into the warmup. One thing I wanted to ask you was you talked with the Honda Civic. I'd heard that a couple of times before. What was the pivotal moment? If there was a single moment where you decided to dedicate your life to service and leadership in the Air Force, when did it switch from the car to? I'm all in.

Speaker 2: 6:09

You know there wasn't a singular moment that that happened, but I will tell you that it was probably around the eight year mark where I really joined the United States Air Force.

Speaker 2: 6:21

Right, I had, for the seven years prior I'd really been kind of renting and yeah, you know, things are cool and yeah, I'll re-enlist but it was probably about the eight-year mark after I had done a few deployments, after I started to learn that wearing our nation's uniform, wearing our nation's cloth, had way more to do than a GI Bill and a Honda Civic and I had also been part of some really amazing organizations. Those who know me know that one of my first soft units was the 24th Special Tactics Squadron and when you get to work with amazing, brave, courageous human beings, it is hard to ever just view life the same. These are, you know, people that we read about in our Air Force history and in our military history. And so it was probably about the eight year mark, after serving with those folks, after deploying with those folks, that I really started to know what it meant to serve and I was all in.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Yeah, that makes sense. Last couple of years ago I was participated in Trojan Footprint 24, which is the large soft exercise throughout Europe, and the professionalism and people being an expert at their craft there's just really nothing like that where a person is so dedicated, so all in After you know, sitting in the jock for a couple of weeks, it was super powerful to see everyone from their subject matter expert just being all in, which is super amazing. The main focus of this show mental health and mental fitness. Really trying to work on those things. I wanted to ask was there a specific time in your career that really shaped your approach to resilience? I feel like we use the word a lot. It's kind of a buzzword. How did you you know what shaped your approach to resilience?

Speaker 2: 8:08

So, interesting enough, I can remember the season that I was in where it just kind of, you know, hit me and I was, and I realized that I was a bit of a hypocrite because, although for years and years and years I would share with my fellow teammates, hey, we need to be resilient, you know, you've got to focus on your pillars, and the physical, the mental, social, spiritual. But I wasn't doing that the same, and that was a season of which I came off of my first command chief tour at Goodfellow Air Force Base. I was there for 18 months doing great things, but what nobody will ever know with that wing was it was wearing me out like just physically, mentally. The installation has such a strong mission of training our intelligence professionals and our joint firefighters. We were very active in the community, and so there were community events like two to three times a week. My husband, by the way, who was also active duty at the time, was stationed at what was called Fort Hood Texas back then, and so he's at Fort Hood Texas. We're a few hours away in San Angelo, we have two kiddos that are very active in school, but they're moving around like all military kids, and here I am in a position that requires a lot. So what was happening over that 18-month period is right. Like PT you'll kind of. You'll get to it when you get to it, because there's never enough time in the day, and your family you'll get to them when you get to them, like all the things.

Speaker 2: 9:44

And so when I PCSed and got orders out of Goodfellow, like I realized that man like I one I'm being a hypocrite because I'm not pouring into myself and my resiliency numbers, if you could look at them, I mean they were in the deficit. And so, by the way, when I PCSed from Goodfellow the assignment that I had, I almost retired on because I found out I was getting orders to the Pentagon and I was like, oh, this sucks, Like nobody wants to go to the Pentagon, you know. So I almost retired, except for I have a great husband who reminds me why we serve and why we do what we do. And so I PCS to the Pentagon and I realized there and I learned there how you really do have to pour into you.

Speaker 2: 10:30

First I had to learn that self-care was not a bad word and it's not selfish. And you know, being in a staff job in the Pentagon gave me an opportunity to take a bit of a knee where I didn't have the phone going off the hook and I didn't have events to go to all the time and I could just get back to center, balance and prioritizing my physical, mental, social and spiritual pillars. And when I learned that during my tour in the Pentagon man, it helped prep me for then the follow-on assignments that I would have and I would you know what I would say is it's always a daily challenge, but so much better than I was and now I'm actually pretty good at managing the margins.

Speaker 1: 11:23

That's awesome. Yeah, practice what you preach. It's tough, it's easier said than done, but you definitely got to do it. Before we jump into your three main pillars, I wanted to see if you had a question for me.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Hey, I love your focus on the mental fitness and the life stories, but tell me, here you are captain in the Air Force. Having had some pretty great experiences in the Air Force, what still keeps you ticking?

Speaker 1: 11:58

be the people and it's on the good and the bad. I mean, I know that's cliche and I feel like I'm overly cheesy sometimes, but I, I want to be there on your best day and I also want to be there on your worst day, and not that I want you to have your worst day, but I want there to be someone to stand beside you. I've been, you know, called out to DUI's domestic violence, things that are not fun things but I would rather be there than have no one be there. So I will be there and, uh, you know, get you through that difficult situation. Um, you know, I've handed babies from, you know, one parent to another, as they're going through no contact orders and you know different things that are going on. Um, I will be there, and that's one thing that's like super important to me. I do you know your initial feedback and I say like I'll be there when you call, and it's just something like I have to come through on that, because I've said that I've set that expectation, I've set that tone. So I've, you know, taken a jack out to someone when they have a flat tire out somewhere or something like that.

Speaker 1: 12:52

But I, you know, struggled through the first couple of years of you know my enlistment some bullying and hazing without getting into too much, and there was just things that didn't seem appropriate to me, I mean. So I want to correct some of those things. And one thing I'll share real quick, even though it's kind of a longer story, but I guess it gets at the core of this. My dad was sick stage four lung cancer was going to pass away. I'm out in Guam, I'm in the middle of the ocean. I have to get on an airplane and fly all the way around the world to get there before he passes. I luckily get there in time. I blew through the time zones.

Speaker 1: 13:25

But something that was super important to me was it wasn't until I got all the way back and I was able to stop and reflect because I had to walk out the door. I got the Red Cross notification. I got the Red Cross notification, I pack my bag there's one flight per day out of Guam and I leave. I don't even think about anything. When I get back, my house is swept, my dishes are put away.

Speaker 1: 13:43

Someone one of my coworkers put a drawing of my two dogs at the time on the fridge, like if I work for Amazon. If I work for Google, would they have kept my house alive? Absolutely, they would have kept the house standing. They wouldn't have let it burn to the ground. Would they have swept and mopped my floors? Would they put my dishes away so I could walk out and focus on the things that I needed to focus on? I don't buy it. I just don't think that's true, and so, being part of this team where something has been given to me and poured into me, I feel an ownership to you know, take care of others and continue to pour that out. That's probably more than you wanted.

Speaker 2: 14:19

Love it. These are the stories that people have to hear about how we take care of each other. So I love it, Nate, and I love that you realize that that's a big deal and we take that on because, you know, in some respects I sometimes see folks want to outsource leadership right and or push it to first surgeon responsibilities or somebody else's, but but that's all of our responsibilities, so thanks for sharing that.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Yeah, I think it's one of those important things. I think we kind of misconstrued it sometimes. Like you're not drinking buddies, you don't be best friends, but if I call, I need you to pick up my daughter from school because I can't get out of work or I need to drop my dog off. Like you're there. It doesn't mean we have the same exact likes. We, we like different stuff, we do different stuff when we get home, you know. But like, if I call or someone calls upon me, I'll be there. And I think that gets lost Like, oh, we gotta be best friends. Like no, that's not what I'm saying. You are there when needed. That is the important part. So your first main pillar is national defense. So you did a lot of things, had a lot of different positions. What do you think the biggest lessons you learned in addressing our current challenges in national defense?

Speaker 2: 15:27

Yeah, no-transcript, like where do you get to be the age where you get excited about national defense and or national security, like right here Again, 180 from who I was as a young airman. But I will tell you, you know and by the way, I don't think that I mentioned that I'm also an Army brat, and so for my entire life, essentially first you know, the first 18 years as an Army brat and then 31 years wearing the uniform myself I've spent my entire life as somebody in national security, right, like just that military aspect of it. And so you don't go from 31 years of wearing the uniform and then just saying, okay, cool, right, well, maybe I mean sometimes I was like, yeah, I'd love to like work at Walmart and just live my best life, right, but the reality is you've been focused on national defense for so long that it is significant. Again, I don't care if you serve four years, six years, eight years or 28 years, like to some degree. We have to remember that tie of why we do what we do and how significant it is that if our nation is not secure, do you hear that? By the way, just a little bit. This is embarrassing. This is my dog like crying. So we're going to need you not to cry. Let's go sit down, go sit, go sit. Sorry about that, nate Real life.

Speaker 2: 17:04

But back to why national defense is so serious for me, if our nation does not have a strong defense, does not have a strong military, is not able to deter, then what kind of nation will we be when you think about the ability to protect and guard our democracy like that all takes a strong military and it takes a strong defense, and so that's what we've been doing. What has really stood out for me within the past several years probably a decade or so more because, as a young NCO, I'm just trying to survive. I'm not necessarily meditating on national security or just trying to be a good boss and do whatever, but as I've served more and studied more and been in more ops, intel briefings and understood the current strategic environment and this very particular inflection point that we find ourselves in today where, while we have the strongest military in the world, we cannot avoid the fact that there are nations around us that just don't wish us goodwill, like we have to know that. We also have to know and understand the environment where we have geopolitical competitors in other nations that, quite frankly, are advancing and modernizing their ability to do the things that they want to do and perhaps disrupt kind of the peace and the global powers as they are. We have to be aware of that.

Speaker 2: 18:44

Talk about, you know, a topic, as brief as I can, that I talked about in the time I was in the seat as the chief master in the Air Force, you know, when General Brown hired me. One of the things that I shared with him is we have got to focus on the strategic IQ of our airmen, and what I mean by that is I don't need our E-Force to be stressed out about China, but I do need the entire force to be aware about China in particular and how fast China really has modernized. Certainly, we have other folks that we're paying attention to Russia, iran, north Korea, violent extremist organizations but if you actually study all of them and you study the speed and scale of which China has been focused on their national strategic objective, which is to become the world dominant power by 2049, if you actually study that and there's a lot that you can study on the unclassified side but if you study that, if you understand their Belt Road Initiative, if you understand their focus on feeling like they're.

Speaker 2: 19:52

In this century of humiliation, this 100-year marathon, you can't help but get very serious that our nation has got to continue to make sure that we are strong, that we are unified, that we are deterring and that we are able to make sure that our nation will be free for our children and their children and their children. And that again goes back to having a strong national defense. Again, I could talk for, by the way, like two hours straight on China, and either people are going to love it or they're going to turn it off. But again, there's several books behind me that are focused on this challenge that we have of what some people you know call our mere peer competitor. I argue that all day. I'm like they are our full-on competitor and their focus on becoming a world-dominant power by 2049, they realize that the only people standing in their way is us, and so we've got to take national defense seriously, and that means we have to again have a strong military that's able to deter.

Speaker 1: 21:05

Yeah, that makes sense. One thing I've kind of struggled with, and maybe you can shed some light on it, being prior contracting. I feel like our acquisition process is kind of slow and I know it's trickled down economics because we go, because we go small disadvantaged business owners and we try to do that. But I'm curious, from your standpoint, the slow acquisition timelines we have and then their long stare where they have goals, like you're saying, out to 2050 and things like that. How do we compete with that when they can direct things to make it happen and we're more in the capitalism and freedom and things like that. What advantages do we have to be able to combat some of these like long stare and, you know, kind of a slower acquisition process?

Speaker 2: 21:47

I wish I had an answer for you, I feel like for the last dozens of years. You know you have some really smart people who are trying to figure out how we can make this process better, and we're going to have to just figure out how to do it. I will say that we do have some initiatives and some authorities that have allowed us the ability to accelerate some things, especially as it relates to innovation and things like that. But we need to exercise those authorities a little bit more. Congress has given us some of those authorities. We, as a military, have to figure out how we default and exercise some of our authorities to expedite quicker. But I think we need everybody kind of in between, from your acquisition folks, your contracting folks and everybody in between to understand that and to think fast and figure these things out. So I would say yes, we have room to grow.

Speaker 2: 22:35

I don't know what the answer is other than we need our very smart folks in that area to figure some things out. I think there are some authorities and maybe there are some more that we need to get after. But here's the one thing While China is pretty fast in about getting after the things that they do, they don't have the same level of quality, like hands down. And the other thing that they don't have is the American spirit, and they don't have that American spirit. They don't have the quality. They don't have and when I say quality, I'm talking about quality of of weapon systems, to include the weapon systems that are human.

Speaker 2: 23:15

You know that you can't even compare and, by the way, again that your podcast isn't long enough for me to go in depth on why I can say these things with certainty, but but I can. You know we have, just as they have, folks that are studying us. We have folks that are studying them and if you read about you know just kind of from the people piece and and who they have serving in there. And when it comes to quality, we empower our most junior folks at the organizational level and we expect our 18, 19, 20, 21-year-olds to be trained and to be equipped and to be empowered to get after things. That is very different from any other military in the world, very different, like we are. The reason why our military is so strong is because of the non-commissioned officer corps, and so really it's that empowerment that we put on and the quality of people that we have is a reason why we're pretty squared away.

Speaker 1: 24:13

That makes sense. I'll try to sneak in a short story. I love stories. So I'm, I think, a senior airman at the time.

Speaker 1: 24:20

I'm up in the control tower and we have a visitor, because everyone loves to visit the tower, because you're 12 stories up and you've got a great view. And we have a DV from an Asian country I don't specifically remember which one and he comes up, doesn't speak English and he starts laughing. Doesn't speak english and he starts laughing and we're like okay, it's kind of weird, but we have to wait for him to talk to the translator and the translator like talk to us. And so we're like waiting for this. You know kind of awkwardness, like oh, what's going on? And he's looking around and finally it gets translated and it's you let your enlisted tell pilots what to do.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Nowhere in the world does enlisted controllers it's always an officer telling an officer what to do. They would never empower or allow an NCO to tell two airplanes not to hit each other. So always something that was super powerful to me. Like boom operators, I think of Millions of dollars of aircraft on either side, lives that are at stake if that boom goes the wrong way. And you're 18, 19. Like you said, just kind of wild. The last question I have in national defense for you what advice do you have for the next generation of leaders to inspire meaningful impact in defense?

Speaker 2: 25:25

You don't know what you don't know. And so what I would say is I think we need this generation to be curious and we need them to ask the tough questions and we need them to ask the questions about how this ties into the broader mission in the military Right, Like, again, as I mentioned earlier, I don't need every E-4 to be stressed out about China, but I need them to know about China and I need them to know about their mission and what that looks like. And hey, I was that NCO who, if my senior airman, was asking me a bunch of questions like tell me, chief, what does doing this flag record have to do with whatever? Right, Like there might be part of me that's like just do the flag record right. But then what you're doing is challenging me as an NCO to do the tie-in of why what they do matters. And I think when every single airman, whether it's a one Charlie troop or a personnel list or contracting or fuels doesn't matter, when every airman from every AFSC understands what they do as it relates to the overall mission, the better they're going to be right, Like, if they can't do that tie-in when we typically I'll just share real briefly, I always share with the public and leaders across our militaries that if you have not been to a basic training like, you have to go.

Speaker 2: 26:56

Just because basic training, by the way, is very different today than it was when I came in and it is really motivating Like these people are excited to join the military, they're motivated to become part of the 1% and become part of something great, and their commitment level is high when they're graduating basic training. Their commitment level, by the way, stays pretty high in tech training too. As long as they're graduating basic training, their commitment level, by the way, stays pretty high in tech training too, as long as they're training. When they're not training and we have them not gainfully employed and they can't see their purpose, that commitment level tends to drop right. And it's no different than when they go to their first duty stations.

Speaker 2: 27:34

You know, the ones who have the supervisor, who can tie in why all of this matters and why their training matters and why what they do every day matters, tend to stay committed. But if we don't ever do that, then you, then you grow a force that doesn't understand what they're tying into the mission is, and so they're not all in and that's what you know. That's kind of the charge that I would have. So to this next generation, be curious. Challenge your supervisors and your leaders to understand what your role is to the generation that is entrusted to lead the force. Like you owe it to figure out how to explain and translate and communicate what we do to your airmen.

Speaker 1: 28:16

Yeah, there's some powerful stories. You're really bringing out all the stories. I'm not trying to jump in all these, but I got another one. I met Travis at David Grant Medical Center or supporting them, I guess, in the contracting squadron, and I remember I was so excited to cross over into contracting hire, asvab. It's a highly desired career field. I'm like super excited. I'm like super excited.

Speaker 1: 28:37

But over the course of like a year or two I hear more people say all I do is fly a desk, all I do is fly a mouse, and I start to get kind of, you know, discouraged, like oh, it's just paper, and I start to lose that light, you know. And my daughter gets sick, my oldest, and we're not really sure what's going on. She's got a higher fever. We got to rush in.

Speaker 1: 28:55

We get into David Grant and they hook her up his machine and then, based on what comes out of the machine, they tell us kind of what's going on and that stress of the unknown of what's going on is all subsided, like you're still kind of worried, but you've been given information and you feel a little bit better. Then I glance up and realize I had bought that machine earlier in the year and instantly I thought of everyone else that was feeling that same feeling of uncertainty and stress the moms, the dads, the sisters, the brothers, whoever are bringing someone in, and get some level of you know certainty out of that. It's not just flying paper, it's that you know the larger machine. But if you don't see it or have that impact, like from then on out it's like never can I downplay it anymore. It's a larger machine and it's going on. So does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 29:43

That makes great sense. I say that all the time, in fact, you know, because I remember people are like oh, I'm just finance, you know what do I do? Let me tell you what you do. If you're not doing your job well, then I you know who might be in operations am stressed out about my finances, right? But if you're doing your job well as a finance professional or finance troop, then chances are you're making sure that I'm able to focus on the things that I need to focus on and do the things that I do.

Speaker 1: 30:11

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Move on to your second pillar, which is personal and professional development. What do you see as the key to continuous personal and professional development? What do you see as the key to continuous personal and professional development, especially in high-pressure environments?

Speaker 2: 30:25

Absolutely. Hey, one of the things that has been foundational to me as a chief master in the Air Force and even beyond, kind of one goal that I've always had is that I would learn something every day, and that's, by the way, still my goal, that I learn something every day and so I'm always trying to learn something new. If I hear a term from somebody that I've never heard before, I'll write that down and then I look it up later. And so you know, our ability to learn is going to be key from a national defense perspective, but also for our own self-gratification, and so that means that we have to be deliberate in our own journey of professional development and we ought to focus on just learning. And so the you know there's professional development courses that the Air Force or your organization is going to put you through, which is great and you have an opportunity there, but there's also professional development opportunities all around us, and so we have to really glean in, weigh in and take those opportunities when we see them.

Speaker 1: 31:34

Yeah, continue to always learn. I used to love how you used to highlight the books. Always some good stuff out of there. I've been reading the Daily Stoic for a couple of years now. I think I got it about the same time you did. Next question is what role does mentorship play in fostering development and growth in the military? I feel like mentorship coaching. You know terms. Again, sometimes it gets lost in translation. What does it truly mean?

Speaker 2: 32:00

So I agree with you that I think that sometimes it gets lost in translation. What does it truly mean? So I would agree with you that I think that sometimes it gets lost. But before I kind of answer that, if I can just share my experience with mentorship, because it started the minute I joined the military, what's pretty interesting is, you know, over 30 years ago when I joined that kind of makes me sound old.

Speaker 2: 32:18

Okay, let me, just, let me just when I joined the military, we didn't even talk about the word mentor. It just wasn't a thing. Like I'm serious, I don't remember us talking about mentorship until maybe the 2000s, right? And what does that mean? Like we didn't mentor each other, you know, in the 90s, absolutely we did, but it was just something that we did and it felt natural. It's somebody kind of put your supervisor putting their arm around you and saying, hey, I think you need to go to the first four or the five six council, or I think you need to do this or I think you might need to want to do that. So mentoring was happening all the time. We just didn't have this word for it.

Speaker 2: 32:59

When we started talking about mentoring, I'll be honest, I think we went into kind of a goofy stage. This is probably not any kind of academically correct right. I'm going to have a bunch of people who are frustrated with me, but I'm just going to say we went from not calling it a thing, but it happened and it was natural and organic to we called it a thing. And then it happened and it was natural and organic to we called it a thing, and then it got weird, because then you had people reaching out and saying, well, can you be my mentor? And then, right, like we say yes, and then we share with them some you know, negative feedback or counseling, and then they cancel you, right. So we've went through all these stages, but what I would say fundamentally is mentorship is needed by both the mentee and the mentor. I will say and I have a lot of random thoughts to it and I don't know if it's helpful and you'll have to figure out how to time together, but I think that reverse mentoring is a grand thing to the mentor, I used to always connect with those more junior than me so that I could learn something as a mentor on maybe what I need to know from those that are junior.

Speaker 2: 34:13

I think that you don't necessarily have to have a singular mentor. I had mentors throughout my career, many of them, and oh, by the way, they never knew, because it might have just been one area that I appreciated about this person Maybe it was the way that they communicated verbally and then maybe this other person I would watch from afar and I would appreciate how they seem to balance work and life, and so then they were mentoring me and they had no idea. So I had a lot of mentors throughout my career. They didn't know it, and getting mentorship sometimes takes active participation. Right, we have not, because we ask not, and so sometimes it's just a matter of asking advice from somebody and also being humble enough to be able to do so.

Speaker 1: 35:05

Yeah, that makes sense. It doesn't have to always be as formal as it has become. I think like there's a lot of informal. I think the same thing with leadership too. It's like I want to be a leader but I'm only a senior airman. It's like you can still lead.

Speaker 2: 35:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:19

I think some of those times we lose the words along the way. Your last pillar is resilience in leadership, and I love stories. I've shared a couple, so I'd love if you could share a story of overcoming a challenge that required immense personal or professional resilience.

Speaker 2: 35:36

Yeah, I will share with you that. Well, I think I shared with you my story about when I left Goodfellow and I realized the need to build my own resilience into my resilience as well, and I had to make sure that I was plussed up in kind of all of my pillars, because retirement and transitioning from something that you've done for over 30 years or even 20 years really does take a toll on just you know who am I, and so some of that really required for me to just pause, think, and had I not been strong physically, spiritually, socially and mentally, and had I not prepared myself before I even transitioned into retirement by making sure that those pillars were where they needed to be, I think I would have really struggled even more had I not focused and been very deliberate and proactive in resilience. I don't know if I shared with you you know kind of what you wanted in terms of a single incident, but I'll tell you that was one.

Speaker 1: 36:56

Yeah, I think we just kind of build up stuff along the way.

Speaker 1: 36:58

I've been kind of reflecting moving out to the UK and the year before that for 11 months I was at Hurlburt for a fellowship for the AFSOC medical planner and then before that I was in Japan and so just interesting, like you, got to figure out how to get the car registered in other country and I thought I kind of got it down in Japan and then I came over to the UK thinking it'd be be kind of the same and it's sort of the same but it's sort of different. And so just moving through those errands and chores I think kind of builds up that resilience in itself, even though it's smaller things and it's just errands and whatnot. But knowing that you can get through difficult times by continuing to push, I think is super important. So when you do have you know larger life things or things that happen to your family or whatnot, you know that you can press on and get through moving up an entire house and things like that. So I think it comes along the way.

Speaker 2: 37:46

Nate, I do. Actually, you made me think about a time, just briefly. I was a non-commissioned officer, might have been soon to be a senior NCO, but my husband, as I mentioned, served in the Army. He served for 27 years, retired, as an Army First Sergeant. He did five one-year deployments like five. That is a long time and, as I mentioned, we have two kiddos. And so here we are, stationed in North Carolina. I think I might have been an E-6, soon to to be E7, but stationed in North Carolina. He's deployed on one of his one-year tours and I had, I think at this time I had our second child and I remember feeling like it was always Groundhog Day, like, literally, husband's gone.

Speaker 2: 38:38

I'm sitting here every day taking two kiddos to daycare, driving, you know, 45 minutes into the office, you know working, picking up from daycare, rinse, repeat, over and over again. And there was a period after I don't know it might have been the eight month mark that I was driving home. It was a Friday and I'll never forget. I was like man, I feel like I'm getting depressed, like it just hit me. And I was like, whoa, like it, just like you're getting depressed. And so I had to reach out to community. My community like church, community, neighbors talk with them, get their help and through the community aspect of it, that social pillar, that is really how I pull myself out of that, just this interesting space that I was like. You're depressed, anyway.

Speaker 1: 39:32

It's a good reminder to ask for help. I think you know a lot of us A-type personality. You raise your right hand, you volunteer. You're kind of going to pull yourself up from your bootstraps, we've said for the longest time. But I'm glad you said that because anyone listening you know ask for help, reach out. Most people are going to be there to help you out. The last question in here what are strategies you found to be most effective in building resiliency, both in yourself and others, as you traveled around?

Speaker 2: 39:57

Well, I said one of them just now community, and others as you traveled around. Well, I said one of them just now community. Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough the power of the community, whether that's your neighbors, for me, church, community, and even the daycare. I'll never forget how important the daycare providers were to me. They're like you know, hey, we did your girl's hair because it looked like it needed to be done. Or, when I was deployed, my husband used, you know, the community to help take care of my girls, you know. So community is one of them.

Speaker 2: 40:31

The other thing that I would say, it is your team and the folks that are around you. Those were my accountability partners and, by the way, we PT'd together and so, because they were accountability partners, we PT'd together. They made sure that the physical aspects were strong. And then I would just say you know the other piece I might tie it into professional development, but it's how it's kind of the piece where you have to take an active part in trying to grow and learn, and in that growing and learning it'll take on different shapes. Right, it might be growing and learning in hobbies that you want to do, growing and learning and volunteering in the community, all sorts of things that can help you with your own resilience. There's not one right answer, but I think if you think about it in the terms of the pillars that we often talk about the physical, spiritual, social and mental then you'll be pretty strong, and those certainly is what helped ground me over my entire life.

Speaker 1: 41:36

Yeah, you gotta be well-rounded, keep it all together. Well, I'd like to bring all these different things together. So a final takeaway what do you think is the most important lesson you've learned about resilience, development and leadership that you'd like to share with the listeners?

Speaker 2: 42:03

got to take care of you, whether you're kind of entry level, starting your career, or whether you're somebody who's more experienced I might even share even more so, because you have a lot of people to pour out to. You can't do that. If you're empty yourself, don't feel bad about it, don't apologize, but all things in balance, right, like some people are like, well, I'm just thinking about myself. No, you're thinking about yourself so that you can again pour into those that are around you and you'll figure out that mix. But don't feel bad about it Because, again, for years and years and years, I used to feel guilty.

Speaker 2: 42:32

You know, sleeping too much. Oh, I don't want to. Really did do things in moderation and I very much. In addition to the self-care piece, what I would say is take care of one another. And, nate, you kind of started it off with that on why do you do what you do? I would say, as you're taking care of yourself, if you look out for your brothers and sisters to your right or left, and actually do you know what the good book says, which is take care of your neighbors. Like we need to get back to that.

Speaker 1: 43:07

Love thy neighbor Absolutely Well. Thank you, ma'am, for coming out. Where can people connect and learn more about you?

Speaker 2: 43:14

I am on LinkedIn, I am also on Instagram under the Jobass, so please do connect with me and if there's anything that I can ever do, let me know. But you know, I'm forever airman, I'm forever bleeding blue, forever focused on taking care of our veterans and the broader military community.

Speaker 1: 43:38

Absolutely. Just make sure you find the real one. She likes to be impersonated quite a bit. Well, that is. That's a wrap for the episode. If you found value in this, please let me know on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or YouTube. I'd love to hear from you. Please drop a review and, as always, I love you all. See ya. I love you all see ya, Thank you.