Flight Path to Inspired Living with Darren Pleasance

Speaker 1: 0:31

you end up running into these people many people, I'd say, actually the majority of people, unfortunately who end up arriving at a point in life that was heavily influenced by others and all of our lives are heavily influenced by others. You're not gonna escape that. But the question is can you capture that influence in a way that aligns with the things that light you up? So for me, it was aviation, and I just happened to stumble into it at 13. My parents were not at all into aviation, but I stumbled into it, and then I started surrounding myself by people who amplified that.

Speaker 1: 1:00

A lot of other individuals I've encountered stumble into a path in life that is again often influenced by whether it's parents or others around them, or even just society.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Right, these things are okay, and you fast forward 10, 15, 20, 25 years and they're at a point in life that's really not aligned with the stuff that inside them lights them up and energizes them, and they end up having this talk, track, these stories in their mind around am I doing the right thing?

Speaker 1: 1:26

Am I living the life I was supposed to live? And oftentimes, by then, they're constrained by all the other things that we create. We do it to ourselves, but whether it's mortgages, you've got kids, you've got other responsibilities, you've made choices that start to limit your degrees of freedom and that starts to feel constraining. And so, to me, I guess the learning on this journey is how, as early in life as possible, how can you start to get in touch with the thing that and the things it doesn't have to be one thing, by the way, it can be many things that give you that energy, that spark, that drive, ultimately, that moves you forward in a way that keeps you excited. And then how do you use that to start becoming better at those things, to start meeting other people who helped to reinforce those things in a way that creates a life around you that's one that's far more reinforcing and invigorating than not?

Speaker 2: 2:17

["The Life Around You"]. I remember when I was a man. Times were hard and things were bad. There's a silver lining behind every brow, just for people. That's all we were trying to make a living out of. Black Landers we put together in a family circle singing out.

Speaker 3: 2:37

It's been said that in life you can either walk inside your own story and own it, or you can stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness every day. Brené Brown, on episode 47 of Bend Magazine's Circling Podcast. Join me as I sit down with Darren Pleasants and chat about his new debut book, true North, a handbook for inspired living Through an incredibly interesting and diverse life built around the armature of Darren's passion for aviation and the positive relationships he's formed in both his personal and professional life. True North not only shines a light on what it means to live an inspired life but, more importantly, it asks the reader to consider their own values, passions and desires that, when combined with intentionality, set the trajectory for an authentic life well lived. Darren discusses some of his favorite chapters in the book and shares his own personal story of how a 40 year goal of piloting a World War II era P-51 Mustang became a reality by heeding the advice of an old mentor who long ago encouraged Darren that when working towards a certain goal, you must begin to do the things consistent with that goal and be patient. Well, darren, it seems as though your patience and preparation has paid off. Thanks for your time and insight. My friend, this was a fun one.

Speaker 3: 4:07

The circling podcast can now be found on Patreon. Visit our page and learn how a percentage of your financial support will support local nonprofits and the continued growth of local community podcasting. Become a member and learn about this unique opportunity at patreoncom forward slash the circling podcast or see the link in the show notes. Lastly, remember to stay tuned after the show credits to hear from Darren as he contributes to our blank canvas community art project that explores the magic found in art embedded with meaning. Also after the show credits, stick around to hear from Darren's friends and colleagues Matt Abrams, francis Lobo and Cindy DeSoto. Might have been Cynthia, or maybe Francis two of your friends and colleagues that you put me in touch with. It's fun learning about people from those closest to them and I get the chance to talk with them.

Speaker 4: 5:05

It's phenomenal Cause it gives you a ton of insight.

Speaker 3: 5:08

That's cool. Yeah, they all see it through a different lens, absolutely. Which kind of shares your story? Through a different lens, you know, and sometimes one that you don't really ever hear, which is cool. Do you scuba dive, I feel?

Speaker 1: 5:20

like you scuba dive. Yeah, both Lisa, my wife, and I scuba dive. That was one of the things we did early in our relationship. After I met her probably within a month of us starting to date, I ended up getting her scuba lessons. We were living in Santa Barbara at the time and thought it would be fun to test and see if she liked it. I had gotten certified a few years earlier than that and it was something I enjoyed a lot and thought it would be fun if she did as well, and she took to it and so we became certified. Then both of our kids, when they got of age, got certified as well, so it's a family affair.

Speaker 3: 5:48

Yeah, I went scuba diving once Completely unregulated and dangerous in the Philippines and I had a buddy that was teaching school over there and a local Filipino kid you know worked at a scuba diving rental place and kind of taught him and we went over and they just took me.

Speaker 1: 6:07

I didn't have any certification, they gave me the basics, yeah, I think people who haven't done it don't realize sort of how big it is under there, right. It's a little bit overwhelming if you think about it as being dark and murky and all the things that maybe you can't see. That might give people inhibitions, but once you're under there it's like a giant world, right. Especially if you dive in places with great visibility, which is what I tend to try to do. It is a whole other world. And then you know I like flying and so it's a lot like flying.

Speaker 1: 6:34

It's just, you're flying through the ocean rather than the air.

Speaker 3: 6:37

And that could be applied to a lot of things in life. Just you know, not understanding it because you've never experienced it. There's a guy speaking of flying and scuba diving. Have you heard of the nonprofit Project Recover?

Speaker 1: 6:51

I have not.

Speaker 3: 6:52

He's a, so there's a. I did an episode with the CEO early on in the show and he is a retired Marine Corps F-18 pilot who after, actually while he was still in his military career got connected with this intern medicine doctor who started this nonprofit called the Bent Project back in the 90s. His name is Pat Scanlon, I think he's an internist, and on a family scuba diving trip to Palau in the South Pacific back in the 90s they came, they started coming across World War II aircraft wreckage and they just kind of tapped into this undiscovered section of ocean floor that had all this airplane wreckage from the war and all these MIA remains. So they started this nonprofit called Project Recover that is subsequently grown to where they have national partners like the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and they're you know they used to do just scuba dive manual grid searches and they started bringing these people home and now it's like you know it looks like a national geographic outfit, right? I mean they have big ocean vessels with tons of computer mapping and they continue to bring people home.

Speaker 1: 8:11

I'll have to put it Great mission. Yeah, that's great. I'm sure it combines that with his love of diving.

Speaker 3: 8:15

Well, I'm just aviation man and you having the fondness of World War II military aircraft, I mean wow different time.

Speaker 1: 8:25

That's cool. Yeah, if you travel all over the South Pacific, there's some amazing diving for all the reasons you just said.

Speaker 3: 8:30

Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean yeah. So this podcast has grown and just a lot of the episodes recently have been designed to supplement content found in the magazine. For instance, right now there's a couple different episodes out that supplement a feature that the magazine did on Mount Bachelor, talking about the people behind the mountain that make it run, and it's been a lot of fun. The episode we're recording right now won't be in the magazine, although I think you've had connection in relationship with Oregon Media in the past. Your house was featured in one of their that's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Yeah, in Ben Magazine. Yeah, probably four years ago or so.

Speaker 3: 9:09

Yeah, so I thought just to give the listeners some context about what this episode is all about. We could talk about how we met, and that very much has to do with one of the reasons you're here, which is your first book. You recently published Correct, Called True North, and it's a handbook for inspired living, and we're gonna talk a lot about it. But your story, after reading your book and getting to know you the way I have it's you couldn't have written this book as well as you did without living the life you've lived, and your life is incredibly diverse man.

Speaker 1: 10:20

Yeah, it was definitely my life is embedded throughout the book. It's also through my life journey. I've had a chance to not only work with, but just be around a bunch of really interesting, inspiring people, and so those stories of those people are central to the book as well. And basically the book was the outcome of those experiences and trying to encapsulate all of the learning of what all of these inspiring people have done and how they've influenced my life and, hopefully, how then this book will influence other people's lives.

Speaker 3: 10:48

So much of your book in terms of living an inspirational life, I think can only really be derived in ways from diverse life experience. And just to give people who don't know you some context, you started out early on in your life with a childhood fascination of aviation that you followed well into your 20s. You became not only a private pilot but a Bush pilot, a corporate pilot, a professional pilot. Through series of events that people can read about in the book, you transitioned into graduate school. You went and you got an MBA at UCLA correct, correct and subsequently, kind of, through this stepping stone approach, got into the corporate world, had an amazing experience there, it sounds like, and then kind of got recruited into this kind of upper management tech world that you are still living, correct, yeah. And at the very beginning and you talk about it a lot in your book you talk about how your love of aviation has always, or seems to have, opened many, many doors when it comes to life experience and relationships that you've developed.

Speaker 1: 11:57

Yeah, I think it's one of those things where, if you start pursuing something you love doing, you end up doing it a lot and you find ways to do it a lot. You've got just natural energy to go figure out how to spend more time doing that, and so I did that as a teenager, first in model airplanes, then with real airplanes at the local airport down in California. And as you're doing that, of course, you meet people along the way who kind of share your interest in that you're in that environment, and so those people start to take an interest in you and like the fact that you're motivated and driven around a topic that they like, and so they start to invest more energy to help create more opportunities in that area and becomes this amazing self-reinforcing wheel. And that also as you go up through my career, even in the corporate world, the number of people I came across that liked aviation was surprisingly high, and so they loved the fact that I'd had this interesting journey in aviation since I was basically 13. And so they would start basically teeing up conversations or invite me to things or ask me to come speak about things, and that would form a relationship, and then the next opportunity would come along and and and and.

Speaker 1: 13:00

I was lucky because it was aviation, but it could have been anything else.

Speaker 1: 13:03

But if you were an amazing skier, you would undoubtedly find other people who love skiing and they would become the same kinds of people who would introduce you to people who also love skiing.

Speaker 1: 13:11

And then opportunities emerge and it could be singing, it could be, I mean, pick your favorite thing. I think to me the distinction was that I I had a level of passion and energy around it that I think people saw and that ignites interest in other people. And that's a big part of the book is how do you find that thing? For me it was aviation and even though I don't do it for a living, I still fly all the time and it's still a golden thread through pretty much everything I do and a bunch of the book is around. You know what is your, your true North, what is your golden thread through life? That gives you that spark, that energy, and some of it might be tied to work and other stuff might just be tied to your hobbies and avocations and other things you like to do. But in that journey you end up meeting really cool, interesting people and creating interesting opportunities.

Speaker 3: 13:52

Yeah, I mean one of the one of many of the people that you've met. I also know Will Warren. I had a chance to speak with him the other day and getting ready to record this, and he had some thoughts to share here.

Speaker 7: 14:07

Every town I've ever moved to in this country, the first thing I do is I go to the local airport and I put a note on the board that says looking for a partner in an airplane. And so within a day of moving to Bend I'd gone to the Bend airport, I put a note on the board that said looking for a partner in an airplane, and within a couple of days this random guy, darren, gives me a call and says so am I, let's talk. And didn't know him at all. Obviously and really, from that point forward we immediately became friends. You know we shared a lot of interests. We shared a common life in global corporate kind of travel and ambition, but never really, I think, identified ourselves solely with kind of corporate tooldom. I think we always had a lot of other sidebar adventures and things we were trying to learn going on. And so, you know, we found a plane together and he's a much more experienced pilot than I am and you know, the way to stay alive flying is find people who know more than you do and learn everything you can. And he's just this incredibly generous, you know, passionate, you know mentor, and loves flying and loves to share flying, and so I was the luckiest guy in the world to get this opportunity to be in this partnership with him, to keep learning from him, to have a bunch of great flight adventures with him. But as this is going on, we're building, you know, more and more of a friendship outside of flying and we're kind of integrating. Our families and my kids are, you know, looking at him like Uncle Baron and I'm just observing him over the few years and I'm definitely sensing something is different about the way he approaches life.

Speaker 7: 15:59

And we were going back and forth to the Bay Area a lot together. I was jump-seating in his plane as he was flying down at a Google and I was catching flights to other places. And I finally asked him on a flight down to San Francisco. We had a few hours together just in the cockpit and kind of like an anthropologist would ask a member of a tribe they'd never really encountered before, a culture they didn't really understand. I said, darren, I've never really known anybody who approaches life the way you do, like you're an oddball, you're an outlier, like there's something about the way you think about life that's different and what is it? And he was not surprised.

Speaker 7: 16:50

He immediately, you know, started telling me kind of where his origin view on how to navigate life came from and what his life story was and how he where he learned different perspectives and where he had setbacks and some of the specific channels he learned these things from. And it all boiled down to this notion of you know, you kind of create your own story and a lot of people say that I don't know anybody who executes it as well as he does. And you know I've been introduced to this notion of superpowers that everybody has the superpower and, without a doubt, darren's superpower is an almost inability to see problems. Like you present Darren with a problem and he responds with opportunities to solve or think differently about what you see as a problem. And I've learned over the years to just not complain to Darren about my problems and instead ask him questions about things I want to solve and why I want to solve them and how I want to solve them. And he leans in and helps me and I almost always take his advice and I go do it.

Speaker 1: 18:19

That's great. He's right. That's exactly how we met. I remember going out to the airport and Ben here and seeing that note on the board and that began the multi-year journey. That was probably 2016 or something like that. So yeah, seven, eight years ago, six seven years ago. Yeah, yeah, it's been a while.

Speaker 3: 18:42

Yeah, will's lucky to have you as a friend, man.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Well it's really symbiotic, and this happens throughout life. Right Is that you end up with people who come into your life that help you build a richer life. He's big into kiteboarding. I love the outdoors. I've never done kiteboarding before, and so he introduced me to that and his network of friends who do that in Mexico in the wintertime La Ventana, and all these exciting adventures that he has as part of his life, and so I guess that's the beauty of all this is, you meet interesting people on the journey and they help expand your horizons.

Speaker 3: 19:13

Yeah, you know, will's a very intelligent guy and I'm always. I guess one thing after listening to that audio clip a couple times, that stuck out to me because I is in the context of living an inspirational life. When you hear what we interpret as successful, well-to-do people who have you know, and they're still referencing, you know, not getting it right, what do people who are, what do people get wrong when they're trying to live an inspirational life? What's some common observations you've seen?

Speaker 1: 19:49

Yeah, I think at the core, they often end up in a sense living someone else's life, and what I mean by that is we all you know, have lots of pressures on us to do certain things go to certain schools, pursue certain careers, marry a certain person or type of person, you know. All of those things basically become pressures that get put on us and in many cases and I saw this over and over again as I was in these different worlds like whether it's McKinsey and Company or Google or now Cisco and then all these other organizations I've been connected to, you end up running into these people many people, I'd say actually majority people, unfortunately who end up arriving at a point in life that was heavily influenced by others, and all of our lives are heavily influenced by others. You're not going to escape that. But the question is can you capture that influence in a way that aligns with the things that light you up? So for me it was aviation, and I just happened to stumble into it at 13. My parents were not at all in aviation, but I stumbled into it, and then I started surrounding myself by people who amplified that.

Speaker 1: 20:50

A lot of other individuals I've encountered stumble into a path in life that is again often influenced by whether it's parents or others around them or even just society. Right, these things are okay. And you fast forward 10, 15, 20, 25 years and they're at a point in life that's really not aligned with the stuff that inside them lights them up and energizes them, and they end up having this talk, track, these stories in their mind around. Am I doing the right thing? Am I living the life I was supposed to live? And oftentimes, by then they're constrained by all the other things that we create. We do it to ourselves, but whether it's mortgages, you've got kids, you've got other responsibilities, you've made choices that start to limit your degrees of freedom and that starts to feel constraining. And so, to me, I guess the learning on this journey is you know how, as early in life as possible, how can you start to get in touch with the thing, that and the things it doesn't have to be one thing, by the way, it can be many things that give you that energy, that spark, that drive, ultimately, that moves you forward in a way that keeps you excited. And then how do you use that to start becoming better at those things, to start meeting other people who helped to reinforce those things in a way that creates a life around you that's one that's far more reinforcing and invigorating than not, and I don't want to imply that it's just like one big happy party all the way through life. It's not that you have ups and downs. Everybody has challenges. Things don't always go the way you wanted to. There's more about, in that reality of ups and downs how do you make sure you're living the life that is giving you as much inspiration throughout that journey as you can possibly have.

Speaker 1: 22:24

I called it a handbook for inspired living on purpose. It's a handbook in the sense that it's you can pick up any chapter and start. There doesn't matter where you start, so it doesn't flow kind of left to right or linearly. You can pick up anything and it is.

Speaker 1: 22:36

It's those, you know what do you call them tips and tricks that I've picked up along the way that are consistent with people who I've been around, who I feel like have in fact lived an inspired life, and I also often talk about a fulfilling and inspired life, and the way I think about that is I think about the word fulfilling is something when you're looking backwards, like at any point in time, can you look backwards and go, yeah, I'm living my life, I'm living the best life, I'm living the life that I would want to live If I were to die tomorrow. And I look backwards, is that the legacy I'd like to leave behind? And then the inspired part is more looking forward. I just say, if I think about the path ahead of me, am I excited, am I energized about that? And to me it's the two of those.

Speaker 1: 23:17

If you get them both right, you're living a life where the vast majority of your time has energy, looking forward about all the possibility in front of you. And at the same time you can always look back at any point in time and go, yeah, that's a life well lived I've led. And that's not just about I've achieved the most, it's more about I've contributed, I've done good things in the world, the world's a better place because of me. And so it's those two things. And if you do one well, the other almost always happens. Like, if you're living an inspired life in the right sort of way, meaning that you're kind of living true to your values, kind of Brene Brown's quote, you're living your story, then it's highly likely that as you look back, as you construct your life and the story around it. You will feel fulfilled because you've got your story, not somebody else's.

Speaker 3: 23:58

Yeah, I agree, and they both seem to have the concept of taking ownership in common, because for many people, including us, at certain points in our life, life is a roller coaster. You have the high highs and the low lows. Everybody does. Unfortunately, a lot of people experience disproportional amounts of both, I guess you could say. But how you approach or how you view your agency in that position tends to very much affect the outcome of the silver lining of that stuff. Does that make sense? It?

Speaker 1: 24:38

is, and that's why I wanted the book not to be only about me, because I grew up in a middle class family. I didn't grow up in a wealthy family, but I also didn't grow up in the projects of South Central LA or some other challenging place, so for sure I had it easier than many people do.

Speaker 1: 24:52

And yet, it should be noted, you include people on both of the expected and expected, exactly, and I intentionally went out to find people who had come from some sources that were far more challenging than mine was, and what did they do? How did they navigate their way out of that into a life that's far more inspiring? One of them is you talk about intentionality. One of the parts in the book is about the 168 hours, and what is that? That was an epiphany that came to me. I was at McKinsey at the time and everybody was working 80, 100, sometimes more hours per week. It was tiring and exhausting and it was not uncommon for people to be unhappy and talking about work-life balance and at the same time, I'd find people who were just totally energized and excited about what they were doing, and that was the epiphany was like what is the difference between these people? Because it turns out we all have 168 hours a week to spend, seven times 24. And some people were doing a better job of choosing how they spent those 168 hours than others. And there's an intentionality about what does your ideal 168 hours look like and are you clear on what that would be? Because, by definition, every hour you spend more on something is meaning an hour you spend less on something else. And opportunity costs yeah, there's a huge every week. There's an opportunity cost, and a lot of us end up allowing other forces at work to drive that mix of 168 hours towards things that often aren't as important to us in the long term, Whether that's way more hours at work than would matter, or we give up time on our hobbies, or we don't spend as much time with spouses, you know kids or other relationships that matter to us. And so one big thing is around you point on intentionality. I'm really clear on what matters and you know work matters. I enjoy work, so it's not like I do all these fun things out of work and then work just pays the bills. I enjoy work, but I've been intentional about finding roles that give me energy and I feel like sort of reinforce who I am and what I'm good at. But then I also invest a ton of energy in things outside of work that give me energy and I choose to be not as good at certain things, because every hour I would spend on being good at something that I don't care as much about is an hour that could be spent on something I care a lot about. So that intentionality is a big part of it. The other kind of back to Will's conversation and even something you said about Bernay Brown.

Speaker 1: 27:10

This idea of stories, I think, is really important, like, if there's anything I've gotten really good at, I think it's learning how to tell stories to myself. Because we all have this little voice in our brain right, and usually the voice in our head is telling us why we're not worthy of the job we got or not as good as someone else around us, or why I hope I don't get discovered that I'm not as good as other people might think I am. And so we have this voice that is often not our best friend, telling us the reason why we're not as good as we wish we were. And you can choose and it takes practice, but you can choose to start telling yourself stories that actually help you be better at what you want to do and you basically take control of that voice in your head and you start to tell yourself stories that actually help you behave in a way that is more likely to result in outcomes that are aligned with the life you want to lead.

Speaker 1: 27:58

I was just watching the news this morning and I forget the gal's name. Is it Coco? She's the tennis player she's won the Grand Slam down in Australia and they were interviewing her and they said you know, what did you do to get ready? And she just basically said, well, I just sat before the match and I told myself I'm talented and I look good and you know, and people kind of laugh when she said that, but it's. I was thinking, as she said, that that's a big part of this is like getting the habit of telling yourself stories that drive you to have the right mindset and, ultimately, the behaviors that will then ultimately result in the kind of outcomes you're trying to achieve in your life. Yeah, and too often we don't, which we allow our internal voice to take us down paths that aren't helpful to the life we want to build.

Speaker 3: 28:43

Yeah, I absolutely agree. What's that old Dion Sanders quote? Look good, feel good, feel good, play good, play good, get paid good, Something about that right that, definitely something about that, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 28:58

Yeah, I mean, there's no denying it. You know, I mean now more than ever and across a lot of different sectors of science. You're seeing, you know this phenomenal connection between mind and body that has always kind of been out there, but has been more on the fringes and now there's actually some. You know, I mean I read this book the expectation effect that made pretty good science. You know data driven arguments, evidence based arguments for this. The placebo effect, actually you know working.

Speaker 1: 29:28

So yeah, well, and the key is, some people think, oh, it's just about positive thinking. Well, no, you got to do actions too. So this is, to me, the positive thinking is really only in service of getting you to take actions that ultimately result in the outcomes you're trying to achieve, and so it's not enough just to sit at home and think happy thoughts. That's not what this is about, but so many of us don't take actions consistent with the outcome we want, and in fact, I see people sabotage themselves all the time where they I want to lose weight, and I watch them and they're sitting there, you know, chowing dead, drinking beer after beer after beer, or they're sitting there on the couch watching TV all day and you're like that seems inconsistent with losing weight, and so what stories must you be telling yourself?

Speaker 1: 30:09

I have this happen to me every morning. We talk before this podcast, I ride the peloton as often as I can, and you know there's a voice in my head when it's 5.30 or 6 in the morning especially on a day like today when it's five degrees Fahrenheit out that says you really need an extra half hour of sleep. You'd be better off just staying here and getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep. That voice comes up every morning. There's another one that would say your blood pressure will be lower, you'll be healthier if you get out of bed and go ride the peloton for 30 minutes.

Speaker 1: 30:34

The cool thing is I get to choose which of those two stories are both going on in my head. I have both of those voices telling me what I should go do. I choose the one that says you'll be better off if you get out of bed and go ride the peloton for 30 minutes. So I choose to amplify that story and that motivates me to get out of bed and I walk to the peloton and I go and, sure enough, 30 minutes later I feel really good and I'm glad I listened to that story. And the beauty of all this is you have lots of stories we all do in our mind and getting increasingly good at choosing which stories to listen to. That then motivate the action, the behavior that then get the outcome you want.

Speaker 6: 31:32

It's that flywheel yes, that flywheel.

Speaker 1: 31:34

That's a bit of what Will was referring to. Like when I don't see problems, of course I see problems, but my mind immediately goes to what story can I create that would motivate me to go do something that would actually turn that, what someone may see as a problem, turn that into something positive coming out of it? And so I practice that a lot. Right? How do I tell stories that motivate me to do things?

Speaker 3: 31:56

It's a behavior formed by a habit, formed by a choice. Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly yeah. I love it. What was your favorite chapter to write in this book?

Speaker 1: 32:10

It would either be the 168 hours or be the silver lining chapter. The 168 hours is the one we just spoke about. I just think it's so powerful because people complain about work-life balance and I have this sort of mindset like there isn't no such thing as balance, like balance implies this equilibrium, that everything's in sort of stability, and like that's not life. We're constantly being pulled on all of us to go do more things than we can typically in the time we've got, and so I think it's much more about choices, and how do you get clear on which choices? What are you going to say yes to? What will you say no to and be okay with that? Because you only have so many hours in the day and in the week. And there's sort of a related element to that around seasons, which means, even if you had your perfect 168 hour a week lined up, in some seasons, if you're an accountant, you're not going to have as much time to do other stuff besides work in March of every year because all your clients need you to help them with taxes coming up in April, and so you're in that tax season if you're an accountant. And so don't complain that your 168 hour mix isn't ideal for the long term, but then you got to fix it on the other side of tax time and sort of regain that appropriate trade-off. So the 168 hours to me is really powerful because it really does drive how I think about where I spend my time. That silver lining one is also powerful, though, because it's the concept behind it is that even when bad things happen, recognize that bad things may often be the things that lead to good things, and I have many of them.

Speaker 1: 33:43

As I went back to my life, I was shocked at how often I was super, just like I wanted to be an airline pilot more than anything. When I was in my teenage years I wanted to be an airline pilot and I found out when I was 16, just about to solo for the first time in a plane, that I had a color vision deficiency and I got my medical and it said not valid for night flight or color signals, and I was like how do I fly a plane if I can't fly at night? Like how could I be an airline pilot or the world's best fighter pilot if I can't fly at night? And there's a whole long story behind that. But I ended up going and doing other testing and things and eventually got my medical fully you know no issues. But I was still prohibited from becoming a military pilot and at the time the airlines were only hiring people who were basically perfect on every dimension. So I had to go find something else to go do and so I ended up flying for John Travolta.

Speaker 1: 34:29

I flew up in Alaska, I did all the things you talked about. I flew corporate jets for lots of different people and then learned about business and ended up, you know, on this incredible journey that never would have happened had I become an airline pilot. And I have many friends who became airline pilots and, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, I look back and go, wow, that was fortunate, because had that not happened, I was so sad on becoming an airline pilot and I've now lived this incredibly interesting and diverse life because of that setback and I've got, you know, 15 more of those kinds of examples. And, as I've talked to other people, every one of us has things that happen to us that are bad, and it's what do you do with that?

Speaker 1: 35:06

And also the reality that the you don't know what things will come out of that bad that could end up being the ultimate positive thing in your life. So there's a going to come back to that story in your mind. How do you run the, the, the story in your head? But as you look back on it you know you may not have gotten the promotion you wanted, you didn't get into the school you wanted, you didn't get to date the guy or gal you wanted to in high school, and all these things at the time seem really depressing. But because of that, other things very often emerge that wouldn't have, and so that silver lining is, I think, a really powerful concept to keep in mind, because it does happen over and over and over again and great things come out of the things that at the time felt like they were the worst.

Speaker 3: 35:48

Yeah, we can all identify with that to some degree. The trick is because in hindsight it's easy to you know between the point in time of the event to where you recognize this silver lining. Sometimes that can take a long time. So it's you know how do you navigate that. Timeframe is the key.

Speaker 1: 36:09

I think for me, because you're right, I didn't when those bad things happened. I did not at all see that at the moment.

Speaker 1: 36:16

Very few of us do, but now, having seen so many of them, when something bad happens, I immediately go to the oh, this is interesting. I you know, sometimes you're depressed because you didn't get the thing. So I mean, allow yourself to wallow in that. Or maybe something bad happens, you lose a friend, you lose you know. So, yes, allow yourself to absorb that. But then, as soon as you're able to get in that mindset and I've gotten to this place and I like I wonder what comes out of this. I wonder, wonder how something good can come out of this, because it always does. I mean, it's literally always happens, but you have to, it's more likely to happen.

Speaker 1: 36:47

If you go into that, though, with that mindset right, if you allow a negative thing to happen to cause you to start spiraling down right, you get a bad attitude, you start complaining, you start blaming someone else for why it happened. You can imagine the chance of somebody coming in and being part of helping to turn that negative into a positive just goes down right. Whereas if you're someone who's resilient and we've all heard these stories of somebody who had a major issue in their life and they somehow turned it around and now all of a sudden they're doing something positive with it. Those are the kinds of stories that people love to be around, and so the more you can get yourself back into that mindset, the higher the probability is that something great is going to come out of it. And there's no way to know what. It is right and you're right. It might be years, not like. You do that and three weeks later something happens.

Speaker 1: 37:32

But you know, you start to turn a bad into a good. You find ways to invest. Maybe you find other people who've suffered some of the same outcomes, so you lean in to help them get through it. All of a sudden, other people start to seek you out. Then they start to introduce you to hey, so and so went through something like you just did and and and and. All of a sudden, what was a negative you've now turned into a positive. You're meeting interesting people who've been through something perhaps similar and you get to help them in their story and they start to introduce you to more people and interesting things come out of it, and so that you can create that positive flywheel, and so the whole silver lining chapter is around. How do you, how do you get in that mindset that's more likely to create positives that come out of something that at the moment is negative.

Speaker 3: 38:12

Yeah, Do you ever. A lot of what you say reminds me of almost kind of a stoic, a traditional stoics approach.

Speaker 1: 38:22

I don't know if have you ever studied stoicism I have no, I can imagine what it might be about Well just you know, ryan Holiday is an author who I enjoy reading his stuff.

Speaker 3: 38:30

He has a book called the Obstacle is the Way you know, and it is very much kind of grounded in that mindset of you know, viewing every hardship in life as a unique opportunity to grow, which is what you're describing. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool.

Speaker 1: 38:47

If you study people, you watch people who've achieved amazing things in their life. It's almost never I actually struggled, I think, of who has had a straight trajectory to that amazing thing in life. I can't think of anybody, frankly. Yeah and so. But you know you can pick Oprah, I mean Oprah's. There's all these people. I've never met Oprah, but you know her, richard Branson. There's a bunch of people that I look to in my life that have just led a really cool, interesting life and, like Oprah's, had some real I mean, she grew up in a really challenging environment and just lots of bad stuff right, and she turned it into a really good life. And you look at how she navigated that and how she basically sought out opportunities, worked hard to be good at what she was good at, which was basically talking to people.

Speaker 1: 39:28

She was just really good at talking to people and now she parlayed that into you know, a talk show or basically a news anchor in Chicago and all the way to what she's doing now, which is like a network.

Speaker 3: 39:38

Totally yeah, she's one of the most successful women in business and you know Richard Branson.

Speaker 1: 39:43

He's a guy that's totally living his life right. He is, doesn't take himself too seriously. He's got so many businesses right. The whole Virgin Empire is gigantic and every one of them has this golden thread of him trying to transform an industry and just make it better. And then he brings a level of energy to it, a level of inspiration to it. He attracts good people to want to be part of the journey, takes risks. Not everything has succeeded. He's had a bunch of failures along the way, but even when he fails he learns something. He picks himself back up.

Speaker 3: 40:12

One of my favorite chapters in your book was was chapter three, and you just referenced it as kind of part of that flywheel and seeing the silver lining is the network of people that you create and how that can create so much opportunity, and I was. I wanted you to share the story of you coming up in a very different environment than what you were used to and during your MBA and getting an opportunity to go out to lunch, because that just is a really good example to me about how showing up, being consistent, having integrity, gets you noticed, which gets you opportunity and which plays into your network.

Speaker 1: 40:50

Yeah, I was. There was a friend of mine named Jonna Capitano at in business school and we were just finishing our first year of business school and most MBA programs are two years long, and she came to me and said, hey, we should be co -chairs of the first year orientation program so, as the new first year students would come in the following September, they wanted a guy and a gal that to lead them for that week of orientation or they kind of orient the students to what the two year MBA program is going to be like. And so she wanted me to co-lead it. And I remember it, having gone through it just you know nine months earlier, so what the two leaders at that time had been like and I pictured them as you know. Here they are in front of a giant audience of 300 people. They were charismatic, they were articulate and I didn't see myself as that at all, and so I immediately said no to Jonna and she was persistent and she basically pushed on me to try out for this thing and, frankly, it was because of that persistence and the fact that I heard there were seven other couples in the center, guys and gals, who were applying for this, that I finally gave in, just assuming I'll go through the motions, do the interview and clearly one of the other seven will get the role, and you know, you kind of know how this probably goes Well, we ended up getting it.

Speaker 1: 41:56

The dean and a whole bunch of faculty interviewed us and they picked Jonna and myself to co -lead the first year orientation, and so we ended up.

Speaker 1: 42:04

You know we worked all summer, got ready for that.

Speaker 1: 42:06

The first year orientation happened in September and it ended up going really well and you know I was nervous and I of course didn't do anything perfect, but it went well. I had prepped all summer. And so then, if you fast forward to like October, november timeframe, we're all interviewing for jobs and you know my resume looked kind of funky because all my classmates had come from Procter and Gamble and Clorox and Goldman Sacks and all these sort of well-known companies and they were taking two years off to get an MBA. I had come from Wilbur's Flight Service in Alaska and K2 Aviation and I had worked for a place called Nancco Enterprises which was basically a private equity company in Santa Barbara and I was flying jets for them. And so my resume had nothing at all, like all of my classmates and so you know I don't know how well I was interviewing, but I would sometimes make it to the second round, but I was not getting job offers. I'd probably gone through 15 or 20 job interviews and not gotten a single offer.

Speaker 3: 43:03

And you were interested in going into management consulting.

Speaker 1: 43:07

Yeah, at that point I was still kind of funny. I went to business school hoping to burn two years in order to become an airline pilot. The airlines were firing everybody, basically Bran of Eastern Pan Am, twa All these airlines were going bankrupt at the time and so you had thousands of pilots with tens of thousands of hours of flying time, and you had me, who had a lot of flying time for being, you know, 23 years old Actually, I guess I was 28 or so then, but still I had a lot of flying time, but not as much as these folks losing their jobs, and so the airlines still weren't hiring. So, as I was coming out of business school, I was like okay, what else do I do if I can't become an airline pilot? And so I thought business would be fun, and so I was interviewing. I interviewed with Chevron, I interviewed with all the different management consulting firms Deloitte and Boston Consulting Group, all these folks that came through McKinsey and company and others and every one of them interviewed me, and then they all said no.

Speaker 1: 43:54

And so, one day, though, I was in school and I got an email from the dean of the business school, and he said hey, there's a guy named Walter, coming in from a consulting company called Arthur D Little. He asked me if there was anyone in the class of 300 students in the second year who he should meet with over his free lunch hour. It's a great question, by the way, which is a great question, right. It was actually cool that this guy had rolled in. And this guy who was going to do the interviews had a whole slate of my peers, my classmates of mine, who had all signed up to interview. I hadn't by then I'd kind of given up on consulting because I wasn't making it through the interviews and so I didn't even know anything about them. But this guy who comes in asks the dean, is there someone I should make sure I spend my hour lunch break on with? And so the dean emails me and said and the reason he emailed me kind of back to your original question is because I had become this co-chair of the first year orientation. I had spent the entire summer working with the dean and these other faculty members of the school to put together the first year orientation program, and then I had spent the week leading a group of my peers who were section chairs and then working with the faculty and did the whole week of that event and he just got to know me over that summer and so he thought of me. There was something about me that he was intrigued by Someone.

Speaker 1: 45:09

Walter, this fellow from Arthur D Little, asked who should I spend my lunch hour with? Eric Mockover is the dean's name and he basically said hey, this guy, darren, would be good for you to meet with. And it was great because I got the email and for me it wasn't an interview although you assume you're always sort of interviewing but it was more like hey, there's no pressure, I'm just going to meet this guy, walter, we'll have a nice lunch and Walter was great. We talked about life. He talked about you know why did I go to business school. He was intrigued about my flying journey. What did I learn in my private equity experience? I was a pilot for the private equity company, but when I wasn't flying I was doing and managing commercial real estate for them and other things, and so he was just truly intrigued, I guess, about this interesting journey I'd had, even though none of it really was all that relevant to the jobs that I was hiring or being being interviewed for. But then, you know, within 24 hours he had called back and made me an offer to join Arthur D Little as an associate and moved to Boston and that kind of launched me on a whole career.

Speaker 1: 46:03

Because I did that for two and a half years and then McKinsey called back and I had interviewed with McKinsey in business school and they had taken me to second rounds and then I didn't go any further.

Speaker 1: 46:12

But they called back two and a half years later and just said hey, want to know what you've been up to.

Speaker 1: 46:15

You know you're, they were only going to hire a few people that year and when I was in business school, wherever they do the line I was somewhere below that line and so I didn't get the job offer.

Speaker 1: 46:25

But apparently they were intrigued enough at least to follow back up again and they re-invited me to interview and I did and ended up getting a job at McKinsey at the time, which was sort of the preeminent consulting firm in the world, and so that was kind of one of those neat things where you can follow the.

Speaker 1: 46:39

You know, at the time you can't see it looking forward, but you look backwards and go, wow, had John and not pushed me to get out of my comfort zone and go interview to be that that co-chair of first year orientation, and then had I not used that to then really get to know the dean and the other faculty, there's no chance I would have gotten this interview with this guy, walter, which would not have taken me to R30 Little. And then had I not been in R30 Little for two and a half years and learned about management consulting, there's no way McKinsey would have called me and then asked me to re-interview. That whole thread started because of John pushing me out of my comfort zone to go do something I really didn't want to do.

Speaker 3: 47:14

Did you ever ask him why he hired you after that lunch?

Speaker 1: 47:17

I mean we, you know I've stayed friends, he's still around and stuff.

Speaker 3: 47:20

Yeah, I mean he was, what was it?

Speaker 1: 47:22

It's kind of interesting. He liked the fact I had an interesting background, right, it was not the typical cookie cutter path through life. He liked that I had taken some risks, like I had been in graduate school already getting my degree in mechanical engineering. I had a scholarship. I had done well enough in undergrad that they gave me basically a scholarship to get my degree in mechanical engineering, my master's. But I had just gotten so excited about aviation that I basically took a leave of absence and bought a one-way ticket to Alaska to go try to become an Alaska bush pilot. And he wanted to hear all that story Like what did you do? How did you find the job, how did you know where to go? All that stuff. And so I think he was intrigued by the story about the sort of willingness to take a chance, to take a little bit of risk. I'm sure he was.

Speaker 1: 48:08

And you know there's I don't talk about it as much in there, but I do think there's something powerful about just authenticity.

Speaker 1: 48:14

Right, I had taken a course years ago when I was still, when I was in Boston, about the kind of helps you understand what drives you, and we all have this voice in our head and we all tell stories to ourselves and sometimes the stories are helpful and sometimes not. And through this course I had taken it, I at least became and I think pretty much everyone in there became a lot more comfortable with. You know, we are who we are and we aren't who we aren't right Meaning that I'm good at some things and not good at everything. There's a lot of stuff I'm not very good at and that's okay. I am who I am and there's something liberating about that sort of reality. So I think there's sort of a level of authenticity. Maybe that comes along with those interviews where it kind of connected with Walter in a way that he thought, okay, this guy would be a good guy who could come in and work at that company.

Speaker 3: 49:00

What I hear and what I see and observe is it's unique in terms of your dedication and passion to pursuing so many different, diverse things as far as you have, you know, and that speaks to your character. It's cool man, it's super cool.

Speaker 1: 49:15

Yeah, I like I get bored easily.

Speaker 3: 49:17

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 49:18

So there's a lot of my energy that goes into feeding that right. How do I not get bored and so?

Speaker 3: 49:25

Is that you get bored or you're just very curious. That's probably that. It's probably more that.

Speaker 1: 49:29

I like to know how things work. I get sucked into YouTube so like if I had a vice. It's that I will waste time. You call it wasting, but I'll just zone out on YouTube. Dude that'll eat into your 168, bro, it does, and I have that. But you know what? Some of this is just mindless stuff. Right, it's good, I think, to check out once in a while, but some of it's just learning Like, how does?

Speaker 3: 49:47

that work.

Speaker 1: 49:48

Right and.

Speaker 3: 49:50

How rad was that prop, that old prop video I sent you all the way today. Oh, yeah, really cool. Yeah, really cool.

Speaker 1: 49:55

Have you ever seen that I haven't. But no, that basically log almost spinning. Yeah. With that. Saw just going up and down and slowly moving out on the propeller blade.

Speaker 3: 50:03

Yeah, I love technology. I fairly convinced people are much used to be much smarter than they are now Because you have to be yeah, figure all that stuff out.

Speaker 1: 50:12

But I love reading books about, like Orville and Wilbur Wright. You know back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, and how they did what they did with the Wright Flyer. Yeah, I like people who innovate, but you know like I'm a hardcore do-it-yourselfer. Yeah, we have my wife and I live out in Tummelo and we've got a horse farm there. That was just raw land when we bought it and I remember getting a bid for digging the trench to bring the power into the property and the bid I got was it's a thousand feet long. And so I got a. It was a $5,000 bid. It's $5 a foot, with this asterisk, that said, unless we hit rock. Then it became $50 a foot. This would be $50,000 if they hit rock. And I was like, oh shoot, I don't want, I don't have $50,000 to spend on digging a hole specifically. And a buddy of mine is like well, first of all, 100% they're going to hit rock.

Speaker 3: 50:59

This is Central Oregon. Absolutely, man, he goes.

Speaker 1: 51:01

This is the Teezy he goes six inches in any direction. Yeah, you hit rock, he goes. Well, why don't you just dig it yourself? And I was like I don't know how to do it. He goes. Yeah, we can. Just, we just rent a 35,000 pound excavator. We'll get you a rock hammer, he goes, I'll teach you how to use it and you can spend your weekends doing that.

Speaker 1: 51:14

And for a month that's what I did. I'd go work my job, I'd travel every Monday, come home Thursday night and I'd spend all day Saturday and all day Sunday digging a ditch, basically. So I dug this 1,000 foot long thing and it cost me like $5,500. And by the time I was done, I was actually a pretty good rock hammer and excavation. Yeah, you were An excavator operator and that was just super cool. And then ever since then, if I ever need to do something, I'll just go rent an excavator, Not because I couldn't have someone else do it, but I like doing that stuff. It's fun and I like the contrast of my day. Life is spent on video conferences or in large rooms with people driving sort of complicated business stuff. On my weekends I'm digging holes and there's like almost no stronger contrast than those two things. So from a mental perspective. I love the fact that I've got that kind of diversity.

Speaker 3: 52:03

Yeah, I mean in that 168-hour chapter you kind of break down categories into wellness, career, chores, relationships, personal time and that was insightful seeing how they compliment each other.

Speaker 1: 52:20

Well, part of that was because when I was in consulting in particular, people were often working 100 to 120-hour weeks. That wasn't uncommon, and so usually what goes away? They don't get any more time, right, nobody gives them 200 hours a week, they still get 168. So usually what goes is sleep almost always goes. You don't go to the gym as much. Generally, whatever hobbies you might have had, go out the window right. You start. You know, hey, I used to love to sing or dance or pick your favorite hobby. I don't do that anymore.

Speaker 1: 52:46

And then sometimes it's the family spouse, all those other things that make up how time could be spent, end up getting scrunched. And so, as I laid that out, I said well, you know, I know that, like you know, sleeping five hours a night, three hours a night, isn't healthy, and you can only do that for so long. So there's got to be some minimum amount of time that I'm going to do my best to try to sleep. And then I know that exercise is good. There's plenty of evidence out there. I don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. So I should really commit to a certain number of hours of working out per week. And so I know relationships matter, right. Divorce is expensive. Spend time with your spouse and kids and everybody else that give you energy and opportunities. Come out of relationship by meeting people, and so that's got to have some meaningful amount of your time spent on that and so on.

Speaker 1: 53:28

And then for me that there's that category of me time which is just you know, for me it was aviation. But you know, time doing things that just make me happy and give me energy and kind of refill the cup were super important and I was seeing people in my consulting time who gave up on those things and so they no longer had those things that perhaps at one time, but they either never had them. Some people went through life and never figured out what are those things that kind of light them up, right, and sometimes it's because of their parents. Like no, you've got to get straight age, you have to go to this school, you have to work this hard, you have to do these things, and they never really had time to figure out what's the thing that lights them up. I was lucky I found it. It was aviation. That's a lot of people who didn't actually know what that was and so then they can't even try to optimize to keep that in their life.

Speaker 1: 54:15

And so for me, I just became really deliberate about, even after I was gone for four days out of the week, we had, you know, two young kids. My wife was super busy raising them and she was also a physical therapist for a living, so she was busy too. I would come back and somewhere in the three days I was home Friday, saturday, sunday I would go find six hours out of that day to go spend time with the airplanes. And the good news was Lisa was great with that. She'd let me do that. Conversely, I'd say I've got the kids now and she was big into horses. Horses are her thing. I'd be like, hey, that's super important, you go ride the horses. You go be with your friends, you do adult stuff, forget about kids, forget about being a spouse or a mom or all those other things that consume energy. You go, just be you and your horses with your friends. And I think it's important everybody has whatever that is for them and they don't give up on making sure that stays prominent in their life.

Speaker 3: 55:02

Yeah, and even when you have it all mapped out, you know your ideal week, right? One thing that I liked in that chapter two was some of the hacks you know, like doubling up two furs, right. I think of that as being multitasking, which is why I think audio is so great. Yeah, you know which?

Speaker 1: 55:20

is why it could be driving and listening to this podcast. Yeah, hopefully somebody is.

Speaker 3: 55:24

You can kind of be checking two boxes off at the same time, right, so you're more efficient with those 168 hours of exercise. And listen, you know, I think you have the example investing in your relationships while at the same time eating lunch, right, and that's an interesting way. I'm excited to kind of start applying that more, because once you're aware of it. I think there's a lot of ways where you can get creative on how to do that, yeah, you can go.

Speaker 1: 55:49

you know I make the distinction in that chapter about there's good and bad right, because, like, if you take your kids to school and park them on their iPad next to you at work, or take you to take the kids to work with you, let's say, in Parkham, on an iPad next to you, that's not quite that, that's not really a twofer, because you're not really spending any quality time with them. All you're doing is babysitting them while you're doing real work, as opposed to let me take the kids with me to such and such reconnect, spend real quality time. So, yeah, maybe it is to the gym and you're both working out together and you're spending some quality time. You're getting your exercise and some quality time with your child. I think there's legitimate twofers in there. But you have to, yeah, not confuse that with scrunching a bunch of stuff together, where you're doing a bad job with each of the things you're scrunching together.

Speaker 3: 56:30

Absolutely yeah. So this requires regular reflection and just kind of this idea of taking inventory, you know, because what works this week won't work next week.

Speaker 1: 56:41

Yeah, and I'm thoughtful about. I try to be efficient. So you know I'll look at my day my assistant now has gotten really good at this where she'll look at all my meetings and then she'll know if I have a meeting somewhere else. That by definition, since I haven't yet invented the teleporter, it means I'll probably have to get in a car and go from A to B. So hopefully the teleporter's coming soon. But until then she'll know that, okay, that trip from here to there could be spent talking to someone who would otherwise be a video call.

Speaker 1: 57:07

But some of my calls don't require video and so let's convert those to phone calls. Of course you know I can do phone calls easily enough while I'm driving. Sometimes you just want me time and I'll listen to a YouTuber, a podcast or something. But if I can be efficient while I'm moving from A to B, I'll prioritize the calls for which a call, yeah, could be done in a car equally well versus video. Some calls you want to be on video because you're looking at something right, you're reviewing a PowerPoint slide or whatever it might be, so don't do those in the car. That's not going to be productive.

Speaker 3: 57:35

Yeah, will I have a few thoughts. Will told me a story of bumping down a road with some surveys open. Going kiteboarding and being involved in some fun meetings.

Speaker 1: 57:47

Yeah, we were doing an earnings call. I remember that. Yeah, he was. It was pretty fun. That was one where I didn't have to. I was more listening mode. But yeah, we were doing our annual earnings call and had the CEO and a bunch of folks on and basically I've just had it on you know on listening.

Speaker 3: 58:00

Let's give people some context. The CEO of Cisco, which I don't even know. I mean we're talking global dominator but yeah man it's funny. It's funny, I think, about the thanks for giving me your time, man, you know I want an assistant. Yeah, I didn't get one of those.

Speaker 1: 58:19

I didn't used to want an assistant. I, like I, never trusted that anyone else would either manage my calendar or do my expenses as well as I would. But then, in my consulting days, I started to realize that, you know, those were hours that could be spent doing something else, and so I had to start trusting that other people could do stuff, even if I didn't believe they could do it as well as I, although in this case they do it better than I. But at the time I wasn't convinced they would do it better than me. I had to get comfortable that I'm willing to give up and let that be done at 80% in order to spend time on other things where only I could do it or I believe that I would do it better, and by me doing it better it actually matters. Yeah, that's a good example of where I start letting go of certain things in order to have time to do other things that matter more.

Speaker 3: 59:02

Well, it speaks to me about how a lot of these behaviors build on each other. It's the next level of kind of the same kind of loss, you know, acceptance of boundaries and limits, and how do you, you know, it just starts building. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty neat stuff, man, it's really neat stuff. Another chapter that spoke to me a lot and that I liked was chapter 11, and you titled it. It's the journey and it, you know, it was just kind of through your personal story of working towards your goals of piloting a P-51, I mean, which is the pinnacle of World War II military aviation.

Speaker 1: 59:41

Yeah, it's a dream. The Mustang right, any pilot. Yeah, you'd pretty much ask any pilot what's like the ultimate airplane, and P-51 would be in the top three for sure, if not the top one.

Speaker 3: 59:51

And you know I mean this from reading that chapter. You know this was a dream of yours that you developed as a kid. That took you, you know what, 30, 40 years to kind of achieve that. You it was. And again, whether you learn this along the way or in you know reflection, you know this idea of us taking this stepping stone approach to it. Work on the next thing no matter, you know, even if you never achieve the goal, you're positioning yourself in such a way where your odds are as high as you can make them in what's in your control.

Speaker 1: 1:00:31

I didn't say that very well. No, it's one of those concepts. You know, there's that old saying the harder I work, the luckier I get, totally, which is true, and I think.

Speaker 3: 1:00:41

Yeah, luck is defined by hard work, meeting opportunity.

Speaker 1: 1:00:44

Exactly All right and so, and you never know if the opportunity will come along. But that was a dream that had, you know, started early on like, wow, how cool would that be to get a chance to fly a P-51?. But there's a bunch of stuff that goes into that. You have to have the flying skills to do it. You have to have the amount of experience not even just a skill, but a certain amount of time spent doing it. You have to have flown the right kinds of airplanes that lead into that.

Speaker 1: 1:01:04

And then you either have to have a lot of money where you can go out and buy one they sell for there's only a few left in the world and there are millions of dollars to buy or you have to stumble into somebody who's got one who, for whatever reason, decides that you're the person you should fly their treasured aircraft, and so the probability of all those things happening is pretty low. But in the unlikely event it happened, I wanted to make sure that I was ready, and so all the way from 13 years old, when I first heard a P-51 and saw one just recently, I was doing things that were consistent with that outcome. Whether that outcome ever happened or not, was almost irrelevant, because, to your point, it was the journey, and so I was learning to fly something called tailwheel aircraft, and tailwheel aircraft are the types of planes that used to be flown more prevalently back in the 40s and 50s, during wartime. Even back in World War I, it was all tailwheel airplanes with a little wheel on the back.

Speaker 3: 1:01:56

Tail draggers.

Speaker 1: 1:01:57

Tail draggers, they call them right, Whereas most modern-day airplanes are nose gear, airplanes, tricycle gear. So you start, you learn to fly in one of those which I did, which I think makes you a better pilot, but it also gives you that tail-drager experience. When I was in Alaska, a lot of the flying I did there was tail-drager flying, which is more kind of back country types of airplanes or tail-wheel airplanes.

Speaker 1: 1:02:18

I had a chance to fly the training kind of plane that was used by students back in 1940 in the war, something called the T6 or AT6, advanced Trainer 6 from North American, which was the trainer for the P-51. And so I came across an opportunity where there was one that was part of a club and a fellow called me up and introduced me to the club and next thing I knew I was getting checked out and flying that plane.

Speaker 3: 1:02:42

Which should be noted, wasn't just happenstance. All these things were kind of intentional position yourself with the future goal. I mean, at least that's how I read it in the book.

Speaker 1: 1:02:51

Yeah, well, it was, and it's a little bit about saying yes, right, it's like yeah, showing up, yeah, showing up, right.

Speaker 1: 1:02:56

Hey, this opportunity emerged. I could say no, but that would be a cool opportunity. Let me say yes. And then they made it voice in your head. It says, well, how do you do that? You don't have enough time, you're busy, you have a job, a wife, kids, blah, blah, blah. There's all these reasons why you can't make it work. But you find a way to fit it in. You say, okay, I'm just going to do it. Every other weekend or once a month, I'll go do it, and you just go do it. And next thing you know, I was flying the T6. And then, yeah, then this opportunity emerged, probably four years ago, where I got a call hey, there's an organization in California.

Speaker 1: 1:03:24

There's like four guys involved in this organization. It's been around since 1970 and they have an opening and they'd like to find someone to fly their P51 and they're looking for someone who has a lot of tailwheel time Check, ideally a lot of flight time. Well check, I'd been flying my whole life by then, so I've got thousands and thousands of hours. They wanted someone who had T6 time check, right, they wanted someone who was willing to work on airplanes, because we have an FAA mechanic, but we go and work on it ourselves together too with that FAA mechanic, and I've been working on airplanes my whole life. I love mechanical stuff and so kind of check, check, check, you know, and then they can't be a jerk. It was like kind of the last thing because they wanted to interview I don't know, man, that one was probably worried about.

Speaker 1: 1:04:02

So I had to study it and learn how not to be one right.

Speaker 1: 1:04:06

And next thing, you know I was in there and then even then it was a several year journey because you got to get time around their airplanes. They wanted to have you be part of the club for an organization for a while before they would let you qualify to fly that. You had to find an instructor, which is only a few in the country that can teach that. Then you had to find an FAA examiner. So it's still multiple years and so the cool thing about it is, as that chapter talks about the, it's the journey. You know, all the way through the journey was exciting and motivating and inspiring. Whether or not I actually ever got to fly the P-51 or not, it was actually kind of less critical because it was all about pursuing this.

Speaker 1: 1:04:42

And there was a fellow that he just recently moved here, moved from here, Jim Weatherby, who was a NASA test pilot or Navy test pilot, I should say, then became the head of the astronaut corps, did more space shuttle flights than anybody else commander five times and he lived in Bend until just recently. He and his wife just recently left to move back to be closer to their kids in North Carolina. But he and I became friends and I learned about his story and his story is in the book now as well. But he talks about being 10 years old and dreaming of becoming an astronaut, recognizing the probabilities, you know, infinitesimal that you'll actually become one. But he ended up spending the next, you know, 25 years basically being an astronaut, Like you do the things consistent with being an astronaut. So he did well, and you know he studied extra hard in mathematics and then, when he got up to college age, he did ROTC, decided to go into the Navy, because he found out that people who become astronauts often go through either the Air Force or the Navy. Then, when he was in the Navy, he basically learned about becoming a Navy test pilot and ended up becoming selected for one, because a lot of test pilots also become astronauts. That just improves your odds.

Speaker 1: 1:05:48

And so all the way through this journey, he was doing all the things consistent with being an astronaut, whether or not that infinitesimal probability would occur that he'd actually get selected to be an astronaut. He just kept doing the things consistent with being an astronaut and all of a sudden fast forward in his you know, in his 30s he gets selected to be part of the astronaut corps and ultimately ends up flying the space shuttle six times and becomes head of the astronaut corps, and he and I have had this conversation multiple times, but for him it was just, you know, trying to be the best he could possibly be, distinguish himself by being better than everybody else in terms of preparedness. He went to the simulator more than anybody else, he studied the emergencies more than anybody else. So at your point, you know when preparedness meets opportunity. That's when it happened.

Speaker 3: 1:06:31

Yeah, there's two quotes in your book that kind of made my top. Well, there's a few, but the top two that kind of resonated one is exactly with this, which is, if you want certain outcomes, you must begin to do the things consistent with the outcome and be patient, yep, totally. Which is so true, man, you know I mean, I tell myself this a lot lately which is, most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in five. Totally, which is counterculture to you know what the world tells us? Because, especially in the western civilization, everything is so instant, which is not consistent with the most long term. Successful things required time. I mean, what's that other old quote? Nothing, nothing, any good isn't hard, or something like that. But what?

Speaker 1: 1:07:23

was the other quote.

Speaker 3: 1:07:25

The other one was when, faced with two uncertainties in life, choose the one that makes the best story.

Speaker 1: 1:07:30

Yeah, that one served me. I was hoping you'd say that one, because that's been one of my favorite ones.

Speaker 1: 1:07:36

Yeah, yeah, when faced with a difficult decision choose the one that makes for a better story. And I got that one Like when I was being recruited by Google to leave McKinsey and I'd been at McKinsey for 14 years and McKinsey is an amazing organization. I learned a ton, have many good friends there, good career, I enjoyed global travel and all the stuff and working with interesting clients, so in a sense there was no reason to leave that. But here I had Google calling and wanting me to take a role there and I actually had said no to them several times. I would usually point them to other people I thought would be interesting candidates for them, but they kept calling me back and the reason they called me back was the stuff that I had specialized in at McKinsey was relevant to what they were trying to do at Google. So I had a fit and it wasn't the Alaska bush flying and all the other stuff I had done. It was what I had done at McKinsey that was relevant to them. What was that? It was leading a global team, their ads business.

Speaker 1: 1:08:25

So digital advertising is their single biggest business. That's where Google makes the vast majority of their money and they basically help businesses grow by creating the ability for them to put their digital ads out on the internet and have customers usually humans, consumers mostly. Sometimes, as businesses have consumers find their company's business, they do it through digital advertising. We all see it. When you do a Google search, you'll see the first three or four things It'll say sponsored on it. Those are paid for by the companies who are trying to make it easier for you, as someone who's on the internet, to find the products you're looking for. So Google enables that. They do it on YouTube, they do it in all their different properties and they wanted someone to lead the bringing in of all new customers into Google. So, and it turns out that at the time, google, at that time when I joined, had maybe 10 million or so customers and there's like 150 million businesses in the world, and so they wanted someone to lead the global team to go figure out how to get the next 140 million or the remaining 140 million businesses to start using Google to help find customers for themselves. And so that was the role and it was really cool because it was going to be a global role of several thousand people in the organization and it was something I had never done before, but I had been at McKinsey. I was a small, medium business guy, so I did a lot of consulting to big companies on how they needed to tune their businesses to better serve small and mid-sized businesses, because a lot of big companies do want to sell into small and mid-sized businesses, but it takes a whole different approach. Economics are very different, the way you reach these companies are different, and so on, and so I did the spreadsheet.

Speaker 1: 1:09:59

I did all the stuff that all of us would do If you were offered another job tomorrow. We would all do the same thing. We'd look at how much are they going to pay me, what's the role like? Does it create additional opportunities for me down the road? What's the risk? Because the company is going to go out of business soon? Am I better off staying kind of in my nice comfortable spot? So you're looking at all those trade-offs and most of us would do. There'd be a spreadsheet, one that would look at how much are they going to pay me, and then there'd be more of a pros cons.

Speaker 1: 1:10:24

These are the things that are good about this new job. These are the things that maybe aren't perfect. I got to travel more. I have to commute more, whatever, and so I did that and I had these two. Mckinsey was this, google was that. Mckinsey was paying more, google would be paying less. Mckinsey was all cash. Google was less cash, but then more stock, more equity, which comes with risk. I would have to travel with both jobs, but travel a little bit less with Google, and so on. So I did all these things and then I talked to mentors of mine to get their view.

Speaker 1: 1:10:52

So you try to find trusted people and get there and you get a mix of hey, you're doing great, keep doing this, or hey, that would be interesting. And there was this one person in there that gave me that quote, which was one faced with a difficult decision, choose the one that makes for a better story. And that was really powerful and I've actually used it now many times because, as I sat back and reflected, because the pros and cons kind of neutralize each other yes, I would make less at Google, but also there was more stock. If the stock did well, I would make more. And so you don't really know, it could go either way. And so then it really came down to hey, imagine I'm 85, 90, whatever years old, looking back on my life. Which would be a cooler story? To say I had been at McKinsey for 25 years I'd already been there 14, or to have been at McKinsey for 14, and then maybe go do 10 years at Google. And when you put it in that frame, of course that second one is a way better story. That would be a way cooler story to tell myself or tell others that I'm around. That was ultimately the factor that tipped it over. I'm like you know what I got to go do this, this will make for a better story.

Speaker 1: 1:11:52

And then the same thing happened when Cisco called. I was loving Google. Google's an amazing company. I'd been there six years at the time and same thing. I did all the math, the pros and cons, talked to mentors, and then this would be cool because Cisco's a great company. Even the role they have me in there would stretch me in ways that I wasn't at Google. And then the stuff I had a chance to do to be part of this journey that Cisco's on for sure, that would make for a better story. And so I'm at Cisco. That's cool, man. Same thing with moving to Bend right.

Speaker 4: 1:12:21

Which is cooler to live in the Bay?

Speaker 1: 1:12:22

Area for another 10 years, or leave the Bay Area, move to Bend and restart an entire life in Bend, oregon. That's a cooler story for sure.

Speaker 3: 1:12:30

And you guys moved here. What 2006? 2006,? We started in.

Speaker 1: 1:12:34

Sun River Okay.

Speaker 3: 1:12:35

With the airport.

Speaker 1: 1:12:37

Mostly that was a plus. We ended up buying a house on the airport there.

Speaker 4: 1:12:41

So we did. Yeah, it was really cool.

Speaker 1: 1:12:43

So I was able to commute from my house on the Sun River airport down to work and back, and then we moved into town around 2010,. Right after the whole 2008, everything melted down, so we moved into Bend, kids went to school here in town and then about 2018, we moved out to Tummullo to get a place where we could build this horse farm and my wife's big into horses since she was four or five years old and that gave us the opportunity to build a place that we basically lease space for people to learn how to jump horses.

Speaker 3: 1:13:14

You've lived a really cool life, my man. I feel very fortunate. Yeah, the P-51 thing still just blows me away. I mean, that's one of the you know, I had heard of you as Will's friend who works in Google, who flies down to the Bay Area to work in. You know, in my world I'm like, wow, that's so different from my reality, right.

Speaker 3: 1:13:37

And a lot of people and then just getting to learn who you are and kind of you know again this approach of life events and the choices you've made that have gotten you where you are. But yeah, the P-51 is still. It's just unbelievable. Will I have a little bit more audio? Will talking?

Speaker 1: 1:13:57

about oh good, I took him up in it. Yeah, and if you're a pilot.

Speaker 3: 1:14:02

This is it is the ultimate plane to go for a ride in, so we had a great time.

Speaker 1: 1:14:04

Yeah, I asked him about this and I'm curious to hear what he says.

Speaker 7: 1:14:08

Yeah, man, that's, that's like a whole mother epic phenomena. I mean that he's a partner in it. You know, it's the pinnacle of aviation and only a few guys in the world that fly him. And it took him. It took him years to get there. It was this Byzantine process of things to pull it off. It was the longest, hardest thing I've ever tried. I've ever seen him attempt to make happen.

Speaker 7: 1:14:35

And then I'm telling you, when he invited me to fly up in the backseat of that Mustang from San Francisco to Bend, it was one of the raddest things I've ever done. It it not only did give me a huge amount of just joy, but so much respect, adam, for these young kids who flew those planes in the war. I mean, that thing is a beast. They were 19, like crazy, like it's got this, it's got this 12 cylinder rolls, this Merlin engine, 12 cylinder, 1500 horsepower, and it just sits. The, the, the, the six exhausts on each side of the plane Just just sit in your face Like they just pour fumes into your face and you're just stoked, Like you're just like give me more. It was one of the raddest things ever.

Speaker 7: 1:15:37

It was a dream he he catched when he was 10 and it's, and at 59 he pulled it off, you know, but that's how, that's how he rolls, like you know, you know, and he also has this great philosophy that it's it's like, and I've, and I've really tried to incorporate this into some of the things that are hard or ambiguous to achieve, and you're not even sure if you're going to pull it off. I mean, there was no guarantee that he'd ever even find a Mustang and be able to do it. And he has this notion that, like, as long as you're always making progress and enjoying the progress towards Accomplishing a goal, like there's all these steps, and as long as you're, like, moving in the direction of it, it almost it becomes less relevant whether you've even ever achieved it or not, because each step is something that's valuable.

Speaker 1: 1:16:28

Yep, that's cool. Yeah, he remembers that's awesome yeah that's cool.

Speaker 3: 1:16:34

What? What's the story behind the? The, the Mustang you guys fly, you know it's. It's history, like where it came from.

Speaker 1: 1:16:41

Yeah, it was built in. It built in 1944, and what?

Speaker 3: 1:16:44

year was the first flight, 1988.

Speaker 1: 1:16:48

Yeah you mean that, yeah, the or bone will or before that was like 1906 or seven, something like that, early 1900s.

Speaker 3: 1:16:54

So we're talking 30 years, yeah, 30, 35 years basically flying for 25 seconds or so and kitty hot that to that.

Speaker 1: 1:17:02

Yeah, it's pretty nice about?

Speaker 3: 1:17:04

Yeah, I mean, that was what. Are we now, 70 years Like?

Speaker 1: 1:17:08

yeah, it puts it in perspective, you know yeah, because then you go from there to the, to the space program and all that. Yeah, it's changed a lot. Imagine the next 20 years, oh my gosh, I don't even know.

Speaker 3: 1:17:18

I don't even want to know what you know in terms of tech and aviation and when it's coming.

Speaker 1: 1:17:23

Yeah, it's, it's it's changing a lot. Yeah, supersonic flight will be back and we had the Concord for a long time, but that went away, so that'll come back and yeah my dad flew that once.

Speaker 3: 1:17:32

Oh, did he? Yeah, he used to travel a lot for business. He was an explosives engineer and did a ton of like global work and I it seems like I remember it was that in the early 80s, I think was flying yeah before that?

Speaker 1: 1:17:44

Yeah, I think it stopped. It probably was the mid 90s, maybe something like that. It's been a while.

Speaker 3: 1:17:49

Yeah, but he, that's an incredible. Yeah, yeah, so that'll be back.

Speaker 1: 1:17:52

Electric aircraft are coming autonomous aircraft are coming, oh yeah. So where you get to, you basically have an uber, but it's a small aircraft. It shows up at a vert, a port, picks you up and autonomously lifts off vertically or very short takeoff and Flies you someplace for cents on the dollar, because these electric aircraft are very inexpensive to operate. So it won't. It won't be too long before that becomes, before that becomes a thing standard operating procedure.

Speaker 3: 1:18:17

I interrupted you about the history of the plane, yeah, so.

Speaker 1: 1:18:20

So this plane was built in 1944 at North American, which was the company that built the p-51 down in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1: 1:18:27

It was shipped over to England in early 1945 and made it over there around March or so of 1945, was reassembled and then the war ended Not too long after that, a couple months after that, and so it never actually saw combat. So they basically packaged it back up, put it in a box, shipped it back across the the Atlantic to the US and then it went into various Air Force wings, yeah, and was flown by the Air Force file for a while, then went into the Air National Guard For a while in various places, ended up in Arizona, was on the East Coast, and then eventually got bought by this organization that now owns it, which is a Museum down in Hollister, california, in around 1971 or 72 and it was formed originally to basically allow the public to see these p-51s. And then there's they also got a t6, they got the training rain and the and the fighter plane and they've been around ever since and basically it's. You know, different people come and go through there that have the.

Speaker 1: 1:19:25

Sort of the experience to fly it and they they don't want it to be too big a group because you don't want these old airplanes to fly that much. But you know they get maintained every year. We have to do all the maintenance on them that any other airplane would need how often do you get to fly it? Oh, I probably fly it twice a month.

Speaker 3: 1:19:39

Oh, wow or so is it down in California? It's in California.

Speaker 1: 1:19:43

Yeah, so I. But what's great is Cisco is about 35 minutes from where it's based, so I can. I can either sneak out of work, you know, at four o'clock in the afternoon on a on a summer day when the, when it's daylight, or usually what I'll do is go down a Day early. So if I have meetings on a Monday, I'll go down a day early on a Sunday and go fly the airplane and then and then go do work Monday through whatever For the week down there. So I find ways to, you know, to sort of include it in with stuff I'm doing with work, and then usually once a year or so I'll bring it up to Bend for maybe two weeks. There's only two of us that fly it right now, so I just coordinate with the other fellow. There's four of us in this group. The other two guys all four of us fly the t6, but then two of us fly the Mustang and so I just check with the other guy, make sure he's not doing something with it. Mostly what we do is show it to people, so we take it to air shows and put it on display, or sometimes there's flights will go fly, you fly by so people can hear that that Rolls Royce Merlin engine, that 12-cylinder that will talked about.

Speaker 1: 1:20:38

When I brought it up here, I focused mostly on taking these older folks for rides. You know me either, who had been in one of the wars or whose parents had and maybe maybe had. One fellow I took up, his dad had been in a b17 bomber and the b17s were escorted by the p51 Absolutely man, and the Mustang was basically what kept them alive. And so it was super cool to take these older folks who were in their 80s and 90s and take them for a ride and let them Experience the sound, the smell, all that of what somebody would have. But they're, they're either, yeah, they're, their father or grandfather might have experienced back of World War two. Bro, it's a time machine, totally yeah it's a total time machine.

Speaker 3: 1:21:17

I mean, I don't know how many. I can't imagine that. I Mean are like all the avionics and is all that stuff been revised over the year? It's a mix.

Speaker 1: 1:21:26

Some of it's still original and some of it's been updated a bit, but the airplane itself has never been fully restored, so it's still pretty original. It's maintained. Of course it's had new engines put in. As you know, the engines run for about five or six hundred hours or so, which might take multiple years, like we would typically fly it, maybe 50 hours in a year, so maybe every decade or so it needs a new engine and there's a few companies in the world that Rebuild those Rolls Royce Merlin engines. What's really impressive is is when you work on it you realize that was an airplane that was built in. About a hundred and twenty days Is how long it took to design that plane which you consider today. Now it's it's years and years and years, 120 days from the time they said let's go do this, to when the first one rolled off the, the floor, the prototype, and they did it all with no computers. And so you're in this airplane and it's like. It's like art, almost it's, it's really amazing like that Merlin engine with the 12 cylinders.

Speaker 1: 1:22:17

It's got four valves per cylinder, so 48 valves, and a dual-stage supercharger that basically can allow it to fly as high as 40,000 feet, which is basically upward. The airliners are today and that's just a piston engine that you know they did back in the 40s. They figured out how to do all that stuff. So again with a slide rule, basically in a drafting board telling you, bro, way smarter than present.

Speaker 1: 1:22:38

Yeah, it's cool, it's inspiring what they got down. They got it done fast. Most it because they had a mission right. They they were focused on on the war and winning the war and so everybody in the country pulling to Figure out how to do it, and they did. It's a beautiful airplane.

Speaker 3: 1:22:51

Yeah, there's some. There's something for me because I'm a very nostalgic person but and I very much like have this like deep, deep sense of Fascination and gratitude for military history in our country. We were down in San Diego this summer and I'd always wanted to take the midway tour.

Speaker 4: 1:23:09

Oh yeah have you done that?

Speaker 3: 1:23:10

I have and, like you know, I mean there's something the energy like in those ready rooms. Yeah, you start thinking about the decades. If those walls could talk. Yeah, right, I mean pre-flight, post-flight. Like you know, your colleagues didn't come back, all the different stuff you know and you and you sit in those you know, like sitting in those old cockpits and just On in here, yeah, yeah, and what's cool is that this, this Mustang, it was built in 1944.

Speaker 1: 1:23:41

So when you're in that cockpit there was somebody in 1944 and that exact same cock. Yeah, started that plane for the first time. Yeah, took off out of Los Angeles there and did the demo, you know, the test flight, and then off, it went to England and all that. So, yeah, it's as will said. You can't help but sit in it. It was cool. When you it's a, it does have two seats but it's certified as a single-seat airplane so you can take passengers in it, but it was not certified as a two-seater airplane.

Speaker 1: 1:24:06

So when you solo it for the first time, when you get like your, I got my check ride from the FAA you go out by yourself. So my first time flying the plane by myself Was for the check ride with the FAA, and the FAA sets on the ground and they watch you fly the plane and they talked you on the radio and make sure you do all the maneuvers properly and they can see you from the ground. But that's a cool feeling. When you get off, you know the second those two wheels leave the ground, the main gear leave the ground and the landing gear comes up and you're, the noise of the Merlin engine and the smell. As will said, you got you know, 12 exhaust stacks pumping that that exhaust past the, the cockpit. You can you immediately imagine yourself as being in 1920 years old. You've just lifted off from England, you're on your way, maybe for the first time, across the channel, and that all this in its identical sounds. It's the exact airplane that would have done that, and so it's. It's definitely a cool, a cool feeling.

Speaker 3: 1:24:56

Yeah, yeah I.

Speaker 1: 1:24:59

Nice job man.

Speaker 3: 1:25:00

I'm proud of you.

Speaker 1: 1:25:01

I'll hear it up here. I bring it. I'll bring it back up again. I don't like to bring it up this time of year.

Speaker 3: 1:25:04

It's just too cold.

Speaker 1: 1:25:05

It's not a great time of year.

Speaker 3: 1:25:07

I feel like I've seen it flying over. You would have, because you don't see many around Exactly, and I had it here for two weeks and I flew it quite a bit last summer.

Speaker 1: 1:25:13

It's like last May or so. Yeah, we were at soccer games, you would have heard it coming over there, you can't miss the sound of that engine.

Speaker 3: 1:25:19

It's, it's a very iconic sound man, next time you come it up, text me. I want to come out and watch you fly it, just just to watch it take off.

Speaker 1: 1:25:26

Yeah, oh you have to. Yeah, just being at the airport hearing it go by. Yeah, it's an amazing sound.

Speaker 3: 1:25:31

I grew up in north Idaho, which is not that far from Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane.

Speaker 4: 1:25:35

And I mean they used to have.

Speaker 3: 1:25:37

My dad would take me every summer to the air shows and you know they would have the, the historical military demos, you know, and, and yeah, I mean there's just something so magical about those old military war planes.

Speaker 1: 1:25:50

Yep and you realize sort of the role they played and the people who flew them Exactly. Yeah, that's why it's fun to kind of yeah, in fact I've taken some people for rides who don't appreciate that and it's like a kind of a bummer actually.

Speaker 3: 1:26:01

It's like a wasted. Yeah, there's only so many of those opportunities in the world for people in scaring.

Speaker 1: 1:26:06

On the other hand, I have people. I had one guy who came out when I had it here, who came up for both. I had it here for two weeks but I was flying on one of the weekends two days straight, and he came out both days and just sat and watched the whole time just hoping that there would be a ride. And so I got talking to him between rides.

Speaker 1: 1:26:19

But I had a bunch of people I'd already called the hay, you know, or they'd called me when I mentioned I was bringing it up, and but I was just inspired by how committed this guy and he knew what the airplane was and he could tell me all about when it was built, how long it took to build, who was involved in building it, you know, what was the record in world war two. And so of course I had to make sure I got him a ride, and I did, and so he got to go for a ride. It was, it was great. But I had someone else who was like a friend of a friend who you know. They said, hey, let me get you this ride in this airplane, and he's like how old is this thing?

Speaker 4: 1:26:48

Is he?

Speaker 1: 1:26:48

still safe. Should I be up in this thing and all that? I was like, oh so I just did the sort of the fastest of rides around band and came back and landed, you know, and he had no idea. He had no idea what he had just experienced and how many people would give anything really to have a chance to Go do that. So I actively seek out people who would appreciate. You know how unique that opportunity is.

Speaker 1: 1:27:07

What's next for you, man? Um, yeah, I'm all thinking about the next thing. So I'm loving what I'm doing at Cisco. Cisco's really fun. I've got a global role that's helping Cisco or transition into the. It's next, you know, several decade journey and so I'm enjoying that. You know we're empty nesters, kids are out of the house, daughters in college, sons Actually do an avalanche work up at crystal mountain in. Seattle. So and he's loving it right now, just after all this big dump of snow, the last last few weeks work like training.

Speaker 1: 1:27:36

What do you mean?

Speaker 4: 1:27:36

He's basically part of ski patrol at crystal mountain and they have the avalanche team that goes out and throws the bombs and does all that stuff so.

Speaker 1: 1:27:43

Um, and you know he's trying to figure out. Does he want? He loves the outdoors, mostly because of his experience growing up in band, and so he's trying to figure out how does he turn that into a life. And it could be, you know, ski patrol and all that it could be. You know high-end back country tour guy he does. He's been back country skiing most of his life. He does rock climbing. He has traveled the world doing all that. He built his own video business in high school, so he's basically been saving money since high school.

Speaker 3: 1:28:06

Yeah, he sounds like he grew up in bend Oregon.

Speaker 1: 1:28:08

He did. Everything he does is outdoors.

Speaker 3: 1:28:09

You just described like 50 people.

Speaker 1: 1:28:13

Totally Right, and so he's.

Speaker 4: 1:28:14

You know how do I turn that into a life and so far, so good, and my daughter wants to be.

Speaker 1: 1:28:21

Her name's Lauren. She wants to be a vet, so she's in pre-med right now out in Colorado at CSU. Um, so I think you know I I'd love to get back into aviation. I love aviation, as you can tell, yeah, and I do it for fun now, but I'd love to get back into it. I'm so Connected into that industry now I'm on boards of organizations that are aviation.

Speaker 1: 1:28:39

There's so much innovation we talked about earlier electric aircraft, autonomous flight, all these things, um, but I like to have that become a bigger part of what I do. So sometime over the next few years it's it's not tomorrow, but it's it's not 10 years from now either but over the next several years, start doing more of those things and then to me it's, none of these things are On-off. I'm already doing these things now. So that's another part of guess of the kind of the inspired life concept is there's so many people I ran into that were In this, you know, in order to, like, I'm going to work my ass off, put in 80 hours a week and blah, blah, blah, in order to do the things I really want to do, and then inevitably that have a heart attack and die or something bad. What happened right? And they would never get to do the thing they want. So I'm always doing the thing I want at the time, maybe not as much as I would ultimately end up doing, but you know, I didn't have time to get this p51 thing done, but you find that I didn't have time to write this book, but you kind of just get it done, you do. You find the little hours here and there you get it done, uh, and so I'm already doing I'm.

Speaker 1: 1:29:35

I'm on, I'm involved in an organization in la that's deep on these electric aircraft. I'm on the board of an organization out in wisconsin that's deep in aviation. Um, I find ways to go speak to organizations that have a connection to these things I want to eventually be doing more of, and so I'm already doing the next thing. Um, just, maybe that's 10 or 20% of my time, yeah, and then the rest of the time is stuff around the house with Lisa and this farm that we're running. This horse farm Cisco does take a lot of my time, so I'm doing that also all the health stuff, trying to work out all these other things that I do. Well, and I will, and I co-own a small plane together, so spending time with him. I've been an instructor, a flight instructor, since I was 18. So kind of my most of my life now, so I'm getting back into teaching.

Speaker 3: 1:30:17

I have 10 hours, oh yeah, well, we got to pick up.

Speaker 1: 1:30:19

I know, never lose them once you have never lose them, so you can just keep adding more and more. They don't expire.

Speaker 3: 1:30:25

Yeah, when I, when I was at a pivot point in my life, I was considering a couple different directions to go, one of which was going out to a school north of Chicago and studying airframe and power plant and aviation, with the hope of potentially joining this organization, mission aviation fellowship, which was kind of a this global kind of Bush pilot organization that flies in humanitarian efforts. You know it's associated with the yeah, sure.

Speaker 3: 1:30:57

And I went to a couple Events, one of which was guys that were getting their check ride on like landing on your dirt run round the Snake River and stuff and just the. It was so neat. Yeah go up and fly around, but yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 1: 1:31:13

It's got to get back into it then, yeah, I will, I will.

Speaker 3: 1:31:16

I ran out of money yeah it was not cheap and let you know to the obvious point is to be a good pilot. You got to be a pilot and be flying, you know, and there's there seasons in life, Like you said. Yeah, perhaps that'll present itself again as an opportunity. But one thing I really appreciated and I thought you know it seems very consistent with the type of guy you are was in that survey I sent you before about some life goals over the next 12 to 24 months. The very first thing you said was Kind of invest in your parents. Yeah, help them kind of check off some of these bucket list things, and I that's cool.

Speaker 1: 1:31:54

Yeah, that's them. You know they obviously played a big role in me right following the life I have, mostly by Not saying no, that if there's a message in you know many messages, but one of them was I see a lot of kids who don't get to go do what they're lit up by Because maybe the parents have anxiety about it. Right, some kid wants to be a race car driver and parents like, oh, that sounds dangerous. No, or wants to be a pilot or whatever it could be. A lot of parents get in the way. I have found other kids if they start to get that spark on something they're motivated by and the parents make a judgment call like no, that's not good, and they steer them down a different path and in a sense extinguish that spark.

Speaker 1: 1:32:30

So my parents, to their credit, saw how much I loved aviation and Neither one of them did aviation or even necessarily liked it right. They were concerned to hate small airplanes is that dangerous? But they saw just like I was gonna spend every waking minute trying to find ways to get closer to airplanes and so they in a sense got out of the way. Christmas present I'd get like an hour flight lesson. They do, you know, they didn't really give me money, but they gave me encouragement, which was a huge factor. And so now they're both in their mid 80s and so, like my mom had always wanted to go on a safari.

Speaker 1: 1:32:58

I'm at a place in life now where I could do something like that. So I took her and my dad, my wife and I over to Kenya last last September and and my mom still talks about it and that was, you know, a year and a half ago now and amazing experience. My mom loves basketball. She would never drive into the city to go brave the traffic at 84 years old to get into a you know Parking structure and head over to watch a Warriors game. But I can do that, and so I, for Christmas, got her tickets to a Warriors game and got good seats. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 1:33:24

See.

Speaker 1: 1:33:25

Steph Curry and all her, all her heroes that she only sees on on TV, and so, yeah, it's those kinds of things, that's those experiences.

Speaker 3: 1:33:31

Yeah, it's gotta be so fun, it's super cool, yeah, so it's like well, what's the?

Speaker 1: 1:33:34

next thing I. What would they like to go do?

Speaker 3: 1:33:35

Yeah, so yeah, that's really cool, and your dad was a physicist.

Speaker 1: 1:33:39

Yes, yeah, still is, although doesn't work for a living anymore.

Speaker 3: 1:33:41

But yeah, he, yeah, yeah once a physicist, always yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:33:45

The books he reads are crazy In fact he had a book at our house. Will came to visit and it's a book called gravity and it's literally about three inches thick. It's this crazy thing, book on gravity, and will was so intrigued we ended up.

Speaker 3: 1:33:57

I got.

Speaker 1: 1:33:57

I got it for. If you ever go to Will's house You'll see his book on gravity and it's a cool book. But my dad that would be like light reading for him. He reads a lot of, you know, fiction books and stuff too, but he likes that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah they're both really good.

Speaker 3: 1:34:09

I can only imagine the conversations you guys have around some of these unidentified aerial phenomenon when it comes to aviation and physics.

Speaker 1: 1:34:18

Yep, yeah, everybody sees something up there, but Anything we didn't talk about that we should.

Speaker 1: 1:34:24

I don't think so. You know, I summarize the book because there's a lot in there, right, and I try to make it as practical. And Peace meal, as I said. Right, you can take one or five, you can take all of it. Take a couple pieces, everything, every one of them kind of stands on its own. I kind of summarized the book and said, look, if you only remembered Three things out of the whole book and I do think they, for my experience, they've mattered the most.

Speaker 1: 1:34:47

And I talk about skills, relationships and attitude. And you know, and skills, skills are basically what do you want to be good at? Because if you can get good at it, you can, kind of you can make a life out of pretty much anything. You'll make more money at some things than others, but if you want to get good at something, it can have a. You have it become a big part of your life. And the cool thing is you get to choose what you become good at, right, if you get clear on what motivates you. And basically, yes, you get to choose on what you get good at and to what skills you build. And so my only advice on that is Choose something you like doing. I see people who get good at something they really don't like doing. They did it because they can make money at it, they can find a profession in it, they can get a job whatever, and then they have a whole life of doing something they really don't care about. So I'd say, you know, find something you like doing and then get good at it. And the way you get good at it's by doing it a lot right. There's almost no more secret than that.

Speaker 1: 1:35:34

So, skills and you get to choose what skills you want to be good at, the relationships. Or, as we talked during this conversation, every opportunity that comes our way Comes from somebody else who sees you, likes you, thinks of you when an opportunity emerges, and they Invite you in, like every opportunity, whether it's, you know, the job at Google, whether it's that job at Arthur D Little because the Dean met me along the way and so Invest in relationships and invest in relationships with people who inspire you, right, there's just billions of people in the world. All you need is a dozen or several dozen, let's say. That are meaningful relationships. So choose the relationships you want to invest in and, again, you get to choose that right. Nobody forces you into one or the other.

Speaker 1: 1:36:13

You get to choose who you, who you see as a, as an inspiration, so build relationships and the attitude one is really, you know, attitude, a gratitude type of thing that people want to be around other people who Find ways to see the positive, no matter how bad things are. Again, not in a polyanis way, but in a In a constructive way, like how do we take, make something good out of this? And so many people immediately find the negative in something and spiral down. And so the third point here is just really practice choosing to Bring a good attitude to everything you do and this attitude of gratitude, be thankful, because it's a lot of people who have it way Worse than any one of us do oh yeah, so remembering that Puts you in the right mindset to start creating those stories in your mind that have you start to do the things consistent with Building great outcomes.

Speaker 1: 1:37:00

So skills, relationships, attitude all the other stuff we talk about in there is important 168 hours a week. I talk about financial flexibility and there's a bunch of other things. But if you did nothing else, build skills and things you care about, invest in relationships with people that you get inspired by, and then bring an attitude of gratitude and positive, positive outlook. Lots of great stuff come out of those three things.

Speaker 3: 1:37:20

I Think that's a good spot to end. Awesome Thanks for the opportunity, man. Thanks for your time. Yeah, there's been a ton of fun getting to know you cool. Yeah, I look forward to staying in touch.

Speaker 1: 1:37:29

Oh, we will, it's a small town and we have a lot of the same friends, so we will definitely do that right on in a p51, perhaps. Thanks Darren. Yeah, thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Speaker 5: 1:37:40

Adam Darren. What's up, buddy? Hey, hey, I'm just driving, driving to San Francisco Airport and Heading to drop off my rental car here, so perfect timing.

Speaker 3: 1:37:51

Yeah, good deal. I felt bad because I really wanted to have kind of a call to action for listeners on where they can find you and your book and learn more. Where can people find you, man?

Speaker 5: 1:38:02

Well, the book is available on Amazoncom. You can just search for True North and my name, darren Pleasence, and it should pop up. It's available in Paperback as well as hardcover, and also now out on Kindle and audio book as well and you have a website too.

Speaker 5: 1:38:20

Yes, darren, pleasence. Comms are pretty simple and they can go. Anyone can go to that website and learn more about the book, learn more about me, and there's also a link in there to just click right through to buy the book as well. You can also download the first first chapter of the book for free as well if you want to get a taste of it.

Speaker 3: 1:38:37

Love it. There's also a sweet photo of you with your p51 Mustang.

Speaker 5: 1:38:41

Exactly. All right, I will be in touch with you. I appreciate it. Talk to you soon. All right, take care, bye, bye.

Speaker 3: 1:39:13

Hey, thanks for listening to Ben magazine's the circling podcast. Make sure to visit Ben magazine calm and learn about all the outdoor adventures in our area, as well as upcoming featured community events, local artist profiles, our dining guide and Our theme song was written by Carl Perkins and performed by Aaron Colbaker and Aaron sir flu of the errands. We love mail, so please send us comments, questions or art to the circling podcast at bin magazine dot com. Support the circling podcast by becoming a member on patreon at patreoncom forward. Slash the circling podcast and learn how your financial contribution will help support local nonprofits While also supporting local podcast. Follow us on Instagram at the circling podcast to learn more about past, current and upcoming episodes. Please subscribe to the circling podcast and all major podcast platforms and leave us a review. It really does help.

Speaker 3: 1:40:19

I'd like to say a special thank you to all of those who participated in the making of this episode, as it wouldn't be the same without your Contribution and I appreciate your trust. Pick up a copy of Darren's book true north a handbook for inspired living at your favorite local bookstore or online through Amazon or on Darren's website Darren pleasant calm. Don't forget to stay tuned after the show. Credits for Darren's contribution to the circling podcast community art project and stick around to hear from some of Darren's friends and colleagues as they share some final thoughts. Lastly, if you know someone who you think would enjoy today's episode, please share it with them today. Hey, thanks for your time. Centro, oregon, get outside or see out there and remember. The health of our community relies on us. So, on our Subliminal story art, community art project you had you wrote down. When faced with a difficult decision, choose the one that makes for a better story.

Speaker 1: 1:41:28

Yeah, that came from a Mentor of mine many years ago.

Speaker 1: 1:41:32

That was making the point that we often become very analytical as we think about Choosing to go one direction or another in life and in my case it was choosing between two jobs and you do all the comparisons, you do the pros, the cons, you do all these different Approaches to trying to figure out what the right decision is.

Speaker 1: 1:41:49

And that quote was one that I just has now served me many times when you kind of step away from the analytic and you say which of these paths would make for a better story, and it's actually helped me make at least half a dozen substantial life decisions that resulted in a really cool life emerging and so so that's, that's what's behind that I think of all of us were to be in our 80s, 90s, 100, whatever we end up living to and looking back being able to Say we made decisions Consistent with creating a better story, so that the the richness of our story of our life ends up being, as you know, diverse and interesting as possible. You know, if we lived into that, that quote, and it could all, we'd all have far more interesting lives.

Speaker 3: 1:42:32

Love it man.

Speaker 6: 1:42:33

So I think it's a great story. We moved to Bend and I had this Childhood fantasy to ride horses. So I started taking lessons at this local barn. And when you walk down the aisle of a barn and people have their horses boarded there, they normally have like a little dry erase Board on the stall that says the horse's name. But in this particular case it was stall after stall, after stall after stall after stall of Pleasants in gold brass nameplates Pleasants, pleasants, pleasants, pleasants.

Speaker 6: 1:43:12

I'm like who the hell are the pleasantess? You know, like what's this about? So I inquire and they said, oh, you know this woman, lisa Pleasants, who, who writes here. Her husband's name is Darren, he works for Google. And I said, oh, my god, my husband works for Google. They said, oh, you guys should meet. So we meet for lunch and we're talking and it turns out that we live on the same street, like six houses away from each other. But ever since that lunch we just have, we hang out all the time, and so we, just our families, just became friends.

Speaker 6: 1:43:48

And he Super grounded, really down to earth, because when you hear about him so it wasn't just the gold plated horse labels, it was also that Darren has his own plane and he flies from Bend every Monday down to the Bay Area to work for Google. And like this sort of big Vision that you have or at least that I had in my mind about the stereotypical person who would have that life, darren's more of the guy next door who will come over with a screwdriver and help you, you know, fix something that's broken. You know he's very unassuming. I thought it was really great. You know, we've been talking about that book for many, many, many, many, many years and and I've seen Darren speak he's done some events with me as well as a speaker, so he's been working on this content for a really long time.

Speaker 6: 1:44:41

So I was really proud of him for actually getting it out into a book and out into the world. So I think it's it's really great. So, yeah, I thought he captured a lot of Things that I think are really core values for him and how he lives, but I also think that he included some things from Other people that he has studied as well. There's a story he told he's all times I I feel like a version of it was in the book. I think it was about Getting points on the board early in a game so that you don't feel like you missed an opportunity later.

Speaker 6: 1:45:24

And because his introverted person and when he goes into these meetings, you know, with these type a super assertive, you know executives he often find himself in a situation where he didn't say anything and Then he would get no, he would he add any value to the meeting. And so, you know, he got some coaching from his bosses that said, if you were playing a basketball game, would you rather be the guy who had to throw the free free throw at the end of the game to try to, you know, win, or would you rather get on the board when there wasn't anything to lose, sort of early on in the game? And he said I'm way more the guy who wants to get a point on the board early in the game to take the pressure off. And so I, you know, I think that that what he's done is he's taken really simple pieces of advice like that and and incorporated it into his habits that have allowed him to just sort of continue to move forward in this calm, calm fashion.

Speaker 8: 1:46:29

We just seem to be people who believe that you can live a really, really great life if you, you know, build in the right habits and use the right tools for development and, you know, walk down the appropriate path. And so I connect with him really really nicely like that. Never tremendous respect for him. So what he has accomplished, for what he is doing, not only in professionally in his job, even though that's a pretty awesome career but his story is in his life and everything about his life is fascinating and done to the, to the how do I put it? And degree of Getting the maximum you can get out of it. Every story he has about diving somewhere, about how he dove and the shark came and this whale came and something happened, or every interaction he's present. He's there, he's a good listener, he gets the most of every moment. So I connected him really well like that and I've had him over at my home in Dallas and he's come and stayed with me and I think I'd like to say we become good friends of the result. Maybe that I can tell you what I feel him. It's a very, very, very simple Way I have of describing Darren what he has learned to do, what I want to learn from him, what I aspire to be someday, personally as well is taking life experiences, learnings and Putting it in perspective and building tools and habits around your lifestyle so that you get the maximum joy out of every moment. And it sounds silly to say this, but I've seen Darren in Really difficult situations at work high pressure, insane and he's totally come Right because it's not his everything, it's just a tough situation at work. He still has a great family, a great life, great hobbies, is the pilot and he's able to take every moment for the positive nature that it has, for the learnings he can get from it and Added as a positive experience in his journey. Most people cannot do that. I'm going to tell. Leave you with something that I'll take 20 seconds to tell you.

Speaker 8: 1:48:35

So when I had Darren over at my house some of my team members who are at my home I love to have people at my home a month earlier I cooked for them I cook like 10 dishes for my entire team and someone someone may have told that and so when he visited me in my home, he said are you gonna cook for me? So I made him a meal and I really enjoyed cooking from. You know why? Not because the food was good up, because he thought the food was good.

Speaker 8: 1:48:59

I watched the guy this is this is how I describe Darren, right the point I brought up earlier sitting at the table, with every bite he would put the spoon and fork down and he would enjoy that bite, if you know what I mean. He actually tastes it and and is in that moment. He's present in that moment. So it was funny. I say I'm telling you this, I'm laughing as I tell you this because when he left I told my wife I'm like you know what, I don't mind cooking for Darren anyone. He truly appreciated the food, versus I had scoffed my meal down in like 14 seconds and ate too much.

Speaker 4: 1:49:32

Yeah. So Darren and I met and doing the regular telecommute between Silicon Valley and between Ben years ago and Hit it off just personally as well as professionally, and one of the things that has always struck me about Darren has been that he's been looking at solving big problems out there and, as far as I'm concerned, what I often say leaving leaving it better than he's found it and and Darren tries to do that in every aspect of his life that I've seen there and I've always had, you know, deep conversations around what really matters in life, both our kids ourselves, and it's far beyond Anything in relation to just the tech ecosystem in the tech world. So very much I've always appreciated, you know, the friendship, the perspective, the expertise that Darren brings and and what he's been trying to do on a broader basis as well, and the book his story Is writing about it, trying to pass things on to others. It's just one more aspect of Darren and who he is.