Transforming Adversity into Empathetic Leadership

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Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for personal values when dealing with each other and even within ourselves.

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Where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries and finding belonging.

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My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are your people.

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This is why values still hold value.

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This is Transacting Value.

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As I've grown, not only in my personal life but my professional life, I've come to realize that in order to succeed both professionally and personally, you need empathy.

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Today on Transacting Value, we're talking about how to instigate self-worth.

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Now, what does that mean?

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When you get stuck in a position, who do you identify as how, when and where, and how do you know the difference?

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Authenticity goes a long way, but so does peace, starting over and learning to rejuvenate your own sense of self.

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And so in this conversation today, I'm talking with Jon Malek.

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He's the host of his own podcast Headlines in History, and he's got all sorts of experience throughout different departments and agencies in the United States government as well, so we're going to talk about his transitions and how he's worked through a lot of these roles and a lot of these identities.

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So, without further ado, I'm Porter, I'm your host, and this is Transacting Value.

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Jon, what's up, man?

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How you doing?

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Hey, thanks for having me.

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I'm doing really well Busy down here in Jersey where I am for a couple of weeks doing some army stuff.

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but doing well.

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Thanks for asking.

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Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and as busy as you are, let me also first say I appreciate you taking some time to come on the show.

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I know it's hard enough to block out some free time to yourself, let alone additional time to continue talking to more people, so I appreciate your patience and a little bit of tolerance.

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No, I appreciate you having me.

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Thanks, yeah, absolutely.

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Now for everybody who's listening to the show and anybody who's new to the show my background is in the Marine Corps and Jon's, in this case, is primarily in the army.

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Is that right?

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That's correct.

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Okay, and so let's just take a couple minutes and set the scene as a person, however you want to take this on.

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But who are you?

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Where are you from?

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What sort of things have shaped your perspective?

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Great Well that's a big one.

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So I guess we'll start at the beginning.

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So I'm a traditional middle-class kid from upstate New York and, without really any too intriguing or crazy of a story, if you will, it's about as normal as you can get, I guess, and I'm appreciative in that.

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But I did take the opportunity to join the Army National Guard when I was coming out of high school, like a lot of other kids.

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I wanted to go to college but I didn't want to pay and all the loans that most people are stuck with, so I decided to join the Army National Guard.

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I had some family that were in the military, specifically the Army, and they were some intelligence folks and then spent careers doing that, and so that really kind of intrigued me.

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So I did that at 17, and I've been doing it ever since, so 27 years now.

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So in intelligence the entire time.

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Right, I started as a young E1, a private that's enlisted into the army and made it all the way to chief warrant officer four, which is where I sit today, and in a couple of deployments in there.

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I spent some time in Iraq and Afghanistan and Kuwait, all doing intelligence stuff in different roles and but in the beginning it was a challenge because you know, I wasn't a really military focused kid, I should say, and I didn't really have a military mindset, if you will.

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But you know, after my first deployment in 2005, I really grew to love the profession.

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I really grew to love my job, I grew to love the soldiers and 27 years later I'll say that there's no other place I'd rather to be.

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That's for sure.

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So, okay, let's unpack some of that.

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First of all, what was happening in 2005?

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Well, wait, let me back up before.

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Then you enlisted at 17.

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So what is that?

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96, 97, somewhere in there it was 97.

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, yeah, 97.

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Okay, so what was happening in 1997 that you were like I'd rather have free school, but this also sounds cool.

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What was the also?

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When you, when you say also, you mean like, like in the world.

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In the world like you joined the military.

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So what was the?

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What was the impetus?

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Why'd you do it?

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So I had family members brothers and sisters that were of similar age to myself and and they were going to go to college.

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And I wanted to go to college and there's only so much money to go around with my parents and trying to help out and and I was a little nervous about going to school and racking up a bunch of debt.

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And you know, being in New York, the New York National Guard at the time, the Army National Guard both the Army and Air offered a college tuition payment plan.

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So if you join the Army National Guard for a certain amount of years and in my position it was six years that they would pay for four years of school on the tuition side.

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I'd have to deal with room and board on my own, but they'd pay for tuition.

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So I wanted to invest in that way and I said I'd rather spend a little time doing a little hard work, if you will, rather than putting all that money and potentially in debt, put myself in debt and then having to pay for that later.

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So and I had family members who had done it and they enjoyed the career, especially in the intelligence world, and you know that again was intriguing.

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And I said you know what I can do?

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Six years, I can.

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I can do one weekend a month and still kind of go to school.

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I might not be an army guy or a military-minded person per se, but what's one weekend a month?

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Right.

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And in 1997, as you recall 1998, we're coming out of the fall of the wall in 91, and things were, let's say, relatively peaceful.

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Right, we had some stuff going on in Africa and Kosovo and other places, but generally speaking, the threat landscape wasn't dynamic, and so when I had joined, there wasn't really a thought that hey, you know, you're going to Iraq or Afghanistan or any of these things, so it seemed like the time to do something like that.

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Obviously, 9-11 changed all of that.

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Yeah, in hindsight it was more kind of just a a lull, I think, than a time of peace, sort of like a reorientation after the USSR fell.

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And then obviously everything that went down in the middle east and desert shield and storm and working your way through, I suppose, uh, around the world and different continents and conflicts.

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It definitely was a period of time where, relatively, we weren't involved in as much.

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But so that, I guess, explains why you had.

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Well, I guess about six years before you deployed then that's correct.

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Okay, so you were in school, you get out of school and you end up where by then we made it through Ramadi, where were you?

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Enduring Freedom, iraqi Freedom, I guess, would be the beginning, right, yeah, so I was.

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I was Iraqi Freedom III, which was 05.

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So what happens is we go into Iraq in March of 03 and Iraqi Freedom III, and you know, the army's pretty stretched.

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It's stretched pretty thin because we're monitoring or we're dealing with two separate battlefields, right, Afghanistan, beginning in November of 01.

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And now we decided to do Iraq in 03.

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And there's only so many army divisions again, from an army perspective, there's only so many army divisions to go around and really there's only so many MEFs to go around for the Marines.

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But headquarters department of the army calls down to the National Guard and says, listen, I need another National Guard division to go to Iraq because I don't have another active duty division or I'm just going to wipe these fellas and these gals out.

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There's just too much work.

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And so they call down to National Guard Bureau.

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National Guard Bureau is just that, it's not a command, but it's like.

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It's like a liaison entity between the National Guard and what we call Compa One, or the active duty army.

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And National Guard Bureau went down to the National Guard divisions and said, hey, I need a division command.

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Went down to the National Guard divisions and said, hey, I need a division command and one of you is going to go and you're going to act as a division command structure in Iraqi Freedom 3 in 2005.

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And so some politics get involved in some divisions that are all aligned or spread out across all the states really volunteered, if you will.

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There were commanding generals that said, hey, listen, my division is good enough, we can do this thing.

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And, long story short, ended up being the 42nd infantry division out of New York that was chosen.

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It just so happened that was mine and so we packed up and we had off.

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We went off to Fort Drum in 2004 and we spent seven months at Drum which is a story in and of itself and getting ready to go down range.

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And then we did.

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We packed up and we made it over there in January of 05 and became the division command for what was called the SUNY triangle or MNC North central for a whole rotation and OIF three and the.

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And the really interesting part of that story is that you know, in the New York national guard, the army national guard, we don't have any what we call maneuver brigades.

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So we have the division command structure, the 600, 700 soldiers-ish that are part of a division command, but again, no down trace or lower echelon brigades that work for us.

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We just don't have that soldier.

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We don't have that many soldiers within the Guard in New York.

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So what happened was headquarters department of the Army gave us two national guard brigades from other States and then gave us two active duty brigades, so two combo one brigades, first of the third ID and third of the third ID, and those became our four maneuver brigades under our structure when we hit OIF three.

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And it was a really unique experience for a couple of reasons One, it was the first time a national Guard division had deployed into combat since Korea.

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And two, it was the first time in as many decades that an active duty unit brigade size or more fell under a National Guard command while in combat, which was also just an interesting time.

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So that's what ended up pushing us, or getting us, into Iraq and my first deployment in 2005.

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What an indoctrination and orientation for you.

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You get out of school I'm assuming it was a New York-based school you went to Okay.

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So you're basically born and raised the culture, society, people, everybody.

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You've been around for 23 years and then you end up with active duty army in iraq.

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What was that like for you?

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That transition, the culture, the people.

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Going from a weekend I guess you had six or seven months to work into it but going from a weekend to then 24 7, you don't get a rest but you don't get a break.

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You know, I mean to the routine of the, to the culture, let alone in the Middle East.

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How was that for you?

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Sure?

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You know that's a good question.

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It was, you know, it's interesting, it was challenging, right.

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I mean it certainly is a transition as a person, professionally, personally.

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You're right, it was the first time I would ever, I had ever experienced any type of, you know, life cycle, if you will like that.

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But at the same time, at least for me, I could say it was almost automatic.

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It was almost like meeting the challenge of the moment.

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It wasn't something that I really felt I had to transition into, right, and I can give you, give me an example it was the most hours I had ever worked in my life and I probably would ever work again, until I went to Afghanistan that I ever thought that I would work again.

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You know we were on a seven day cycle.

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I worked in the intelligence section.

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They obviously were in a pretty kinetic environment.

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So we're working 24, seven and I'm in the ACE, I'm in the what we call the skiff, from eight o'clock at night until 10 o'clock in the morning, seven days a week, every single day, and the only time you have off is when you go back to the hooch, you rest, you go to the chow hall and then you go back to work.

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But thinking about it from the outside, in it looked and sounded challenging, but then, at the same time, when I sat down and I'm behind the computer or I'm briefing the boss or whatever it was, or producing papers and conducting analysis, it was real and it was important.

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We could feel the effects that we were having, at least within our command area.

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Right, I could see where our products were reaching the commanding general and decisions were being made by him based on our stuff.

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And with all of that happening it just felt normal and common, you know.

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And it really took coming home, getting out of that environment at the end of 05 and taking a few weeks sitting back in upstate New York around the holidays.

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When we got back and looking around and going, okay, that wasn't normal, that's not the way that people normally operate, but again, it almost felt automatic.

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All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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Here's my bucket list for the day Read an article on a new subject, say only nice things about others and listen to everyone's opinions, because making things better requires change.

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Now, these changes aren't going to show up on your newsfeed, but they're things I can do, so change something today.

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It's not going to change the entire world, but it's going to change your world.

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Change is in you, from PassItOncom.

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Yeah, that's not the way that people normally operate, but again, it almost felt automatic and eventually I think some of that translates and this isn't to negate or trivialize any other high stress positions or, I don't know, civil servant positions or whatever it is but it's different when your tolerance and threshold for stressors have to meet the survivability and the reality of the environment and in some cases exceed them.

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And I think that's where the line gets drawn pretty heavily and pretty boldly between veterans or active duty service members in any particular career, occupational field, specialty, whichever would have you rate, I guess, and any other sector or job or industry throughout the entire United States economy, because you can't replicate it and you know, I've talked to a lot of veterans on the show to this point, or families, spouses of veterans in that case, and it's almost like, because it can't be replicated, it's the one bond that unites everybody because you just you get it.

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And if you have to snap back into it, obviously medications and diseases and issues and disabilities aside, assuming everything is sort of still smooth and copacetic you can snap back into it because you've had the exposure.

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But did you find going back and forth at that point in time active to reserve to normal life, to then normal life and just reserve stuff and so on and so on throughout your career, that it was as easy to snap back and forth the more you did it or did it become more of a grind the longer your career went on to snap back and forth?

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Yeah, good question.

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I would say deep into my career, meaning running now that it was harder, right.

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It's almost like you have that long-term, have that long-term slow stress builds that really spikes when you're involved, right, and then it comes all the way back down when you're no longer involved, but it never reaches the baseline that it was to start, because you're constantly kind of compounding it as you go on, right.

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So I've I would certainly say that I've noticed that there's a slight uphill average from the beginning of my career towards the end of my career.

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You know, some of that has to do with age, I'm sure, and some of that has to do with experience again, but I certainly found that it was.

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I was tired when I got back from Iraq but it didn't take long to really get back into the swing of things and things being normal both personally and professionally after Iraq.

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And then it was a pretty long time before my next deployment.

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I had plenty of schools that were challenging.

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I became a warrant officer and that was a challenging school and other things.

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But those those aren't really that long.

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I mean, candidate school to become a warrant was only five weeks and you just kind of knock it out and deal with it.

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But and I did the police Academy, which was six months.

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That was kind of challenging, but you know that goes away after a couple of months when you're done with the Academy.

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But but from a deployment perspective, really really jumping into the grind, I was ready to go again in 2012 when my next rotation came up, because it was since 2005 that, my first challenging mental deployment I had ever had, and I know I was a completely different person when I got done with Afghanistan Because of that.

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Then my next one comes up in 2012 in Kuwait.

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I found myself having I don't want to call it anxiety, but I was already going into deployment three in 2020, a little tired before we had even started and I didn't have that experience going into the 2012 deployment.

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And what I can say is it's even worse now because my division is getting ready to go back again in 2025, back to the Middle East.

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I happen to not be going with them this time for a whole host of reasons, but the very thought that I would go and do the exact same thing in the Middle East in 2025 that I did in 2020 creates like a stress and an anxiety, even more than I had in 2020.

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So that's a very long answer to a question that, yes, I've noticed an increase in challenges as the time has gone on.

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Yeah, well, you know, the more you stretch a rubber band, eventually it starts to fray a little bit, and I think human beings are only so elastic, you know.

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What's cool, though, is and I wish I could remember who said the quote I do this almost every conversation.

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It comes to mind just by chance, and I'm never prepared when a quote shows up.

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So if anybody hears this and they're familiar, let me know.

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Or, Jon, if you know, feel free to just correct me on it.

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But I'm pretty sure the quote goes something like people in high stress positions do not lose the ability to think clearly.

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They gain the ability to think subconsciously and so, by effect, become more efficient in their professions.

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That makes sense.

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I don't know the quotes in particular, but it makes a lot of sense, yeah.

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Yeah, and some of that is exposure, experience, routine, you know, just rote repetition of whatever you do.

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But in your case I can't imagine that's even close to remotely accurate, because you mentioned the police academy, obviously, your army career, and then you got your warrant and then you've had several positions throughout that, several deployments among your decades now of service, in addition to family life and being a human and everything that goes with just being born as a child, growing into an adult and living in New York so I don't know driving or whatever that entails, and so what has that been like for you?

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I can't imagine you've had a lot of repetition.

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It sounds like it's all a new experience built on an old foundation.

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Have you been able to adapt fairly quickly, fairly well and use what you've learned, or is it like relearning something new or reapplying something old?

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What's been your experience?

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Well, I would say that the repetition part.

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You're right about that, in that each one of my deployments was different.

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They may have been in a similar region, but my responsibilities in 05 as a young NCO I was a sergeant at the time and the analysis that we were doing was one thing and the fight was one thing.

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And then when I went to Afghanistan in 2012, first of all and you're in a completely different theater you're still dealing in a counterinsurgency-like environment.

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So there are similarities there, but I found myself as the director of intelligence of a combined joint interagency task force when I was in Afghanistan.

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That is a significantly different position than being a young sergeant analyst.

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I was in charge of other soldiers and airmen and others, at least from an intelligence perspective, and the mission was very different.

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So I was learning very, very different things, especially working in that combined joint environment with other countries and services and joint environment with other countries and services.

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And then the third deployment was very strategic in nature and very much not kinetic but again very strategic, where our analysis and the information we were providing to our commanders was almost academic and very much the opposite than what you would consider tactical or operational from my first two deployments.

00:20:32.666 --> 00:20:46.268
So we're learning a whole new way of doing business again, which is then also again very different than anything I did on the law enforcement side, although there's some connections between investigations and analysis, but still only very different.

00:20:46.268 --> 00:20:54.681
So there is certainly for me a relearning, because the environments were just different and the missions were different captains, majors, colonels.

00:20:54.681 --> 00:21:18.638
That they don't get in the same way that warrant officers get is they haven't had a full career doing just one thing and that is working in the intelligence analysis position.

00:21:18.638 --> 00:21:24.461
And I've done that Even though Iraq was different than Afghanistan, which is different than Kuwait, which is different than law enforcement.

00:21:24.943 --> 00:21:48.383
If I can rely back on the training that I had in the beginning about how to best be an analyst and how to best lead, which I learned how to do as an NCO, and I learned again how to do as a warrant officer, those foundational trainings, those foundational experiences they carry forward, and so very different Afghanistan, iraq.

00:21:48.383 --> 00:21:54.459
But what's not different is conducting intelligence analysis and leading soldiers.

00:21:54.459 --> 00:21:55.340
That's the same.

00:21:55.340 --> 00:22:05.096
And so I would say it's in two parts, constantly relearning, but at the same time, if I rely on that training and that experience, it's carried me through my entire career.

00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:08.866
All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

00:22:10.935 --> 00:22:11.458
All right, folks.

00:22:11.458 --> 00:22:17.184
If you're looking for more perspective and more podcasts, you can check out Transacting Value on Wreaths Across America Radio.

00:22:17.184 --> 00:22:20.825
Listen in on iHeartRadio Odyssey and TuneIn.

00:22:22.536 --> 00:22:30.905
I would say it's in two parts, constantly relearning but at the same time, if I rely on that training and that experience, it's carried me through my entire career.

00:22:32.556 --> 00:22:35.143
There's a book and I'm going to mess this up too.

00:22:35.143 --> 00:22:54.201
I can't remember the author, but anyway it's called the Innovator's Dilemma and it's a tech-heavy book, if you're familiar, and if you're not, or anybody listening if you're unfamiliar companies like Amazon, Hewlett-Packard, how they decided or balanced between do we innovate into a new product or service, do we maintain what we have, and at which points do we do those things?

00:22:54.201 --> 00:23:07.146
The point being, in principle and concept at least, is I think that's the enduring dilemma that any leadership position, rank, billet position, age, demographic in the military has to face on a daily basis as well.

00:23:07.146 --> 00:23:15.309
Do we take this from a tactical perspective in any operational environment, strategic or tactical level, but in a nuanced, detailed fashion?

00:23:15.309 --> 00:23:18.932
Do we take this and change it, or do we take this and stick with it?

00:23:18.932 --> 00:23:29.138
Because arguably, aside from the concept at hand, none of the variables are the same.

00:23:29.159 --> 00:23:36.916
Chances are what the battles were that are informing this decision, and these examples in this case study involve a whole bunch of dead people right now that aren't living, and now everybody we're fighting happens to be so.

00:23:36.916 --> 00:23:50.192
If for no other reason than the people are different, the inputs have totally changed, which is an entirely new set of variables and so going through your life now in your mid forties, what has that been like, being able to constantly reinvent your approach?

00:23:50.192 --> 00:23:58.601
What has that been like being able to constantly reinvent your approach, maybe to scale for whatever reason or scope, but reinvent your approach based on the details, skill sets, social sciences.

00:23:58.601 --> 00:24:08.291
You've had to incorporate into these scenarios and job roles replacements based on a kinetic tactical environment or a relatively kinetic operational environment.

00:24:08.291 --> 00:24:13.948
You can't take that, I assume, into everyday law enforcement, patrolling or briefings.

00:24:13.948 --> 00:24:16.182
It's not even the same terminology.

00:24:16.182 --> 00:24:20.082
Is there enough overlap where it's been smooth Between the two careers.

00:24:20.517 --> 00:24:24.961
I would say it's going to sound almost like a cop-out here, but my answer would be yes and no.

00:24:24.961 --> 00:24:28.373
No, and I'll give you this side.

00:24:28.373 --> 00:24:35.853
First, because as an investigator on the law enforcement side, I was what you would consider more like an operator on the military side.

00:24:35.853 --> 00:24:37.357
Right, because I was a sworn officer.

00:24:37.357 --> 00:24:41.759
I had a car, I had a gun, I wore jeans and t-shirts to work and I did CI buys and kicked in doors.

00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:42.540
That's what I did.

00:24:42.540 --> 00:24:45.387
On top of being a wiretapping analyst.

00:24:45.387 --> 00:24:49.564
I did all the outside stuff and the regular hands-on police stuff.

00:24:49.564 --> 00:24:51.596
I never did any of that on the Army side.

00:24:51.596 --> 00:24:53.701
So that's something that doesn't cross over.

00:24:53.701 --> 00:24:57.321
Right, when I'm on the Army side, I'm sitting behind a computer and I'm briefing generals.

00:24:57.321 --> 00:25:01.182
That's what I do on that side, and so those two things, they just don't overlap.

00:25:01.182 --> 00:25:28.646
But at the same time, when I'm conducting an organized crime investigation with my colleagues and friends from the state police and the DEA and whatever I'm doing, and we're down into the nitty gritty of figuring out who the sources of supply are and where they reside and the patterns of their movement and all of those things, those are almost the exact same thing that I'm dealing with when I'm trying to find individuals who may be supporting the insurgency in southern Afghanistan through narcotics money.

00:25:28.646 --> 00:25:32.184
So, yes, it's the Taliban and it's Helmand province.

00:25:32.184 --> 00:25:44.864
It's not the streets of Albany, New York, but organized crime, narcotics activity is kind of the same whether you're doing it in Helmand or you're doing it in Albany and there's a lot of crossover there.

00:25:44.994 --> 00:25:48.425
So I guess it really depends on which aspect of the career.

00:25:48.914 --> 00:25:55.702
But one of the benefits I would say is that, generally speaking, law enforcement and military is similar, right?

00:25:55.775 --> 00:26:06.374
I mean, it's not like I was a cook or a librarian and then I was working in the military and there was like literally an entirely different philosophy in an entirely different environment.

00:26:06.374 --> 00:26:09.945
Right, they call law enforcement quasi-military for a reason.

00:26:09.945 --> 00:26:17.240
You know, the police academy was in a of ways just like basic training, which is very similar to the warrant officer candidate school.

00:26:17.240 --> 00:26:22.545
So there are a lot of connections that way cope with, let's say, law enforcement and vice versa.

00:26:22.545 --> 00:26:51.696
It also helps me to succeed at my job because I could and did approach scenarios and complex intelligence problems, let's say later in my career, after spending 10 years on the job doing organized crime stuff, because I just had different experiences and the same was true on the opposite perspective.

00:26:51.696 --> 00:27:03.944
I could take deployment experience and bring it back into my law enforcement job and say, hey, I did this when I was in Afghanistan and this seemed to work for me and it worked perfectly on the law enforcement side, if that answers your question.

00:27:04.654 --> 00:27:22.660
Yeah, so I mean that's social sciences and skill sets, and you know obviously different tactics or procedures, maybe that there's going to be some variation as well, but as a foundation I agree and a lot of that was my experience too not necessarily in law enforcement, but between military experience and then private sector experience in my case.

00:27:22.660 --> 00:27:33.589
More specifically, I'm curious, though, out of all of those instances and all of that experiential learning that you've had, what about some of the human capital, let's call it?

00:27:33.589 --> 00:27:37.759
This is a segment of the show called Developing.

00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:40.665
Character and for anybody new, jon, you included.

00:27:40.665 --> 00:27:42.088
This is two questions.

00:27:42.088 --> 00:27:49.819
Answer as vulnerably as you want or as deep as you want, and if your answer is I don't know, I never thought about it, Well, that's fine, you're allowed, it's totally cool.

00:27:49.819 --> 00:28:06.145
But my first question is if we rewind your life back 40 years, what were some of the values that you were brought up on, that you were exposed to, that you were taught at home, at school, whatever that you think maybe have helped to play a role in some of this development?

00:28:06.185 --> 00:28:06.406
for you.

00:28:06.406 --> 00:28:12.948
That one's easy for me to answer, because it would definitely be the army value of duty.

00:28:12.948 --> 00:28:18.164
It was certainly a part of my childhood that my parents instilled in me.

00:28:18.164 --> 00:28:26.836
That was when you say you're going to do something, you do it, whether you like doing it or whether you don't like doing it.

00:28:26.836 --> 00:28:31.688
You said you were going to do it and so there's no, there's no getting around.

00:28:31.688 --> 00:28:36.494
You know, aside from extreme circumstances, right, you're going to do what you're going to do.

00:28:36.494 --> 00:28:42.806
You're not going to join the basketball team and then halfway through the season, decide you don't like it anymore and you're not going to do it.

00:28:42.806 --> 00:28:50.785
What you're going to do is you're going to finish the season and if you decide not to play basketball again, then that's fine, but you're not quitting halfway through, right, just as an example.

00:28:50.785 --> 00:29:02.119
And that was something that just was part of my family life and so it became kind of normal for me and it's actually one of the values I instill in my children as well, even though they don't like that answer all the time.

00:29:02.119 --> 00:29:05.532
But that did build a foundation for me.

00:29:05.532 --> 00:29:06.715
That made it a little easier.

00:29:06.776 --> 00:29:11.836
On the Army side Specifically, it's just you said you were going to do it, so you're going to do it.

00:29:11.836 --> 00:29:13.601
Right, I joined the army in 97.

00:29:13.601 --> 00:29:18.700
I may not have wanted to ever deploy, I may just wanted to go to drill and get my college money and be done.

00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:23.057
But then the towers did fall and my unit said you're going to iraq?

00:29:23.057 --> 00:29:26.003
Well, I said I would do it no matter what happens.

00:29:26.003 --> 00:29:29.098
So we're doing it and I'm going to go on and I'm not going to complain about it.

00:29:29.118 --> 00:29:32.508
And if I don't want to do it when I get done, then I'll stop doing it then.

00:29:32.508 --> 00:29:36.122
But you're going to do it and I've kind of kept up on that.

00:29:36.122 --> 00:29:49.768
I really have taken that to heart throughout my career and that's made things a bit easier for me when I approach challenging situations, because I don't give myself the opportunity to not do it.

00:29:49.768 --> 00:29:54.498
I don't look at it and say, boy, I'm in a wishy washy scenario.

00:29:54.498 --> 00:29:56.082
I mean I can quit if I don't want.

00:29:56.082 --> 00:29:57.005
You know I can do what I.

00:29:57.005 --> 00:29:58.435
It's just it's not an option.

00:29:58.435 --> 00:30:03.817
You said you were going to do it, you're going to do it, and it almost makes things easier as you just plow through right.

00:30:03.817 --> 00:30:05.519
That's certainly a value that's carried me through.

00:30:06.098 --> 00:30:06.318
All right.

00:30:06.318 --> 00:30:21.112
Well, let me ask you this With all of the experiences you've had then up to this point in your life, in whatever capacity or collection of capacities, and all of the memories that you've learned, cultures you've experienced, skill sets you've gained, how about now?

00:30:30.174 --> 00:30:33.163
I can only imagine that a lot of your values have shifted and changed over time with all of that influence that's come throughout your life.

00:30:33.163 --> 00:30:34.488
So my second question is what are some of your values now?

00:30:34.488 --> 00:30:40.584
Then I would say that one of the values I've added that I certainly I don't want to say I didn't have, but I didn't focus on when I was younger was empathy.

00:30:40.584 --> 00:30:56.125
I was thinking about some of these things before we began our talk today, understanding the purpose and foundation of your show, and I started by reviewing what have always worked for me, and those are the Army values Again and I just brought up duty as one of them, right?

00:30:56.125 --> 00:31:01.836
So the Army's values are leadership, duty, respect, self-service, honor, integrity and personal courage.

00:31:01.836 --> 00:31:08.699
Those are the Army values, and there's a part of me that has respect for each one of those values in some way.

00:31:08.699 --> 00:31:20.865
Some of them are more important to me than others, as I just mentioned, but what I have come to learn about myself is that empathy is something I didn't have much awareness of.

00:31:20.865 --> 00:31:34.358
I didn't put a lot of focus on when I was younger, but as I've grown, not only in my personal life but my professional life, I've come to realize that in order to succeed both professionally and personally.

00:31:34.358 --> 00:31:36.303
You need empathy.

00:31:36.303 --> 00:31:37.865
I use the example.

00:31:38.507 --> 00:31:43.395
People have asked me in the past how do you give me some examples of where you've had empathy, that you think it works and it's?

00:31:43.675 --> 00:31:57.038
It's funny on some side on one side of the empathy world it's emotional and passionate, meaning I have empathy for other people that are struggling, other people that are dealing with scenarios in their personal life that I don't understand.

00:31:57.539 --> 00:32:05.304
But I take the time to try and understand and care, because I've gone through things in my life that I wished people tried to understand and care for me.

00:32:06.086 --> 00:32:32.297
But then I can also flip that empathy perspective into an analytical side and it's helped me in my professional career and this may sound a bit silly, but work with me here on dealing with things like complicated individuals on the adversary side, let's just say as an example, like President Putin and trying to understand fully how Putin operates and why he does the things that he does right now, the most acute being Ukraine.

00:32:32.297 --> 00:32:57.144
And I don't have to agree with Putin, I don't have to even understand fully exactly what he's doing, but what I should do is try as best I can to put myself in his position, understand where he's coming from and look at the world through his lens, because it'll help me become a better analyst, it'll help me become a better describer to the bosses the why things are happening, not just the what.

00:32:57.144 --> 00:33:05.626
And I work hard to try to use that empathy value again, both in that personal, emotional side and then in that clinical and professional side.

00:33:06.570 --> 00:33:10.059
Okay, what about personally, then, or interpersonally?

00:33:10.059 --> 00:33:31.561
I guess you know not to dive too much into your personal life more than you're willing to go, I guess, but just to whoever you interact with outside of your professional sphere, Do you find that being that analytical maybe causes you to assume more about people or snap to judgments more based on some biases, or do you tend to still be pretty open-minded, humble and take it as it comes?

00:33:32.289 --> 00:33:49.355
I would say that when I was younger, I was more prone to being analytical and prejudgmental because of my profession than I am now, and a lot of that has to do with the empathy that I've come to use in my daily life, right?

00:33:49.355 --> 00:34:00.237
So if you have empathy for others, then it usually mitigates your prejudgment and it mitigates your analytical thinking of other people and why they do what they do, and whether it's good for me or bad for me.

00:34:00.237 --> 00:34:03.856
That stuff is not important to me, at least in the beginning of a relationship.

00:34:03.856 --> 00:34:12.793
What's important is who that person is, and I have a very personal experience, you know, when I got back from Afghanistan, of a very personal experience.

00:34:12.833 --> 00:34:25.793
When I got back from Afghanistan, that was by far, as I had mentioned earlier, certainly the most challenging deployment I had ever experienced out of my three, and I was certainly drinking way more than I should have ever, ever, ever, ever, ever did, and so I reached a point in my life when I stopped doing that.

00:34:25.793 --> 00:34:56.900
But for a couple of years before I stopped, I really needed people to have empathy for me in order for me to get through that, and I did, and that experience is what led me to use and, first of all acknowledge empathy in others and in myself for others, and it ended up helping me obviously personally become just a better person, an open-minded person, and not be again judgmental, analytical, as you had mentioned.

00:34:56.900 --> 00:35:03.420
But it also ended up helping me professionally, both with soldiers that have their own concerns and issues.

00:35:03.420 --> 00:35:09.757
I'm very much less judgmental today about problems that soldiers may have that are affecting their professional life.

00:35:09.757 --> 00:35:14.106
I'm much more willing to listen and open-minded about what may be challenging them in their lives.

00:35:14.106 --> 00:35:16.335
That's becoming an issue for us professionally.

00:35:16.494 --> 00:35:39.275
Or it really did help me on the law enforcement side, because when I first started law enforcement in 2008, and again the vast majority of what I did was narcotics work that it is challenging to deal with people that are selling narcotics and using narcotics all day and be empathetic for that and really just figure out and deal with the reasons why people may be doing that.

00:35:39.275 --> 00:35:41.577
It's not just purely because someone's trying to make money.

00:35:41.577 --> 00:35:57.105
And when I went through my own challenges, I was able to approach investigations and approach confidential informants, approach individuals that we arrested very differently based on their circumstance, because I was able to apply empathy to that thought process.

00:35:58.791 --> 00:36:01.219
Alrighty, folks sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

00:36:07.851 --> 00:36:10.599
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00:36:10.599 --> 00:36:20.702
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00:37:03.451 --> 00:37:17.570
When I went through my own challenges, I was able to approach investigations and approach confidential informants, approach individuals that we arrested very differently based on their circumstance, because I was able to apply empathy to that thought process.

00:37:18.193 --> 00:37:23.992
Yeah, I'd agree with that in terms of its potential as a developing skill set for anybody.

00:37:23.992 --> 00:37:53.396
The Department of Labor I'm pretty sure it was for example, in the last six months of 2024, came out with a statistic that said something to the effect of I think it was close to 20,000 service members had gotten out of or off of active duty for any number of reasons retirement, some reason to disassociate or discharge and then reintegrate back into the private sector or workforce to some capacity in any particular industry, and that's nationwide.

00:37:53.396 --> 00:38:20.297
And so for the amount of people let's say hypothetically, those 20,000 coming back in to try to reintegrate into probably a reality that looks pretty foreign to them not a geography, but a reality, right, socially or technologically, or whichever that looks pretty foreign to them compared to what they've been used to for four years technologically, or whichever that looks pretty foreign to them compared to what they've been used to for four years, six years, 20 years, 40 years is well complex, I think, at best, and too complicated at worst.

00:38:20.297 --> 00:39:09.112
And so to find ways to process through that, for example as an HR director, considering hiring somebody like that who, all things considered, is in an age bracket that may be more obsolete in a particular industry where younger, more say inexperienced, younger people are preferred, is tough, because now they're your competition but they were your lance corporals or your sergeants or your you know first term airmen, whoever it would be in any branch before, and now you're competing directly for positions that even they're not qualified for, they're getting, but as an HR director, as a manager or supervisor, understanding what some of that as a skill set or some of those stressors might do and play on somebody's perspective for a benefit of your company, I think is incomparable.

00:39:09.652 --> 00:39:38.922
And so the empathy that you're describing, obviously from your perspective, out on a more macro scale, outside the DoD in, I think, also has its benefits, and, you know, not to any lesser degree, but in attempting to develop a degree of empathy, I think with that comes sort of a modicum of grace that you allow people, and maybe even that you allow yourself, before you jump to any biases or judgments, and it makes a huge difference for all sorts of interpersonal relationships.

00:39:38.922 --> 00:39:50.643
Call it, I don't know human capital investments, working capital investments, to be able to get things off the ground, especially in a small business or a startup or as an entrepreneur or whatever track you decide to take.

00:39:50.643 --> 00:39:52.965
You know as you get off your contract.

00:39:52.965 --> 00:40:09.242
My, I guess, second to last question for you, for the sake of time, is all those things being said, all your experiences, all your answers in this conversation, even how have all of those things actually played a role or even instigated your own self-worth?

00:40:10.170 --> 00:40:12.217
I would say that it's benefited.

00:40:12.217 --> 00:40:21.894
I would say that I certainly feel like I have more self-worth, professionally, let's say, today than I did when I started my career.

00:40:21.894 --> 00:40:25.103
A lot of that has to do with a couple different things.

00:40:25.103 --> 00:40:29.798
One I can look back and I can be honest with myself and say I've certainly grown.

00:40:29.798 --> 00:40:32.224
I've grown as a person.

00:40:32.224 --> 00:40:38.132
I've certainly grown professionally, certainly more experienced and capable today than I was when I was a young kid.

00:40:38.132 --> 00:40:51.440
And when I take the time to really step back and look at some of the things that I've accomplished, I have done a good amount compared to some other people in their professions and so I think there's some self-worth in there, right.

00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:54.425
And so I think you know there's some self-worth in there in the sense that I can say I.

00:40:54.425 --> 00:41:01.226
I know that I did my best, I know that I gave it a hundred percent whenever I was doing it and I provided value.

00:41:01.226 --> 00:41:09.916
I provided value to the organization, I provided value to the unit, I provided value to soldiers via leadership, whatever it was, and I feel good about that.

00:41:09.916 --> 00:41:15.596
I feel happy about that and pleased that I was able to do that.

00:41:16.317 --> 00:41:22.557
I've never really sat down and thought about it from a personal perspective to say meaning in my personal life.

00:41:23.259 --> 00:41:55.960
What I would say is I guess, if I'm going to sit here and try and think about it I don't know if my self-worth has gone up or gone down necessarily because I could I would say it maybe averages itself out because there's things that I think I could say would lead me to increase my personal self-worth but then there's things that would lead me to decrease them because there's, like there's things that have happened since I've been in the military through deployments that aren't normal in terms of a regular life and beneficial right.

00:41:56.001 --> 00:41:59.452
Like I left to go to Afghanistan three days after my daughter was born.

00:41:59.452 --> 00:42:05.900
That's not good right Like nobody would ever claim that's a good thing and that's something I ever, I can't ever give back.

00:42:05.900 --> 00:42:10.315
I can't give that back to my daughter and I can't give that back to my wife and my son, who was here as well.

00:42:10.315 --> 00:42:18.219
So you know it's not necessarily anybody's fault, but if you're to, you know if you put it in a check mark as to good or bad, necessarily, then that's kind of bad right.

00:42:18.219 --> 00:42:30.438
So it's hard for me to give you an answer on the personal side because of things like that and I haven't really done an evaluation, but I would say that my self-worth professionally has certainly has gone up throughout the years.

00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:48.445
I appreciate your candor and honesty and authenticity in that response, and the reason I'm asking too isn't just necessarily to say, after transitioning into a veteran status from any particular capacity otherwise previously, that everything's always harder.

00:42:48.445 --> 00:42:53.610
It isn't necessarily for a whole bunch of reasons, but it can be for a few.

00:42:53.610 --> 00:43:36.463
Namely, you go through a lot of different experiences that are difficult to communicate either the purpose, the intention, the actual skill set and activities conducted, the justification, let alone the amount of time spent, sacrifice, the fact that it's very easy in a lot of cases to make excuses, that developing ownership and developing a sense of accountability and responsibility as you go through a military career of any number of years is a challenge to communicate effectively, and so I think it's important to be able to stop and think every now and again well, do you still see yourself as having worth and value?

00:43:36.463 --> 00:43:53.233
Because eventually you, like all the rest of us, your career is going to change, and in a lot of cases I've got actually some warrants who I work with on a regular basis now that are creeping on 30 years, and some a little more than that, in service alone not age in service.

00:43:53.233 --> 00:44:00.860
I don't know that they really know who they're going to be when their role changes or who they could be when that role changes.

00:44:00.860 --> 00:44:05.514
I they're pretty heavily rooted in where they are, which makes them great at the moment.

00:44:05.514 --> 00:44:15.512
But the present is only good for the present, and so being able to take stock every now and again is important, and doing it honestly and openly, I think, counts for a lot and not for nothing, Jon.

00:44:15.552 --> 00:44:18.981
But one day your kids will be able to hear this conversation.

00:44:18.981 --> 00:44:20.534
Will they tune in when it airs?

00:44:20.534 --> 00:44:23.309
I don't know, but it's Monday at 9 am, guys coming up in August.

00:44:23.309 --> 00:44:27.400
But if not right, you'll have a copy of this.

00:44:27.400 --> 00:44:35.331
It's digitized for posterity.

00:44:35.331 --> 00:44:38.041
It'll be out on the internet, you know, like any good signals guy can attest to Once it's out there.

00:44:38.041 --> 00:44:38.443
It's out there.

00:44:38.443 --> 00:44:39.306
It's just a matter of somebody finding it.

00:44:39.326 --> 00:45:09.534
And what's really cool in my opinion as an independent podcast producer in my case, but in a broadcast industry or medium like podcasting what's really neat about this as an outlet is these are also aspects of service members and veterans and voices and perspectives that don't get shared and more often than not at least in my experience and veterans I've worked with firsthand these aren't answers that I think or remember when questions get asked later and they certainly aren't questions I think about when I get older, to ask people that weren't veterans, because it's not applicable.

00:45:09.534 --> 00:45:29.239
So it's a pretty sweet opportunity to be able to share the stage or some semblance of zoom with you and get your insight and whatever extent it helps you and your family in the future gain a little bit of clarity as to why you're gone all the time and why you work so much, which I'm sure are inevitable questions if they haven't been to this point.

00:45:29.239 --> 00:45:38.606
I appreciate it because I find some resonance in that and I get some insight out of you being able to teach and mentor and educate everybody else who's listening to this show as well.

00:45:38.606 --> 00:45:39.971
So you know what, man?

00:45:39.971 --> 00:45:41.934
Thanks, I really do appreciate it.

00:45:42.115 --> 00:45:49.181
As maybe difficult or uncomfortable as that might have been to put into words for any number of reasons, I really do appreciate the opportunity.

00:45:49.181 --> 00:45:58.255
So my last question if anybody wants to get in touch with you, check out Headlines in History, your podcast, let's say, outside of professionally for right now.

00:45:58.255 --> 00:45:59.740
How can people do it?

00:45:59.740 --> 00:46:00.324
Where do they go?

00:46:00.324 --> 00:46:02.492
What are some outlets where they can track you down?

00:46:03.313 --> 00:46:03.875
So I also.

00:46:03.875 --> 00:46:07.222
You know I also do some YouTube stuff Headlines in History.

00:46:07.222 --> 00:46:10.715
I also do stuff on Instagram that ties Headlines in history.

00:46:10.715 --> 00:46:12.840
Again, that ties into what I do on the podcast.

00:46:12.840 --> 00:46:15.644
But you could always just email jonmolick@ headlinesandhistory.

00:46:15.789 --> 00:46:17.635
com and that.

00:46:17.635 --> 00:46:18.257
You know.

00:46:18.257 --> 00:46:25.746
That's where my website is and it doesn't have to be all about the podcast, and you can certainly reach me there at any time.

00:46:25.746 --> 00:46:28.737
We could talk army stuff, cop stuff, anything you want.

00:46:28.737 --> 00:46:32.791
I certainly can be reached out in any capacity on that email.

00:46:32.791 --> 00:46:40.739
I check it every day and I do put in a great effort to ensure that I return emails to anybody who contacts me, so that's probably the best way.

00:46:41.449 --> 00:46:43.094
Sweet, and so I'm assuming then the website is headlinesandhistory.

00:46:43.094 --> 00:46:44.757
com.

00:46:44.757 --> 00:46:46.342
It is Sweet.

00:46:46.342 --> 00:46:47.190
Yeah, thanks, sweet.

00:46:47.190 --> 00:47:05.492
And so for anybody new to the show or anybody who's a continuing listener, you'll know that, depending on the player you're streaming this conversation on, you can click see more or show more under that play button player and then that dropdown description in the show notes you'll see links to Jon's website and social as well, so you guys will be able to track him down and listen to his show.

00:47:05.492 --> 00:47:09.237
And with any luck, Jon, please consider jumping onto our podcast network.

00:47:09.237 --> 00:47:10.719
You and I can talk more about that later.

00:47:10.719 --> 00:47:19.599
I'd be more than happy to help you distribute some content and get your show out to a little bit wider audience, but for the time being, I appreciate your time.

00:47:19.599 --> 00:47:30.038
I know you've got to get to dinner and deal with a whole host of other things in your life right now, so thanks for staying on a little bit later than we had anticipated, but I appreciate your perspective and I appreciate your time.

00:47:30.038 --> 00:47:31.139
Man, thanks for coming on.

00:47:31.139 --> 00:47:32.501
I really appreciate it.

00:47:32.521 --> 00:47:33.181
Thanks for having me.

00:47:33.181 --> 00:47:36.376
I had, I had a good time and I I don't mind talking about stuff like this.

00:47:36.376 --> 00:47:41.735
Actually, you know, I I enjoy it and any anything I could talk about military or professional stuff I enjoy.

00:47:41.735 --> 00:47:43.179
So I thanks for having me on.

00:47:43.179 --> 00:47:43.981
I really appreciate it.

00:47:44.449 --> 00:47:48.237
Absolutely Everybody else who tuned in and who's listening to the conversation, guys.

00:47:48.237 --> 00:47:55.717
I appreciate you guys, our new listeners, our continuing listeners, obviously all the other ambassadors that have come on the show to this point and in my team for putting it together.

00:47:55.717 --> 00:48:08.099
Thank you, guys for tuning in, helping produce and helping listen to and put together all of our content here in the month of August where we're talking about rejuvenation and starting over and peace as our core values and themes for these conversations.

00:48:08.099 --> 00:48:14.235
Guys, core values and themes for these conversations.

00:48:14.235 --> 00:48:14.335
Guys.

00:48:14.335 --> 00:48:24.170
This has been a lot of fun and if you find value in our conversations and in our content and in the value we're providing, please feel free to contribute your time, your money, your talent, your advice, your insight and send an email to transactingvaluepodcast@sdytmedia.

00:48:24.391 --> 00:48:27.949
com, track us down on our website, transactingvaluepodcast.

00:48:27.949 --> 00:48:33.735
com and leave us a voicemail there or a comment there, and then you can also listen to us.

00:48:34.257 --> 00:48:44.793
In addition to Mondays at 9 am, as our new conversations air on Wreaths Across America radio, Wednesdays at 5, Sundays at noon and Thursdays at 1 am.

00:48:44.793 --> 00:48:49.032
Those are all eastern standard times, so if you're on the other side of the world, you guys get an outlet as well.

00:48:49.032 --> 00:48:52.641
Track us down, listen in, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

00:48:52.641 --> 00:48:55.639
Thank you to our show partners and folks.

00:48:55.639 --> 00:49:00.422
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00:49:00.422 --> 00:49:05.862
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00:49:05.862 --> 00:49:08.958
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00:49:08.958 --> 00:49:17.193
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00:49:17.193 --> 00:49:17.715
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00:49:17.715 --> 00:49:20.670
We stream new episodes every Monday at 9 am Eastern Standard Time through all of your favorite podcasting platforms and we'll meet you there.

00:49:20.670 --> 00:49:22.052
Until next time.

00:49:22.052 --> 00:49:23.960
That was Transacting Value.