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- [00:00]
A
My 1 favorite key to success is forge. You're moving, you're applying heat, you're applying drive, you're applying grit, you're applying determination. Forge ahead. Never become stagnant. The day that you become stagnant is almost as bad as the day that you stop learning. Because the day you stop learning, you need to retire from whatever endeavor you are in because you've just become dangerous. Dr. Joel Smith is a battle tested, disciplined and transformational leadership expert, executive coach and former US army aviator who helps CEOs and high performing leaders lead with clarity and purpose. Love your people intentionally. I like to teach them to notice, to nourish, and to navigate. You came in the room. We came in the room. How did you arrive? It's not. What mode of transportation did you arrive in? What was your headspace? Were you happy? Were you sad? When you as a leader can pick up on the vibe of your people, you can get ahead of a lot of things. I've had many, many suicide cases and I've lost friends and I've lost soldiers. There were things that you absolutely noticed. But did we take the time to nourish?
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B
Spans the globe like a super high cold Internet El.
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A
Ready? All right. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the it's not over until I win the Living your Legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy that's extraordinary. The impossible has been. Oh, that is sensational. Jordan Open Chicago with the lead. You said ball is the bus.
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B
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Living youg Legacy podcast. I'm your host for today, Jason Tyler, and I am joined by Dr. Joel Smith. Welcome to the show, Doc. How you feeling?
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A
Thank you so very much for having me. I am ecstatic. I'm happy.
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B
I love the good energy, the good vibes. The good vibes. Now you just finished recording your episode. What would you say is like the number one lesson you want people to be able to take away from your story?
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A
My three Ps, my three P framework, people, purpose and perseverance. To love your people selflessly, to selflessly provide vision and purpose and to lead them through with perseverance.
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B
Man, Kofi was not lying. You got bars, man. I was not prepared for that. I don't know if you saw it. I was taken aback a little bit. So I want. This is the audience's first time getting to know you. Okay, give me a little bit of your background, your story. What brings the Dr. Joel that is in front of me today? How do we get from a young Joel to the One sitting here today.
- [03:02]
A
We gonna do some sound bites for this one. Born on Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee, right outside the bay. Small neighborhood called Birchwood Estates. Predominantly African American military families. Very athletic, very much in everything. Father was a soldier, mother was educated. First African American teacher on Fort Campbell. So if you know anything about growing up in a house full of educators.
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B
Yeah, I do, I do a little.
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A
It's not.
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B
My pops was one of them.
- [03:32]
A
Non negotiable at his best. So any homework that wasn't legible, that she couldn't read, she would just tear it up. You couldn't copy it and and redo it. You had to start over from scratch. So you learned to get it right the first thing. Grew up, like I said, in Birchwood, which was just outside of Fort Campbell. So on one side of me was Fort Campbell, which had the military helicopters. On the other side of me was Outlaw Field, which was the small civilian airport. So I grew up knowing from second grade, just laying out in the yard that I always wanted to be a pilot. Took my first flight at the controls at the age of 16. My degree was in aerospace, my backlit degree was in aerospace. Joined the military, became a pilot for the military, flying attack helicopters, little birds, all those kind of fun things. Also flew military intelligence airframes. Did 32 years in the military. Came out of the military. Started off with United Express. Mm covet. Went to Atlas, flying Amazon Prime, Covid in back to United, flying jumbos out of Dulles, primarily South America and Europe. Lost my medical due to multiple surgeries, due to 32 years in the military. Had a challenge finding my own identity because like I said, all I ever wanted to do was fly. My spouse and my coach, Sean Rice helped me to understand that I was more than just a pilot. The many years teaching aviation, teaching engagements, the combat tours, the operational deployments, I had a vein into the leadership spectrum that was unlike any of the others. So bringing my 3P framework to the table from that is where we got to where we are today. The Wolfpack leadership initiative was based off of my first stateside unit, which was The Wolf Pack, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 82nd Airborne Division. Always had an affinity for wolves. Rudyard Kipling, the Jungle Book. The strength of the pack is the wolf. The strength of the wolf is the pack. Folks who always mess with me. Lions and tigers and bears are bigger and more powerful. I said, but the wolf doesn't perform in the circus.
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B
I know that's right.
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A
Hold on, hold on. Yes, family oriented. The Breeding pair, the family, the. The pack in itself, they. They take care of their young, they take care of the elderly. Everybody has a role in the hunt. Whether you're hurting, whether you're taking them down, whether you're watching the rear or the front to make sure nothing gets away. The family unit. So that's what the wolf pack.
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B
Because human beings, as humans, we are communal animals very much. Right. And I feel like, and I'd love to get your perspective on this, I feel like our major drawback in society right now is that technology is kind of pushing us, trying to nudge us in the direction of being individuals, where we are naturally have a tendency to lean towards being more communal animals. Would you say that's correct?
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A
I would agree not only to becoming individuals, but becoming inherently dependent upon technology. AI, for instance, you know, if you look at it from Chat GPT to Gemini to Claude to the many others that are out there, you can basically write emails, get your virtual assistant to answer your emails, answer phone calls, do everything, and you do absolutely nothing. So the human element is being removed. But as I teach clients and I teach my kids and students and all the above, AI can't feel there's that emotional intelligence that is missing from AI. You can train it up to the best of your ability, but it still can't feel in the moment.
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B
It's funny because as we move, as we try to push, push, push in the direction and in the name of efficiency, you try to get an individual person to do the work of a team. And on the one hand, you might see it as a virtue for one person to be able to do all of these different things. Do the emails, do the backend, do the marketing, do the creative, do all of these different things. It's honestly impressive to see one person be able to handle all those things. But what you lose is the. The ability to work within a community, work within a team and build relationships. I think that's one of the main things that we are kind of looking at. We're looking around right now, myself included, we're looking around right now and we're saying, I'm missing something and I don't know what it is. And in the reality is we're missing the community. We're missing being able to look to our left and our right and know that these are our brothers in arms. That's. You know, there's an interesting dichotomy in your story, and I don't know if maybe you might have covered this in your episode, by the way, if you guys are still tuned in at this point. Make sure you check out Dr. Joel's episode, which will be coming out shortly after this podcast, Shameless Plug. But there's an interesting dichotomy in that, you know, your parents had both the military route and the educator route, and you did your. You went through your 32 years in the military, and then on the other side of that, now you're. You're. You've gone to the other side and become an educator.
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A
Yes.
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B
And I think that's so interesting. What do you say to those out there who are seeking that community but don't know where to find it?
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To back you up, I've been an educator the entire time because part of my job in the military was as an instructor, standardization instructor, pilot, meaning I taught other instructors, but I was an instructor instrument examiner. So I was always teaching. But the one thing that I would say that is missing, that we all need is love. And say love in the acronym sense, and I'll give you three for each letter.
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B
The. The. The bar is about to come out again. Yes, sir.
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A
Love. First listen. Own value and power. Love. Lead, Open, verify, elevate, love, learn, observe, validate, engage. All of that speaks to communication. Vulnerability, authenticity, recognition. The things that we as humans thrive on need. We're communal, as you said. We need that. I need to be recognized for certain things. I need to have effective communication. I need that vulnerable space. And most importantly, I have to be authentic in all of it.
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B
Mm. And those are things that, like, you can't. You're not going to see those on a spreadsheet. You're not going to see those on a spreadsheet. And, you know, efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. We try to optimize for things, but those are the things where. Those are those things, the intangibles are where purpose is found in my.
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My.
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In my estimation. Like, when you're doing the work and you're. You're being this individual that's able to do all of these different things. I find oftentimes what you'll start to look for is a sense of purpose.
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A
Absolutely.
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And I think that's exactly where you find it is in the learning, the observing, the validation, the empowerment, being able to empower another human being, being able to encourage another human being, being able to be empowered and encouraged by those that you're sharing space with. I think that's where that sense of purpose comes from, and that's what people are missing.
- [11:36]
A
When we look at business versus just a regular relationship, we have to understand that People are line items. They're actually our lifeline. They're our heartbeat. Without a heartbeat, we die. So love your people intentionally sleep. I like to teach them to notice, to nourish, and to navigate. Notice them. I know you came in the room. We came in the room. How did you arrive? It's not. What mode of transportation did you arrive in? What was your headspace? Were you happy? Were you sad? When you as a leader can pick up on the vibe of your people, you can get ahead of a lot of things. I've had many, many suicide cases that I've lost friends, and I've lost soldiers, and I've lost people. Did I notice them? There were things that you absolutely noticed. But did we take the time to nourish them? Hey, you look a little off today. What's going on? Not that I have to jump up and down on your neck and shoulders immediately, but you've been an. A performer. You're off. Let's go get a cup of coffee and sit down.
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B
That's the biggest thing. I think sometimes it's as simple as
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A
noticing,
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just being able to say, hey, let's go grab some coffee. A simple gesture can go such a long way. I usually do these pods a lot more structured, a lot more just, you know, I have, like a list of questions that I have in my head before I even go into them. But I find this to be a much more conversational pod. I want to get your take on, you know, you grew up with a lot of structure.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
What is for, you know, our audience, they're very entrepreneurial, they're very business minded. What is your sort of take on structure and systems as it pertains to, you know, organizations? Right. Because at the end of the day when we talk, we're here talking about being communal animals. Structure. Structuring an organization is structuring a community of people that all want to go to the same place. I had a business partner of mine a couple of years ago, and I told him, we both have the same destination in mind. Why don't we just carpool? And so what's your take on structure and being able to implement systems to take people to that destination that we as a community all want to go to.
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A
Structure and systems are paramount, but only if they're adaptable. If they become so rigid that you can't flex left or right, you're going to do that, what I like to call Thelma and Louise, and just go right off the cliff because your emotions are going to get involved and A good friend of mine always told me, his brother named Mike Dorsey, he would say emotions are great passengers, but they're terrible drivers. And he's done the truth. You know, you need to have them. We need to have those conversations, those hard conversations. Sometimes we need to have those love conversations. Sometimes we need to understand. You have a job, I have a job. But our destination is the same.
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B
Mm.
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A
How are we going to get there together? I don't want to get there behind you. I don't want to get there so far in front of you. I want to us to arrive together so that we can push this thing forward. Well, if our emotions get too tangled in, in this, the process, you know, we fool around, drive ourselves right off the cliff because we're bickering.
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B
Mm.
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A
It's good to have them, but they're great passengers. I don't need them behind the wheel.
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B
My father is. He's a psychologist. And, you know, I, I grew up my entire life. You know, we have this huge psychology library in the house. And so I grew up around a lot of that. And he had this. There was a book that he read that he really loves, and he implemented it in his strategy. And it goes over this concept you have. Every person has the human, the chimp, and the computer. The human is you. That's your decision making frameworks. The chimp is your emotional center of your brain. The chimp is on your shoulder telling you, I don't like the way he looking at me. I. I don't. I don't like the way that person talked to me. I don't think I'm out. Or if you're an athlete. My dad works with a lot of athletes. It'll tell you, oh, yeah, I don't think you're ready for this. I don't think we trained enough. That's the emotional center of the brain. Terrible driver. And to your point, you should never let the chimp drive at all. The whole purpose of what my dad does is to get people to tell their chimp to shut the hell up sometimes. And then you have the computer, which in athletics, this is what you've trained your body to do. So, for example, Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt trained his body to run those times the chimp might have told him the day of, hey, I don't think we're going to be able to make that best time today. But the computer had already been programmed to do the work, so he got the chimp out of there. And you'll notice before every race where he ran an amazing time or set a world record. He's smiling. The negative emotional center of his brain turned off. I'm out here to have fun. I enjoy this. I get to do this. I don't have to do it. I think that's a. That's a huge, huge part. And, guys, if you're still tuned in at this point, again, I just want to reiterate, make sure that you check out Dr. Joel's episode. It'll be coming out shortly after this podcast airs for the audience. Doc, I always ask this towards, you know, as we kind of wind down the pod, what would be your one. You know, we're here at Inside Success. What is your one key tip for success?
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A
I have so many of them, but my one favorite key to success is forge. Forge. Just. Just the verb.
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B
Forge.
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A
You're moving, you're applying heat, you're applying drive, you're applying grit, you're applying determination. Forge ahead. Never become stagnant. The day that you become stagnant is almost as bad as the day that you stop learning. Because day you stop learning, you need to retire from whatever endeavor you're in because you've just become dangerous when you know it all and you can no longer learn. You're a dangerous creature.
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B
I Forge ahead. I totally agree. I totally agree. Doc, it has been an immense pleasure having you on the show. Thank you again so much, so very
- [18:48]
A
much for having me.
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B
This is probably one of my favorite episodes that I've done so far. There's a million dollars worth of game in this episode, so if you're still tuned in, you're welcome. Again, this has been another incredible episode of the Living youg Legacy podcast. And, Doc, where can people find you on social media, on the Internet?
- [19:10]
A
Where's.
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B
Where are you located?
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A
My website is thejolsmith.com. i've got a school account which will be the Wolfpack Leadership Academy. I'm getting ready to do a webinar here. Within the next month, I'll be starting my own podcast along the lines of the Wolfpack Leadership Initiative.
- [19:27]
B
If you need any help with that, you let me know.
- [19:29]
A
Absolutely. I've got my second book, which is the three Ps, People, Purpose, and Perseverance, Love, Selflessly, Lead Boldly, which hopefully will be out within the next week and a half or so. My previous book is already on Amazon. The Leadership Advantage. How to Cultivate Leadership Skills that Drive Success.
- [19:49]
B
All right, well, now you guys have a new Amazon wish list, so make sure y' all go check out Doc's book. And the new one, which by the time this podcast airs, it will probably be published and be readily available for you. So make sure you guys go check that out. But again, this has been another incredible episode of the Living your Legacy podcast, and I will catch you guys in the next one.