[00:00:00] Michael Pacheco: Hello everybody. Welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast. As always, I’m your host, Michael Pacheco and joining me today. I have Otis McGregor. Otis is the founder of tribe and purpose, and his purpose is to create a legacy of leaders.
He is a husband, a father, retired green beret and mentor to other veterans. Otis, welcome to the remarkable coach.
[00:00:22] Otis McGregor: Hey, thanks for having me, Michael. This is this is great. Long time coming too, isn’t it? Yeah. Thank
[00:00:27] Michael Pacheco: you, brother. I appreciate you making time to, to chat with me. I know, I think you, I know you were on Boxers other podcast conversation with the coaches.
And I think that you and I did an episode like three or four years ago. It feels like it was a minute ago. Yeah.
[00:00:42] Otis McGregor: Yeah. It’s been a while. And
[00:00:44] Michael Pacheco: since then, I know Kevin has taken over that the hosting of that podcast. So yeah, it has been, it’s been a long time coming for you to be on this one. So I appreciate you making time.
Otis, I like to typically open up this podcast by just inviting my guest to tell us a little bit more about yourself and your own words and why it is you do what you do.
[00:01:03] Otis McGregor: Yeah. Like you mentioned in the bio, retired Green Beret. onE of the things I did when I was a young cadet at Texas A& M is I set a career goal for myself in the army.
I was very clear on what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to retire in 20 years. As a lieutenant colonel, well, at 25 years is when I retired, so I exceeded that and I retired as a lieutenant colonel, but one of the things the biggest mistake I like to look at it this way as a mistake I made in my life is I had no plan after the army.
My only thought post army was get a job. And when you go through life of, I just need a paycheck. You’re never going to be happy. And that was what I did. I worked for five different great companies and great jobs in seven years and consulted doing the same thing I was doing in between those companies in those seven years.
And I was miserable. I didn’t know what was going on with me. I was frustrated. Every one of those companies too. I’d get this offer letter from them. I’d like, Oh, great. They like me. I like them. Let’s go work. This is what I’m going to do for the next 20 years. Just like I did in the army, every one of them 90 days in be like, man, I don’t know if it’s you or if it’s me, but it ain’t right.
Something’s not right. Yeah. Yeah. The longest I stayed with the company was was 18 months. It was the last company I worked for small business owned by a friend of mine. He actually created the position for me. I was the chief strategy officer, perfect position for me. I had carte blanc. I was remote from Colorado.
They were headquartered in my hometown of Fort Worth. I couldn’t have asked for a better setup. But I was just as miserable in that company as I was in every other company I’d worked for. And this summer afternoon, it’s been it’ll be eight years ago now, eight years ago, sitting here in my home office, feeling sorry for myself, wondering what’s wrong with me.
Why? Why do all my friends, all my veteran friends, all my civilian friends, they all have these great jobs. They love it. They’re enjoying life. And here I am once again, frustrated and tired. And that afternoon, as I was sitting here, feeling sorry for myself, reflecting on my life since leaving the army, I realized that only two things have been consistent in my life.
Number one, my family, I always tell people I’m still lucky enough, fortunate enough to be married, still married to my beautiful Texas bride. And number two was boys high school rugby. Ironically, I had never played. My youngest son became passionate about the game. And my wife and I did what I refer to as the mid America thing.
She’d pick him up from school, drop him off at the practice field. I’d swing by the practice field on the way home from work, pick him up and drive home. I started leaving work a little bit earlier, started getting out of the truck, started talking to a few of the players, a few of the other dads that were there, the coach and I became great friends.
Next thing I know, I’m an assistant coach for a sport I’d never played, had no idea about. And then I turn around again, and now I’m the head coach. High performance, high level, nationally ranked boys high school rugby club. It turned out to be a second full time job. So that afternoon as I sat here wondering what was going on in my head that was fueling me.
Every day I’m work. I would literally tell people that the only reason I’m working a company XYZ. Is to get a paycheck so that I could coach rugby in the afternoon. I literally told people that to include my bosses at the company, by the way. Yeah I walked a fine line, but that afternoon as I was sitting here thinking, I was like what is it?
And I said there’s three main pieces to rug through this boys high school rugby club. Number one, the game of rugby. Love it. Passionate about it. Now. I’m very thankful. I got introduced to it when I did number two, the boys, because it was a club. Our house was the clubhouse. Yeah. My wife and I, we had 35 extra sons in and out of our house all day long.
Every day. It felt a house full of teenage boys is yeah, your pantry is empty and you got a lot of candles. I
[00:05:17] Michael Pacheco: grew up playing. I grew up playing playing hockey in high school. And I spent a good portion of my adolescence at the coach’s house. Oh yeah.
[00:05:27] Otis McGregor: So those two things were really powerful, but what I realized was the third thing.
And that third piece was being their coach, teaching, mentoring, guiding them, challenging them, holding them accountable. When I realized that was what was really fueling me for all those years of coaching. I took that and I started talking with a couple of friends in my inner circle about that. And I got introduced to this thing called Executive Coaching.
whIch I’d never heard of. I’d heard of Life Coaching. Tony Robbins stuff. And I got introduced to Executive Coaching and that’s when I said, Wow, that is for me. And I pivoted my consulting business. I used to do business development consulting in the government contracting space. I pivoted that to Executive Coaching and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
That’s what fills my tank every morning, fires me up to get up in the morning and work out because I know if I work out I’m in a better frame of mind for my clients when I get on the call with them, as opposed to this morning, had some interruptions in the middle of the night with dogs getting out and things like that.
So the sleep quality was pretty low, but you know what, when I rolled over and I saw it was time to get up for 30 I still got up because I knew if I do my workout, I’m going to perform better today because I want to create that legacy of leaders.
[00:06:45] Michael Pacheco: I love that, man. I love that, man. And I’m right there with you on that.
That, that discipline is so important to set the tone for the rest of the day. Yesterday was my fourth wedding anniversary. And we went out, we had dinner and I had a couple drinks and I got to bed a little later than I usually do. And sure enough, 4 a. m. this morning, my alarm’s going off and I’m thinking, oh no.
And you got to do it. And you got, and I did it. And you got to do it. You got to do it every
[00:07:14] Otis McGregor: time. Oh, a hundred percent. There’s so much. I think people miss this point. And it’s one of the things I teach with my clients. It’s about routine. Our personal routines and how important they are.
Everybody talks about creating systems and processes in your business. And the reason we create systems and processes in business is because they’re repeatable. And if things are repeatable, we can optimize it. That’s what your personal routine is. It is your personal system that you can monitor and see, this is my normal bedtime.
I went bed after and I might’ve had a couple of whiskies more than I usually do. And I feel it morning. There’s a data point and I can adjust and, make note of it, prepare for it and suck it up when I do it, right?
[00:07:56] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Embrace the suck. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah, I think Jocko Willink another military guy his big thing is discipline equals freedom.
And if you’re able to have that discipline, it allows you. It gives you slack in other areas of your life because you’ve got that under
[00:08:13] Otis McGregor: control. Exactly. Jocko was a Navy SEAL and I was a Green Beret. We were think of us like two brothers. We will fight each other to the death, but I tell you what, if you put one thing in between us, you’re going down hard.
Yes. Where do the rangers sit in there? Yeah, and the rangers also, we’re all brothers in arms and you put us all three in a room, we’re going to be, we’ll be talking some BS about, it’s you this, you that, all you do is this and making fun of each other. Somebody else walks in and tries to say something.
Oh, nah, that’s smart. I’ve seen somebody do that. There was no fisticuffs. It did not become physically violent, but let me tell you, if Luke’s could kill that dude instantly combusted when he said that and realize how wrong he was and saying something like that to our group.
[00:09:02] Michael Pacheco: That’s hilarious.
I love it. so Otis who are your clients today? Who’s your ideal client? Who do you work with on a daily basis?
[00:09:09] Otis McGregor: And I love working with small business leaders. There’s a couple of aspects of that because, it’s still fresh. It’s even some of the mom and pop shop, small business leaders.
That have been doing it for, several years, but there’s that ability to shift and focus and that’s still that tight dedication. It’s not, we’re not as tied to how do I make the shareholders happy? And that’s what happens in a corporate level. They lose a lot of that fire becomes.
How does not is at the corporate level when you’re trying to make the shareholders happy, you tend to the client and the team tend to drop down in priority, but in a small business is still so tight knit. And it’s about the team. I don’t say it’s about it’s a family atmosphere. I’m much more in the tribe atmosphere.
Because I can kick you out of a tribe. I can’t kick you out of my hand. My family, we’re blood related, whether we want to be or not thing. So that’s number one. And then number two, to add to that is small businesses that are growing and want to grow. They have achieved some success.
And instead of hitting a plateau, there’s a thing called the sigmoid curve. Where you achieve success and it flattens out and then you tend to drop off. I want to come in and prevent that drop off at the end of that flat space. After you’ve achieved success, helping that business build a team of leaders.
Because the best follower that you can ever have is the great leader. So if you think about if you have a team of leaders, people who are willing to take charge of themselves and their team and their responsibilities, working for you in your team as part of that organization, you will that sigmoid curve.
There’s not going to be a drop off. It’d be a little blip and we’re going to go back up again.
[00:10:57] Michael Pacheco: So let’s talk about that. What does that look like when you come into a company, a small business? What is, what does that look like when you get in there? What does a typical engagement with you look like?
How long are you working with them? What sort of things are you working with them on?
[00:11:11] Otis McGregor: So we have a program we call the Green Beret Leadership Program. It’s a three month program. It’s it is designed around either individuals are welcome, but it’s really a great fit for that business to put their potential leaders or their entire team in this and what they get is they get an understand start off with who you are because you got to know where you’re at on the map, given that skill start to develop that skill set of mindfulness and self awareness.
Then we talk about leadership. Transcription It’s important leadership traits. Those five most important that I think they are. And then how do you build a team? How do you build a team that has an attitude of continuous improvement? And how does what’s that process? So I’ve got a five step process.
I’ll walk you through and how to create that team. Then it’s how do we solve the problem? And what I’ve done is I’ve taken the process that I use as a Green Beret to mission analysis, how do, we gotta go get this bad guy, we’ve gotta go build this military to stop a dictator, whatever those missions were when I was a Green Beret.
I’ve taken that process and I’ve converted it into business. And so I show you, I teach that process of how to identify, isolate, and solve a problem. How to put together a plan the same planning thought process that I learned as a very young cadet as a ranger, learn how to do that. And then how do you execute?
How do you follow through as a leader? And then we wrap up the program with how do I, as a leader, continue to push myself For continuous improvement and challenging, because I tell you what, I know you’ve been there, Michael, when you’ve got a team of high performers, they are pushing you. So when we’re doing these first three steps, these first three or four steps and teaching your team.
You as a leader better figure out how you’re going to stay in front of them. This isn’t the old adage of I just need to be one chapter ahead in the book sort of thing. You better be a book or two ahead because those people, when you start to put together a team like this of high performers.
[00:13:21] Michael Pacheco: You got to show up. You got to show up.
[00:13:23] Otis McGregor: Oh yeah. Yeah. So that’s the program. And that’s the video portion of the program. And then the other piece that we do is a one hour weekly group coaching, live group coaching for those three months. So that, and that’s where it’s, Hey, I was, I watched this part and I’m struggling with that.
Or, Hey, we’re looking at it this way. How can I, it’s where you get to ask that question and get that feedback. It’s an expert who’s lived it and done it for many years, both in business and in the military.
[00:13:54] Michael Pacheco: Nice. So this, it sounds like this is like a maybe a hybrid course and coaching type program.
[00:14:02] Otis McGregor: Exactly. I still do one on one coaching. I still love that there’s a handful of very particular clients that I will continue to work with and every once in a while somebody else will come in. But the best fit is this Green Beret leadership program. Because it, it is the tools that you learn in it are truly agnostic.
So it’s not an industry specific, whether you’re building a widget you’re running a dental office, you’re selling real estate or whatever it is. The tools, the processes that you learn, the principles that you learn. Are agnostic to any business.
[00:14:40] Michael Pacheco: I love it. And so for the you got a five step process on building a team.
Are you working with these business owners, these leaders on is this, are you focusing primarily on hiring or is this like a leadership training program? What does that part
[00:14:53] Otis McGregor: look like? It’s a training program. So I’ve, I talked to ’em about how to hire. I don’t dive into that too much.
That’s a sidebar. It’s not part of the program specifically. Sure. But it’s what it boils down to is you’ve got to know what as the business, as the leader of the business or the organization, You’ve got to have a vision and you’ve got to have your values and those have to be established and they have to be upheld all the time.
And when those are established and upheld, then you attract the right people and you repel the ones that don’t fit. Just go back to me. What I found out was going on with me with each of those companies. And again, no, no harm to any of those companies, no bad will or anything because they’re all great companies.
But they were not a fit for me, my values did not align with their values. And because of that, I didn’t matter, it didn’t matter what they were paying me, didn’t matter how flexible my schedule was, our values didn’t align because our values didn’t align. I was never satisfied in it. And that’s what you have to do as a leader.
You have to have those things established and understood. Because you repel the ones that don’t fit, or if they do still get, get inside the wire, if you will, ask them to leave, you give them an opportunity to move on to something
[00:16:11] Michael Pacheco: else. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s great. I think that stuff’s super important.
I had a conversation on this podcast, actually. A couple, a few weeks ago with a, another coach who focused a lot on values. And one of his big things about values is that for a company to truly have values, you need to be able to hire by those values and fire by those values. And take financial hits to uphold your values if that’s, if that’s, what’s on if that’s, what’s at stake.
[00:16:44] Otis McGregor: Your values become your, create your standard. And as a leader, your job is to establish and uphold the standards. You must lead by example as a leader. My, my favorite kind of tongue in cheek one is. Hey, if we’re doing red shirt Tuesday, and everybody’s going to wear a red shirt on Tuesday.
And if I show up in a leader as the leader and wearing a black shirt, you better
[00:17:08] Michael Pacheco: be wearing, you better be wearing a red suit.
[00:17:10] Otis McGregor: Yes, exactly. Because as soon as you’re not following the standards, what you’re telling everybody else on the team is they’re not important. Same thing with like meetings. Oh, pet peeve of mine.
Because time is so valuable, right? If somebody says, Hey, we’re having a meeting at eight o’clock. And they don’t show up to 8. 05, 8. 10, 8. 15. What’s that telling me? That’s telling me my time isn’t as important as their time. 100%. Is that what you want to show as a leader? That your team’s time isn’t important?
You’re suspecting they’ll sit around and wait for you? I ain’t sticking around. And you know what? Your top performers won’t stick around either. Yeah,
[00:17:48] Michael Pacheco: I think that’s one thing that I definitely one of a number of things, but for meetings, if I’m not In the zoom room by 755 for an 8 a.
m. meeting. That’s then I’m doing something wrong.
[00:18:02] Otis McGregor: Exactly. I’ll tell you one big adjustment I had to make after retiring from the army, because the military, every level of the chain, if the division commander says, Hey, we’re going to, we’re going to go on a run at 6 30.
Then the brigade commander wants you there at 615 and the battalion and it trickles all the way down to, yeah, that, that brand new young soldier is there an hour and a half early. And so that’s the way I’ve lived my entire life. And one of the things I’ve learned in all my, business meetings, Hey, it’s Hey, Michael let’s grab a coffee.
And I would be there 15 minutes early. And what I learned was most people either show up right on time or Maybe five minutes late because you know they’re pushing the traffic or whether they didn’t add in a buffer. I would be all I’d be just gritting my teeth if it was if you and I were had a meeting at 8 30 and it was 8 29 and you weren’t there I’d be like that guy I had to learn I had to learn to adjust to the culture.
Yeah. Yeah. Principle, but it’s still expect you to be there right on time.
[00:19:07] Michael Pacheco: Civilians do it a little differently.
[00:19:09] Otis McGregor: It’s the whole thing of, it’s the true aspect of time is money. If I can, call that client and make some arrangement while I’m driving to meet you for coffee.
And I know some guys that are so good at this. They are walking in the coffee shop saying, all right. Yeah. Hey Michael. Yeah. Catch you on Thursday, man. Appreciate it. Click. Hey, Otis, how you doing? They’re good. Let’s talk about using your time. Wow.
[00:19:32] Michael Pacheco: That’s awesome. Cool. Otis so Let’s move along here.
What where do you get your clients these days? How do you market yourself? How do you market your services? What are you doing to promote tribe and purpose?
[00:19:44] Otis McGregor: Yeah, we’re on we’re on social media. The big one that we focus on is LinkedIn and I’ll just share we do a lot of short videos, myself and Camden my vice president of operations AKA.
Podcast co hosts, a. k. a. Youngest Son. And so we do a lot of short, thought provoking videos. And one of my favorite, I’ll just put my plug out here for it, is my whiskey words. Because I’ll grab a, I’ll grab a couple of fingers of whiskey and a cigar and I’ll go out back and I’ll just share some thoughts.
Love it. On everything from some leadership aspects to life. life thoughts and I just have a great time. If you pay really close attention, you might notice a little bit as the glass gets a little bit lower, you might notice a little bit more emotion coming out as I’m talking to. I always challenge people to look for that.
And see if they could figure out because I’ll record them. Just as a most people do this, that record content, I’ll record them in a bunch, right? I’m on that maybe third or fourth one and the whiskey glass is getting down to the, the last sip or so. I’m going to, I’m going to get into it.
Oh,
[00:20:55] Michael Pacheco: that’s great. That’s great. And you’re in Colorado,
[00:20:59] Otis McGregor: right? I am. I am. Colorado Springs area. The front range, I’ve got Pikes Peak out my back window and hunting, skiing, fishing, gold water, gold medal water, just an hour away. Couldn’t ask for a better better place for Uncle Sam to tease us with when we were younger and then just decide, because my wife and I are both Texas kids.
We love Texas. We still call Texas home, but we’ve decided we live here in Colorado with the mountains and just love it.
[00:21:30] Michael Pacheco: I was going to say it sounds a little different than Fort Worth.
[00:21:32] Otis McGregor: Oh yeah. There’s a little bit more terrain here. Let’s just say that.
[00:21:36] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, I like it. Cool. Let’s see here.
What what sorts of things, Otis, what sort of things did you struggle with when you started out coaching?
[00:21:47] Otis McGregor: I had this that’s such a fun question. I, cause I love You know, we’re all a little bit self deprecating. We have to be careful with that. There’s a whole nother talk, talk about that. But it’s fun to call out the things I screwed up because I want other people to learn from this.
And I had this image in my mind of the field of dreams. Okay. I start a business. I write a book, write, I post something on social media and they come, and here they all come. Whoa. There’s all, Hey folks, you’re gonna have to take a number. , that was literally the image I had in my head.
And I’m here to tell you folk it, it don’t work that way. That sign out in the front yard does not mean your business is gonna be successful. That was a. Huge lesson in, in that whole aspect because I don’t care how good you are, it’s it’s that aspect of if you can, if you have the cure for cancer in your garage and you don’t, you can’t get it to the right people.
Maybe your neighbors and your aunt, uncle cousins, and things like that. They’re like, oh man. That’s great. Thanks. But you don’t get it to, the doctor, the surgeon general, the, and it does no good. Yeah. And that’s one of the biggest lessons I learned. What I do what I know, and this is another principle of mine.
If I’m not sharing what I know, I’m a selfish SOB, right? So I want to share my knowledge and my experience and help others be successful. If I’m sitting on my front porch waiting for people just to drive up, waiting, the, the high school, you looked at that girl, you smiled at her and you expect she’s going to call you and ask you out Friday night.
So you sit there by your phone all night. Guess what? That ain’t happening. So that was for me, that was the biggest lesson learned for really for any kind of business, but particularly for what I do with driving purpose.
[00:23:34] Michael Pacheco: What was your, walk us through your thought process there. Walk us through the obviously the initial frustration, I think A lot of our listeners and viewers are going to understand straight away, right?
What did the, how did the solution come to you? What did you end up doing to put that on its edge?
[00:23:52] Otis McGregor: A couple of things. So first off it was let me just grab a quick solution, right? Read a book. Take a class hire a company that does x, y, z, those are those are closer to the lottery tickets.
So if you think about, put, to use that metaphor, right? So you start the business and you’re going to win the lottery. Never bought a lottery ticket, so how are you going to win the lottery, right? That’s where I was first off. So then next step, I was like then I’ll buy a lottery ticket because.
That’s how I’m going to retire and be successful with my life. I’m going to have a lottery ticket. So that was literally what I did. It’s like somebody would send me a, all those messages that we all get on LinkedIn and things like that. I get one of those messages, that sounds pretty good.
Let me hire that guy, because that’s going to be the solution. He’s going to get me 10 new clients a month, blah, blah, blah, all these sort of promises. That didn’t work. Because. Surprise. Yeah. What I didn’t have was I didn’t have it fixed for me on what I was looking for. When we started off the show, you asked me who’s my client.
I was like, I can help everybody. You can solve it for everybody, because leadership is agnostic. Everybody needs to be a leader. Everybody needs a. live their life better. So after going through that next step of, let me just hire somebody because they’ll solve it for me. I realized that they can’t solve it for me.
Nobody can solve it for you. You can talk to experts. You can hire coaches, which I highly recommend. I have a, I have my own coach, hire coaches that are going to teach, mentor, and guide you, but they’re not going to do it for you. The solution is you have to come up with a solution, the process, because everybody’s business.
It’s different whether you’re making widgets coaching leadership, whatever your business is different because you are different and your values are different. So you have to figure out what does that mean for me? Who’s the right fit for me? Who do I know who needs what I do?
And then the key element, we always have a hard time overcoming this third one is can they pay because there’s, I do a lot of work with veterans and I’ve learned this lesson and I’ll probably do it three or four more times before, before I die or 10 times. Yeah. The veteran community, God bless us all, is looking for a handout.
Hey, man, Otis, what you’re doing is awesome. That is really powerful stuff, man. I could really use that. Oh, yeah, great. Okay. Hey, this is where it’s going to cost. Oh, yeah no, can’t do it. Yeah. Because, and truthfully, there’s two problems with veteran community, and I’ll speak to this as a, as an expert.
And we think we can do it all because that’s what we were taught. Go figure it out, soldier. Go figure it out, Ranger. And two, we’re a bunch of cheap SOBs, which is ironic. I find this ironic every time I talk about it because, in the military, we lived on a blank check, especially special ops world.
I never had to worry about budget. We talk about budget. We play the budget game. The fiscal year ends in September and all this sort of stuff. I never lagged for anything. If I needed more guns, bullets, optics, rucksacks, uniforms, guess what? I fill out a form, I send it in, I got them. I never, there was no such thing as a budget, and truthfully, that’s one of the hard parts that us military guys have adjusted to the business world, that everything costs money now. You got to
[00:27:19] Michael Pacheco: pay attention to that bottom line at this point.
[00:27:21] Otis McGregor: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. My wife reminds me of that all the time. But I think that’s the other aspect of it.
And that’s the irony of it is, uh, as a, especially as a green beret in the special ops world, we had blank checks for everything. I never, if I needed, if we were going to do some training in Austria or Norway or whatever, and we needed some more cold weather gear, guess what? I wrote up.
Form, fill the form out, send it in to the commander would go, No, not like it was coming out of his paycheck, right? We don’t need a blah, blah, blah, blah. And I go sir, we need blah, blah, blah, blah, and this is the reason why. You go, all right, this one time we’ll do it. Stamp approved.
[00:27:59] Michael Pacheco: You’re like we’re training at elevation. We need to stay warm. You can’t not give us warm weather gear or cold
[00:28:06] Otis McGregor: weather gear. But it’s just funny though because that whole aspect and then. When the guys, when we get out of the military, we’re just the cheapest SOBs out there. It’s I don’t know, I don’t know what it is about now living on a blank check for, 25 years.
And then all of a sudden it’s coming out of my paycheck and I’m like, Oh, I can’t spend any money on that.
[00:28:28] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I think that makes sense. And it’s it’s almost like coming from that place of scarcity where, you know, now, it’s not a blank check. So there’s the it’s scarce now.
So you want to be more
[00:28:41] Otis McGregor: careful with it. That’s probably a good way of putting it, because, we never really thought about it in that sense of abundance and scarcity and, in the teams. Yeah. But. Yeah, when you step away and, you literally take all your gear that you’ve had, all your cool guy gear, and you hand it in and you feel naked, all of a sudden, it’s a real dichotomy because you feel relieved that I’m done, right?
I’ve gotten rid of all that stuff. But then you feel naked because it’s dang. I don’t have my, I don’t have my my 762 plated armor vest anymore. What if I, this weird sort of way our minds can run. So yeah, it may very well be this shift from we’ve got it all.
Everything we need is always available. Now it’s all gone and that feeling of scarcity. That’s a really good observation. Yeah.
[00:29:30] Michael Pacheco: Interesting. Cool, man. I want to be respectful of your time. We’ve covered a lot here. Otis, is there anything else that, that you would like to chat about that we haven’t touched upon yet?
I think
[00:29:40] Otis McGregor: the thing I just love talking about is. is how leadership, the principles, the foundations are hold true to no matter who you are and what you are, whether you’re in charge of somebody or not. And that understanding of you have to lead yourself before you can lead others and the best followers make the best leaders.
When you start to think about that and provide the opportunity for people. In your team to succeed and excel, that’s exciting, right? A real quick snippet of this as a leader, you have to have optimism, and you have to have a vision, and then you have to be able to sell that vision to your team.
Because when I have a vision for what I want my company, my team to do my five year vision, if you will. To get my team to perform. They have to see themselves. Their personal vision. They have to have their own personal vision. And they have to see themselves in your vision. And when that happens, they’re going to perform.
Because that’s who, what, when, where, and what they want. I said what twice. Who, what, when, and where they want to be. And five years they see themselves. Oh, so if we do this, and this, and I performed this, I can be that manager. I can be a director. I can be the vice president of operations in five years, because we’re going to have this, and this.
I see myself. I see what I want to be in your vision there, boss. And because I see that I’m going to fight for it. I’m going to work for it. That’s what we want. That’s how you keep the top talent. That’s how you keep them engaged. This go through the motion stuff. This, Hey, we’re gonna, we’re gonna make another widget today.
We’ve got to make 500 widgets. We’ve got to package this. We’ve got to do that. That’s just people collecting the paycheck. And when people just collect a paycheck, somebody offers them a couple of dollars more an hour. Guess what? They’re gone. And guess what you just lost. You just lost all that training and all that effort you put into that person, because you didn’t care for them.
You didn’t care enough about understanding who and what they want to be. What is their vision? And that’s what we have to do as leaders. We got to understand our team. What do you want to do? How does, how do you see yourself? In tribe and purpose in five years, and start asking that question as a leader of your team, and you’ll be surprised.
You’ll be surprised how many of them really, first off don’t have a clue. Challenge them. Don’t go home. It’s homework. Come back to you. But once they understand it, once they have a vision for it, they’re in, that’s Hey, that, that’s preseason football and the, we all, everybody in the NFL says they’re going to win a super bowl, right?
When spring training and preseason starts, everybody believes that they say it, but they don’t believe the ones that win it. Don’t just have the talent, but they have that true team focus and belief in that vision. They see themselves on that podium with the Lombardi trophy. That’s the difference. And that’s where you, that’s where you really build that team and can create success for everybody.
noT just the business and the bottom line. Everybody that’s part of that organization. I love that. That’s
[00:33:14] Michael Pacheco: such a great point, Otis. I think, yeah, excitement and motivation is such a personal subjective thing. That it’s part of, and so you, what you’re saying, it’s part of a leader’s job to incite that.
And that takes a lot of empathy. That takes a lot of understanding. And that takes a lot of visioning and it’s not necessarily this kind of raw crap that you would immediately think about, but it’s more personal than that.
[00:33:40] Otis McGregor: There’s, it reminds me air assault school, it’s an army school for repelling out of the helicopter, or Campbell, Kentucky. We used to joke because every time your left foot struck the ground, you had to say aerosol. So we began to say false motivation is the key to graduation. Because, and, in that school, in that aspect, yeah, okay, tongue in cheek. But I can tell you this, in the rest of the world outside of the U.
S. Army’s Air Assault School, false motivation is not the key to graduation. Huh.
[00:34:11] Michael Pacheco: Yeah.
[00:34:12] Otis McGregor: You can’t fake it till you make it. Yeah.
[00:34:14] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. It just doesn’t last. That kind of motivation doesn’t last long enough. It’s not going to last five years.
[00:34:22] Otis McGregor: no. And you’re not authentic when you’re not your authentic self, when you are faking who you are when let’s say what, because some people try to play this game that we’ve got office Otis and we’ve got home Otis and we’ve got rugby Otis and
that you’re lying on all three accounts because if you’re not being your authentic self. You’re never going to be happy. You’re never going to be fulfilled and you’re never going to be satisfied. And it’s going to be a weight that you carry around all the time and people will see it because, and I’m not talking about highly trained people.
I’m talking about instinctual. They will see it. They will see that you’re a fake. They want, they may not be able to say he’s a fake. They may not see it blatantly, but they’ll feel it. And they’ll know something ain’t right. They’ll know it in their heart, and when they know that, then they’re not following you.
They’re going through the motions. Quiet quitting. That’s the phrase that’s sure right now, right? That’s what they’re gonna do. Yeah. They’re gonna be just taking a paycheck from you and sucking oxygen. Yeah. I don’t want that. I don’t want that for anybody on my team. I don’t want that for any of my clients either.
Yeah.
[00:35:36] Michael Pacheco: Beauty. Otis, what three books do you recommend all of your clients read?
[00:35:42] Otis McGregor: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, number one. Yep. Hang on, I got one. You got an autographed copy? I
[00:35:49] Michael Pacheco: do. I got a very fancy copy. Ooh,
[00:35:52] Otis McGregor: yeah, that is a nice one. I got the very thin paperback that cost me 99 cents that you can slide in your pocket.
[00:35:59] Michael Pacheco: I’ve got a few copies of those, too. Yeah. It’s my favorite. I read this at least once a year. It’s great. Oh yeah.
[00:36:05] Otis McGregor: That’s, that is foundational, because I’ve become a huge Stoic fan, Stoic myself and that’s, my, my weekly newsletter, Monday Moments. It always starts off with a Stoic quote to get that week going and get the thoughts going on that.
So that’s number one. Number two, Good to Great. JiM Collins book is just, man, it’s, there’s so much in that book. There is. Understanding the business world. And then, when it comes down to number three, it depends on the person. One of the ones I recommend for all my veterans that are going into business is the first 90 days.
I can’t remember the authors. But it’s actually a book written for individuals who are taking over as an executive in an existing organization. Okay. And the reason I like this one is, yeah, it’s 90, it’s about the first 90 days in the job, but there’s so much business knowledge in this book. That is just it’s so compact and has so much information in it that if you’re looking for if you’re like I’m not quite sure I understand all those aspects about business read that book because it covers everything from personnel to P& L to management to how do you set this ordering structures and it’s just yeah I think That’s a really good one as a foundational and then man there’s so many more
Here’s another philosophy one that I love. It’s by Admiral Stockdale Admiral James Stockdale. And it’s called thoughts of a philosophical fighter pilot. So if you recall, Admiral Stockdale was shot down. Over Vietnam and was a prisoner of war for 10 years or something. It was ridiculous.
It was tortured all the time. And what he talks about, it was timing. God aligns the timing. You never, you can never plan for it, but there is a plan for it. He had just finished his master’s degree in philosophy at Stanford, if I remember correctly. Right before, within months of him deploying, taking command of a squad, a Navy fighter squadron in Vietnam on an aircraft carrier before he got shot down.
And he had that stoics, his understanding of stoicism fresh in his mind. When he was under a parachute, when he got shot down before he got captured. So that book is phenomenal. That’s actually what got me into stoicism and understanding philosophy more. Okay. Reading that book years ago. Cool.
[00:38:45] Michael Pacheco: That’s been on my list for a minute.
I have not yet read that one, but I’ll have to, I’ll have to check that out. Have you read About Face by Hackworth?
[00:38:53] Otis McGregor: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yes. Get on the shelf somewhere. Yep. There it is right there over my shoulder. Yeah.
[00:38:59] Michael Pacheco: There it is. Yeah. The gigantic one. That one is loaded with leadership stuff.
[00:39:06] Otis McGregor: It was. Yeah. That I had it was from my perspective where I was when I read it, I think I read that if I remember right, like right after I retired from the army and some of my, the leadership of course is great because he was a phenomenal leader.
The thing that I struggled with in the book that still sticks in my head was the lack of true leadership and willing to take responsibility at the upper levels of military that Hackworth talks about towards the end of the book. And that one, that really hit home for me in reading that.
Yeah. Yep.
[00:39:43] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
[00:39:46] Otis McGregor: Should I turn around and look at some other books? You want to read a hazardous duty and right next to hazardous duty is a Rommel. It’s a biography of Rommel. Yeah, he was a Nazi, but let me tell you that dude could lead. And had was a visionary. And then another one my, my good friend and former boss and mentor Admiral James.
Admiral James. Admiral Admiral McRaven, I was messing up his name so bad. Admiral McRaven book, spec Ops. His first book, that was his, that was actually his master’s thesis. Oh, wow. That he wrote in Postgrad. That is a great book. Nice. And a study of leadership and how to overcome. Adversity because you put this wonderful plan together and then it all goes to goes out the window as soon as things start happening.
So yeah, as soon as bullets start flying. Yep. Yep. It’s a great book. Great book. Very good. OTI Bill. Bill McRaven. Sorry. I was like why can’t I think of his first name? Admir. First name’s Phil. Bill. BILL. Bill. Yeah.
[00:40:52] Michael Pacheco: Awesome. So we’ll we’ll put links to these books. We’ll list out these books, of course, on the show notes and everything.
And Otis, where can our listeners and viewers connect with you
[00:41:01] Otis McGregor: online? Best place is LinkedIn. It’s just Otis McGregor, if you find Dr. Otis McGregor, that’s dad. He’s not very active. Dad’s retired. He’s not very active on LinkedIn anymore. But so just Otis McGregor you find me there, follow me.
Our website is tribe purpose. com and I’d love for folks to jump onto our newsletter, our Monday Moments newsletter. Like I said guess what day it comes out? Monday. And yeah, I’m really original when I come to naming things. So it comes out right in early Monday mornings, a stoic quote, and something I learned this week for you to take forward.
And go with, have that thought in your mind so that you can have more success for the week and not struggle. Not all my lessons are bad. Some of them are good, but get your Monday morning kicked off with a thought. So Monday moments newsletter, you can get that at tribe purpose. com.
[00:41:56] Michael Pacheco: Awesome.
Awesome Otis. Listen, man, I appreciate you making time to chat with me. This has been fantastic. Always a pleasure. Thank you for your service. And yeah, just. Thanks for joining
[00:42:07] Otis McGregor: me here. Hey, this is great, Michael. I really appreciate it, man. Good to see
[00:42:10] Michael Pacheco: you. Thank you. You as well. And thank you, of course, as always, to our listeners and viewers.
You guys are fantastic. And we’ll see you next time.
