Unfazed Under Fire Podcast

2024 Election Series #1 - Filtering Your Choice Through the Leadership Lens with David Craig Utts and Ryan Mcshane

David Craig Utts, Leadership Alchemist

What if we told you that the real battleground in the U.S. presidential election isn't just about policies but about leadership? Today on Unfazed Under Fire, David Craig Utts and Ryan Mcshane will help you navigate the politically charged atmosphere by examining the key qualities and experiences necessary for a U.S. President. We'll cut through the noise of identity politics and media sensationalism to focus on the fundamental issues we face as a nation—economic challenges, border security, international relations, and societal division. Expect to gain a fresh perspective that emphasizes unity and upholding America's foundational principles.

Ever wondered why some leaders inspire unity while others sow division? We'll uncover the leadership trends in modern politics, discussing the essential traits a president must possess to serve the highest and best of Americans. From the citizenry's desired outcomes to the importance of critical thinking and fact-checking media representations, this episode is structured to make you question your beliefs and the information fed to you. By drawing parallels between the principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and organizational values, we'll show how environments that foster autonomy lead to more significant innovation and productivity.

During the episode, we will help you filter your in the presidential election through the lens of leadership.  We focus on Donald Trump's and Kamala Harris's vision, executive presence, demonstrated ability to execute, and whether the outcomes of their execution serve or go against the best interests of the American people.  We also look at the teams they are building to support them.  During the interaction, we look beneath the lies about both to reveal their authentic characters. We'll also explore the psychological impact of fear-based manipulation and how the media have consciously used it to hamper critical thinking and corrupt people's choices.  Reflecting on actions and facts over words, we'll dissect recent political events and their implications. Join us for a thoughtful discussion that challenges conventional narratives and empowers you to make informed choices in the upcoming election.

Here is the webpage created to corroborate references made on the show:

  • www.davidcraigutts.com/2024election


The co-host for this show is Ryan Mcshane, who is the co-host of HR Evolution. You can reach Ryan through these links: 

  • https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-mcshane-743382a/
  • https://hrevolutionllc.com

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Unfazed Under Fire Podcast - Host: David Craig Utts, Leadership Alchemist

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Unfazed Under Fire, a podcast designed to elevate your leadership and amplify your impact. Each episode offers valuable insights to help you transform your vision into reality, cultivate high-performing cultures that attract top talents, and navigate the complexities of today's uncertain, chaotic world with confidence and clarity. Now tuning into your needs, here's your host and moderator, seasoned executive coach and leadership alchemist, david Craig Utz.

Speaker 2:

Hey, welcome back to Unphased Under Fire. I'm your host, david Craig Utz, the leadership alchemist. This show is all about helping executives like you amplify your leadership impact, gain fresh insights and build the resilience needed to thrive in today's unpredictable world. Now, typically, I bring on thought leaders or seasoned executives to explore leadership development and people-centric solutions that can assist you in leveraging opportunities and overcoming some of your biggest challenges. But today and in the next episode, I'm gauging a different focus, where I will be stepping into the political fray to examine the US presidential election through the leadership lens. Now, I know you've probably been considering your choice and may have already decided who you're going to vote for in the election. You're not uninformed, but, like many executives I've worked with, you may have had to rely on mainstream sources to keep up and haven't had time to dig deeper into what lies beneath the surface. I get it, you're busy, managing your leadership responsibilities, your family and everything else that life throws at a busy executive, but this election cycle is more emotionally charged than any other in our lifetime and at times feels very complex and confusing. My goal today isn't to change your mind, but to offer a fresh perspective Again, a leadership lens that can help you cut through the noise of identity politics and party rhetoric and media coverage. I believe this can sharpen the focus of one's choice, should they have not fully decided Now.

Speaker 2:

My preamble for the show today is a bit longer than usual because I want to make sure you understand why I'm stepping into the political fray and why it's important to me to put my voice out there on this subject. I didn't always think this way about politics and I've usually kept business and politics separate, but this election feels different and critical, so I'm taking the risk because I believe so much is at stake. So let me explain where I'm coming from. First, I want to point out that I identify as an independent and have been there for the past eight years, after voting with the Democratic Party for most of my life. So I'm not here to support any particular political party or its ideology or its narratives.

Speaker 2:

That said, I stand for the promise of our founders who set forth and I take a stand that we live in the greatest country ever created. You see, at its core, the human spirit is unlimited in its ability to create immense value and to love profoundly. And when the human spirit is fully awakened in an individual. That person uplifts everybody around them. In my role as an executive and team coach, I relish supporting my clients and releasing the human spirit in the workplace, because when that happens, it sets the stage for the extraordinary to unfold. And the United States of America is the only country in recorded history founded on fully releasing the human spirit to deliver on its promise, and we are also a nation grounded in the notion in God we trust and in supporting spiritual freedom. The United States is truly a beacon of this promise for all the world, and this is far more important today than ever, because much of the world is moving towards greater censorship and control of their populations, and this is the context behind why I'm doing this series. We must remain that beacon for the rest of the world so that the human spirit can rise and move humanity forward towards its greater promise.

Speaker 2:

It's also true that the United States government has done things, especially over the last 50 years, that go against the human spirit, and we have allowed people in government and in secret to do horrible things. Actually, all of these terrible acts have happened without us knowing it, and none of these egregious acts were sanctioned by the American people, nor were they aligned with the principles of our founding documents, and I also passionately believe that the reason one of our candidates is so maligned and attacked is because he threatens those who have corrupted our government. I also know we are still in the process of creating a more perfect union, and there are many people in our country that are on the outside looking in at the American dream. Again, this is not the fault of the American founding principles, but rather those that are leading us, and we must also do a better job of teaching all our citizenry how to leverage those freedoms and make sure opportunities are continuously expanded. Now, all that aside, let's get back to what I think we all agree upon the fact that our country is facing massive challenges economically, at our borders and on the international stage. On top of that, our citizenry is divided and we seem to have lost our common American identity, and this is not a small thing. As Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Speaker 2:

In some political circles now, it seems, being patriotic or even saying I'm proud to be American feels like a dirty word, and many have been programmed to believe that there's something inherently wrong with being an American. But maybe I'm old-fashioned, I wasn't raised that way. There's a difference between being proud of your country and a kind of nationalism that separates us from the rest of the world. I believe in the former. Let's put this in context of being an executive in an organization. When your people are excited to come to work, when they feel proud of your brand and your mission and they are clear on what they're there to do, they tend to bring their best selves to their job and develop better versions of themselves over time as they execute it. In the same way, if we're going to come together as a nation to fix our problems and improve our lives, we need a leader who believes in the founding principles of this country and re-inspires unity and the citizenry. In short, we need somebody that is a true servant leader to those principles and the people he serves, who believes that the government is of, for and by the people.

Speaker 2:

Today's conversation isn't about telling you how to think or who to vote for November 5th, and it'll be clear to you, ryan. I have made a choice, and I would ask you to follow our logic and see if it does not open up a new perspective on your choice To let this moment be a critical, a moment of critical thinking for you, and the first law of critical thinking is to question what we believe and what we hear from others. And, given that I also expect you to hold, given that I also expect you to hold what we say in the same light Again, the focus in here is what will best support us in strengthening our republic so that we can help all our citizens carve a pathway to the American dream again. I prepared for this show in two critical ways. First, while our personal opinions will flavor the conversation, the focus will remain on viewing the candidates through the leadership lens. I do not think the media has done a very good job at this and saw it as a void that I felt Orion and I could fill. You can think of your vote as considering hiring a CEO to run your company who is best positioned to lead it back to unity, safety, freedom, greater prosperity. Second, I've done extensive fact-checking to ensure that what I share is grounded in reality. I also put together a page on my website where you can find resources that corroborate some of the information we'll discuss today, and you will find that link in the podcast description below, and I will share it towards the end of this show.

Speaker 2:

So now I'd like to welcome my colleague and good friend, ryan McShane, to today's show as my co-pilot. If you listen to the show regularly, his name may ring a bell because he was on the show earlier this year as a guest. Ryan's firm, hr Evolution, is dedicated to enhancing organizational and individual performance and operations. It's ensuring that organizations are balancing the needs of the people, the planet and profit. And with a decade of HR evolution, he's committed to transforming workplaces with services like leadership training, hr consulting and career development.

Speaker 2:

And he and I have had countless conversations one-on-one conversations over the years about leadership politics and the challenges we face as our country. And he shares my passion for getting the truth out and I couldn't think of a better person to have this conversation with. And I think, combined between us, we have at least 40 years of leadership development experience, so we have a little bit of expertise to bring to this show. So it's great to have you back to the show and I'd love you to start by just sharing why did you decide to step into the fray with me? This is kind of not dangerous territory, but it's unusual territory for us. What motivated you to join the show and maybe a little bit about the background, about your thoughts on this subject.

Speaker 3:

Yeah well, first let me just say what a delight it is and what an honor it is to be joining you for this conversation, david, and for your guests and listeners today. Just to give you a sense of this, david and I have been friends for a number of years and you know I hearken back to the days where we would meet together at a diner and have long, in-depth and very deep conversations about all kinds of things and you know to continue on with that in a podcast format. It just seemed natural that we would have these kinds of conversations and continue with those. You know real connections that we've had. You know a little bit in terms of my background. You spoke to it in 25 plus years in human resource management, the last 10 of which have been running HR Evolution. So it's evident I love leadership and I love talking about leadership and all the things about people-centric kind of components of the work world today. And I don't always get those kind of conversations.

Speaker 3:

I know when I start talking about those kind of things with my wife, she kind of glazes over a little bit, which is not too I can relate untipical Right, and so I get to talk about my two favorite topics. You know what's going on in the world from a larger standpoint, as well as leadership, and you've really set up the forum for being able to do that. So I'm delighted to be here and just excited to have this conversation with you.

Speaker 2:

Great. So I want to talk to you a little bit about how, Ryan, are going to chunk this conversation down today. We're really going to keep it to four foci pertaining to the choice of president through the leadership's lens. First, we're going to talk about let's talk about the foundational outcomes that everybody wants, that the citizenry of the United States most desire at this time in history, given the challenges. We want and what we want from a leader which will be generalized and won't talk about candidates. Then, as leadership experts, we'll look at the crucial leadership qualities that a president must have if they're going to be the CEO of our country and lead our country forward during these times. The experience they must have to deliver, given the challenges we face. And, in tandem with that, we're going to be talking about the candidates.

Speaker 2:

At that point we're going to be intermixing those like five leadership competencies, or try to get to five leadership competencies and talk about the candidates, of choices around those things. So they'll be in parallel. And finally, we're going to step back and do a bit of fact checking around what the media might have been saying about these candidates and ensure you're making a choice, making a choice based on truth and not lies and misrepresentations, according to us. Also, as I mentioned in the outline, I do have a website webpage that I've developed to kind of help you with that research. If you decide you want to use that, you can do, of course, your own research and we encourage you to do that, but that will be also shared at the end. So, Ryan, before we go on, you know, feel free to share anything you would like you know anything additional about what I just said before we go on.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think it's really important for the audience to have a very open mind and really consider this information, based on the intention of why it's shared. It's to get you to think a little bit. It's to get you to question the things that you've been told in the past and why you believe what you believe. I think discernment and critical thinking are characteristics of any good quality leader, and that's really your target audience, those great leaders out there. And how are they running organizations?

Speaker 3:

We know that the detriments of taking a small piece of information, thinking that we have the whole picture, and then running with this information only to find out later on that we missed a little critical nugget of truth that would have changed the entire landscape of what we understood to be shared in the beginning, of what we understood to be shared in the beginning, and so that's a cautionary tale that probably all of us recognize in our own walk of life.

Speaker 3:

But also a part of the messaging today is to be really open-minded, be very flexible in terms of your approach to things and stand back and observe not only your thoughts and why you think the way you think, but also how is information being shared with you? Do you feel like it's being done from an authentic standpoint, or do you think that there's some kind of influence, targeting that's being taken, taking place there and, as a result of that, does it change the way you think and the way you think about the way you think? So I think we're going to have some great metacognitive discussions as we go on today.

Speaker 2:

And I wouldn't be surprised if some listeners out there you're going to have reactions to some of the things we say. Listen, we're just two Joes here trying to have a conversation and share what we know. Again, the intention of this show certainly is that you will clearly, as I said in the preamble, see what we're leaning towards and what our choice is. But the idea is that we're grounding that not in as little as we can in political views, but more in the lens, through the lens of leadership and what we feel we need right now in our country. So I say that, but I want to start by talking about what is it that we all want? Because I think that's the important foundation from which we have to look at the playing field here.

Speaker 2:

You know to me I go back to the founding documents that this country was founded on the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness said in my long preamble to the show. It's the only country that's ever been founded to support the rise in sustenance and the expansion of the human spirit in all its glory, and there's no other country that has been grounded in that. So I think that's number one. Now, as I said also, we haven't done a great job in all ways of providing those open doors to people in the country and we have to do a much better job of expanding those opportunities.

Speaker 2:

But that's what people want. They want the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness and in the context of that they want a safe environment. They want an environment where they're in their communities and they can know they don't have to look around when they go to their car or when they go downtown, or they don't have to be concerned about their children walking home from school. They want a safe community that is caring of our children and our families and the safety of our families. I think you know we certainly want to be on the international stage reducing the heat so that we have a greater chance for peaceful engagement, because that's better for us and our safety and our prosperity as it is for, as it is for other people in the world and we. So that's another thing I don't know what else do you want to say here, Ron?

Speaker 3:

Well, I was just going to say. Here we have our first example of the parallels between what's going on in modern politics and leadership in corporate America today. You know what it's like to walk into one organization and experience these are the cultural norms, these are the things that you're permitted to do in this organization, based on the leader and the notion of what they approve and what they don't approve. So you can walk into one organization. It's very, very much a part of the culture and the norms to behave this way, whereas you walk into another organization, it's very much oh, we don't do that here. This is very much a part of the norms and the culture of the organization.

Speaker 3:

So much of leadership and its influence on culture is permission based. What do we accept and what do we honor and what do we thwart in terms of our social dynamics and even accountabilities within each organization, and you parallel that out to you know. You can look at the environment today. What's permitted today, what can you speak about today, what can you not speak about today? And that's a bigger part of the leadership zeitgeist in terms of who is the leader at the helm of our nation at that particular time. So it's not lost on me how much leadership has an impact on what you're permitted to think, believe, do and how you relate and interact with others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so in a certain way, you're speaking to like First Amendment, second Amendment, third, fourth, fifth Amendment, like who is supporting those fundamental principles that we're grounded in, which is our, if you say our value set, our values for an organization? The constitutional amendments could be seen as our values for how we know how to operate a free society that creates prosperity for all, as for as many people as we can through the process.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and bringing it back to the workforce I'm sorry to interrupt. And bringing it back to the workforce. You know what it's like, you know, hey, you can't do that without asking permission, you know, and so so much of what you do you have to ask, you know, mother, may I? In order to be able to carry forward those specific actions, Whereas this other cultural environment, workforce environment, corporate environment says, oh, of course, you're given all the autonomy and flexibility and empowerment to be able to make those decisions on your own, and so you look at it from that standpoint. I think it's important to draw those correlations out.

Speaker 3:

You mentioned about the you know freedom of speech and you know First Amendment and things of that nature. Yeah, I mean, can you speak up in this environment versus can you not speak up in this environment? And so much of that is predicated on what you had begun in terms of what we all want. We want freedom of agency, we want self-sovereignty to be able to make those decisions, and in so doing, we ultimately end up creating so much more instead of just complying and being confined to very narrow areas of you can operate safely in this space, but go outside of that space and you're no longer permitted to do those things. And that confinement really impedes organizations, but it impedes individuals and consequently the organization as well, just as it impedes nations and communities and societies of people.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Well said and the research shows. The more you have that, you understand what some guardrails are to support healthy interaction, especially around conflict and things like that how we operate with each other. But the more you have that freedom, the greater the innovation and possibilities that exist. And when you start shutting those things down, you have a different experience of potentiality.

Speaker 3:

You can even take it even further down the psychological rabbit hole. And you know you could even take it even further down the psychological rabbit hole. And you know we all remember being in high school psychology and learning about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and you see that pyramid there is, that everything and everyone outside of you, when you're operating in survival, is a potential threat to you. So think about the environment that's being created by media right now, and certainly modern politics is all about fear and intimidation. So it's designed to thrust you into that psychological model where your neighbor could potentially be your threat.

Speaker 3:

And obviously, when you're in that state of being, you're not creating, you're not problem solving and you're not having quality relationships. And the same is true in corporate environments as it is in America today. And that's a parallel that I think is evident for anyone who has eyes to see that that's what's being created and thrust upon us, because they don't want us to be self-actualized, they don't want us to question things and to really become our full potential, because then we are not as easy to control. And let's face it, a lot of what we've experienced in the larger zeitgeist of not only just this nation but the world at large is about control mechanisms.

Speaker 2:

Well, again, that is so true. We are existing in a society right now, with a media outlet and certainly, in many ways, the political conversation and one side of, specifically, the bill of guard position that is seeking to make the spread fear and division and and to think poorly of half of our country because of a political point of view which, when you think about that is is how do we get there? How do we get there? We got there because of the constant messaging that's going out. Uh, that, if it, if you, it's well-intended, if you, you know, throw a lot of stuff out there into media sources over and over again, it starts affecting the psyche of those that are listening, that they're psychologically shifted, and so you have to begin questioning. And I think it gets back to what we want.

Speaker 2:

No-transcript. It would be great to be able to have a conversation about different points of view and still love each other when we're walking away from the conversation. And it used to be that we, even in Congress, you know, it used to be that the Republicans and Democrats could go after each other and, at the end of the day, get to some agreement and negotiation about a bill. Right, that's not happening at all right now and we have this thing where you can't even mention a candidate's name and you're fearful of a reaction of people around you, and that's just really. You have to look at that as a very sad state of affairs, and that was not created by the candidates, that was created by the media and that was created by political discourse created by political discourse.

Speaker 3:

And to your point about media and the effort to divide us. One of my favorite quotes is a house divided amongst itself will surely fall. And you can extrapolate that out from a fractal standpoint. If you're divided within yourself, then you're splitting your energies and you really can't be focused in the present moment and experience quality. Know, experience quality relationships not only within yourself but outside of yourself, with others that are important in your life. And you take that and extrapolate out to the team dynamics across the workforce. You know teams that are divided amongst itself are not going to be unified in their pursuit of whatever their vision, mission and purpose is. And then you extrapolate that out to a larger organization and the same is true, and then extrapolate it out to a community and then a state and then larger society. You can see how this division tactic that is quite evident for anybody who has eyes that see in terms of the media is just creating those conditions whereby we will surely fall if we don't unite in some way, shape or form.

Speaker 2:

And I think that goes for the final quality that I don't know if I emphasize, but we need somebody that is seeking to unite the people around a vision that is uplifting and is creating possibility and not dividing us based on what we look like or whatever that can bring us all together as Americans first, and then look at how, within our own communities, we can both give back to our country, which is something all of us ought to be thinking about, and I have to think about how I can do more of that. Part of this podcast is a little bit of me attempting to do that with Ryan. But how can we give back to our communities? And also Ryan, but how can we give back to our communities? And also how can we create communities that where we feel more connected than not connected Again, a house divided. I mentioned that in my preamble as well. Right, you may know that. I mean that's Abraham Lincoln's speech Gettysburg Addressed, which really summarized constitutional principles in a beautiful way. So that's kind of the other piece.

Speaker 2:

Now there's other issues that we face that are concerns of ours, whether it be abortion, education, other things that are important issues. But at a time in our history and we're going to start going into the leadership conference at a time in our history we have an economy that's fragile, inflation that's out of control, that's been set forth over the last three and a half years. We have a border crisis due to an open border policy. That's as plain as you can say it. It's not because we couldn't get our act together and all of a sudden we have millions of people coming in. No, that happened on purpose, based on policy. And third, we're living in an international world that is very treacherous right now and is on the throes of going from major fires into an inferno of World War III, and all those are to me of World War III and all those are to me probably in that order, you know kind of well. They're all in the same thing. It are.

Speaker 2:

The biggest issues we face in our country right now is we have an invasion going on on our southern border. It's happening. We can the numbers. We can share more numbers of the impact that's had on us real numbers a little later. And we've got a hindrance of entrepreneurialism and business and economic breaks and inflation, and we've got international crises going on all over the place. And to me right now, that points to the kind of leader we need, a leader of strength and courage and conviction to deal with those issues, who has experience Right. So any any additional thoughts on that Ryan?

Speaker 3:

While you're talking, what kind of occurred to me is if you were going to do something or things to destroy the company or the country, how would it be different from what we've experienced for the last three and a half years? You know, I don't know if you've ever heard of the screw tape letters, but they kind of talk about. You know that's the framing. If I were the devil and I was going to, you know, ruin society, these are the things that I would do. Well, you look back at what's taken place over the last three and a half years and you might say, well, if they were determined to destroy the country, how would that be different from what we have seen over the last three and a half years? Because so much of what we have experienced has been a real deleterious effect on not only the person but the community, the state. And this just hasn't just taken place over the three and a half years, but I think it's only been magnified over the last three and a half years.

Speaker 3:

This is truly truth be known. You and I know this, david, but these things have been taking place over the last 50, 60, 70 years, in some cases.

Speaker 2:

And both Democrat and Republican presidents have participated in this right Throughout the very much so.

Speaker 3:

And I think that's an important thing to mention and bring it up that you know it's not just about one party or over the other party and that's not my message. I know that's not your message either, david. It's just a matter of standing back and really observing and looking at who's doing what, and I think that actions speak a lot louder than words, and we see that definitely personified in the media today. They'll tell you all kinds of things, or even politicians will say all kinds of things, but then you look back at their actions and their behaviors a little bit later on and I know we'll probably get to it at some point but that's a big part of my shift in terms of my predisposition on how I viewed Donald Trump. You know, back in 2016, I remember very clearly looking at the two candidates that were being put forth to us and I thought, oh great, another false binary.

Speaker 3:

It's either this person or that person and thinking well, geez, I don't like any of these alternatives. You know, we obviously recognize that Hillary Clinton is not someone who I would ever vote for and, given her past behavior and the things that she's been involved in, I think she would be a clear detriment to the country. But at the same time, I thought, you know, we've got a reality star that had a TV show and he's a real estate guy, and you're telling me that this could be a good president. Come on man. You know, and that was my mindset back then, and I remember being so disenfranchised by the politics at that point I did not vote in 2016. I was like I'm not being forced into that false binary. I don't know that there's a better choice, so I'm just going to abstain.

Speaker 3:

Then I listened to the inauguration speech by Donald Trump. Then I watched what he did in the first 100 days of his presidency and one thing that really stuck out to me in the inauguration if your audience hasn't listened to Donald Trump's inauguration speech back in 2016, recently or 2017, rather, I would invite you to go back and look that up, because it is one of the most powerful speeches that you'll ever hear. And what really sticks out to me is we're not just transitioning from one political party to another or one administration to another. We are transitioning this country back to the power of the people, taking it from Washington DC and returning the power to the people. And for me, I don't know about you, david, but that certainly resonated, and it gets back to the founding fathers' intentions of why they created this country and how the supporting founding documents really articulate how they viewed this country. So I started paying attention and listening at that point in time, and then I saw the actions that took place. It was promises made, promises kept, and I started to see the economy turning around.

Speaker 3:

I started to see immigration being addressed you know, certainly the border wall is a contentious speaking item for the four years under Donald Trump but he was doing the things that he knew would be in the best interest of the people of this country of America, and that was evident. We started to see record numbers of unemployment, you know, in terms of low unemployment. We started to see all kinds of things that I never thought we would actually see, but that he declared to be his agenda items, and I started to see that, one by one, he was addressing those things, and so I started lifting my head and saying, you know, let me, let me look into this. Let me pay attention to this because, as we know, condemnation prior to investigation is the height of ignorance. And so I admit that back in 2016, I condemned both of the candidates at that point and one of those candidates I knew nothing about, and I only started paying attention, really listening to what this gentleman was all about during the next four years, and I became quite impressed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, and as before we jump in, I'm going to share a little bit about my story because I think it's similar 2016,. I couldn't. And before we jump into the leadership, I'm going to share a little bit about my story because I think it's similar 2016,. I couldn't vote for either candidate. I voted third party just as a protest vote that year. I had voted Democratic up to that time and actually I voted Democratic in the lastenfranchisement of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election and how he was dealt with whether or not I would have voted for Bernie or supported him the way he was dealt with was very unfair, I felt. Then you had the vice chair of the Democratic Party standing up, tulsi Gabbard, and saying I need to support him because it's been unfair, and how they canceled her afterwards. That just left such a bad taste in my mouth because I have such deep respect for that woman who served our country Three tours in her head. She's a lieutenant colonel in the military and just really one of, I think, the bright spots, bright leaders in our nation right now, and so that started that.

Speaker 2:

And then the pandemic came, and I'm not going to go into a lot of pandemic stuff because I don't want to get in trouble, but see, that's again what we're talking about. You can't talk about stuff you're concerned about, right, because you'll get canceled or you might be demonetized or whatever. But the way that that was managed initially, as if it was coming from a scientific standard, we've now learned and it's well out there now if you haven't seen it that most of those strategies were not scientific at all and were made up Social distancing, the whole lockdowns, which was detrimental to the economy, letting liquor stores stay open but you can't go to church, you know things like that that were done Just as it felt weird and wrong.

Speaker 3:

Again, if you were going to do things to ruin a, a nation, how would it be different from what you saw happen?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean, at first you basically had fear and some people were listening what should we do, dad? What should we do? And so did we get great advice. You know what I think I noticed I will say I noticed during that that I think is very clear and won't get me into trouble is the overall health of the American people was not spoken about. It was like there was ways in which you could take care of yourself that were beyond taking a vaccine. Talk about eating well, exercise and getting sunlight, you know whatever or taking care of your immune system and how you could do that more effectively. And having people talk about that it was don't worry about it, just take the vaccine. I'm so glad you brought that up, yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So again, I'm not talking about any particular thing. That was recommended, but it was like, just listen to us. And it's turned out to be kind of it's been very tragic for a lot of people to follow all that. So that led to me just saying, okay, there's something going on here that I haven't seen. And I also started looking at, as we got ready for the election, who was going to be the choices, and I began to see the open borders. And I had a friend of mine who's a colleague, who's a Russian.

Speaker 2:

I had a friend of mine who's a colleague who's a Russian, anatoly, who had left Russia because he had family in Ukraine and he didn't want to get put in the army to go fight his brothers and sisters.

Speaker 2:

He's not a Putin fan. That said, during the beginning of the Biden administration, anatoly said to me he said, look at what they're doing to border policy and I wasn't even aware at that point of the border that much. It was just the very beginning in 2021 when they came in and they started canceling all of Trump's executive orders and, you know, started catch and release again, the catch and release policy again, and, you know, opened the, you know told border guards to keep their hands off as people came in. They started really redirecting policy. He said they're going to flood your country with millions of people. That's what Putin did in Russia to gain his power. He flooded the country and began to minimize the identity of Russian nationals and immigrants, started getting away literally with murder and stabbings and things like that let off and Russian citizens were basically left to their own devices, were also seen.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I remember very clearly yeah. Yeah, I remember very clearly.

Speaker 3:

Go ahead, mayorkas coming out on TV and telling us how he had canceled at least 17 policies of Trump related to the border and how they were proud of that fact. You know, once again, the clear contrast of. You know Trump was doing everything that he could to protect American citizens and and to protect the border and he initiated all kinds of policies and programs to ensure that that would take place, only to have this new administration come in and reverse every single thing that he did. That shows that stark contrast and it speaks to what Anatoly was talking about and advising you to look into. And when you have a gentleman like Mayorkas to come out and announce that proudly that they were doing those things, I knew that only bad would follow.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's so true On the WEDEO webpage that I provided for people to see some corroborated facts on some of this. There's an interview with a former border guard executive on there who basically said we've never seen anything like this in the history of our country at the border the craziness that we're dealing with. And he said he believed when Trump left office we were six to nine months away from a completely secure border. And so you know, you can, anybody that's interested, when I show you the website Web page, you can go and watch that interview. Yeah, again, it's so. So there we have it. You know, and so I open my open my eyes and ears and notice the things you said, that his results are watered down and I didn't really do that great, and you know, and you look at how the information goes out there. But if you dig down deeper and I have an interview with Gary Lamb coming up following this one, who's you know, with Gary Lamb coming up following this one, who's you know, an African-American gentleman that has been through kind of some challenges in his life and said during the Trump administration money was flowing so much more in the African-American communities and Trump did have record low African-American unemployment rate during his presidency. That's one of his calling cards, of his results. That's continued with the Biden administration, I'm not sure. And it's gone lower. I'm not sure it's because they continued his policies or they've done something different. I'm not educated on that, but at the time that Trump was president, they had the lowest African unemployment rate in the history. And Thomas Sowell, who's an economist and a well-known, beloved economist and wise man in our world, has cooperated this and said, yes, that's true. So there you have it. That's kind of our stories and where we came to. So you probably see where our choices.

Speaker 2:

But let's talk about this from, go back to a leadership lens and talk about why we believe the choice is the choice we believe. So there's five competencies we want to look at in this presidential election Vision and aligned policies. So any leader that goes into an organization, they have to have a vision and a strategy and a set of executable plans to realize and turn that vision into reality. If they don't, there's no North Star. And so you really financial resources, talent resources, et cetera. We all know, as an executive I'm speaking to the choir, to this audience if you don't have that, you are not going to be very effective with your resources. You're going to tend to spend on your favorite pet programs, and that may not be. Your board may not like that at the end of the day, and you're probably going to get fired, right, you can't do that, so you have to have a vision.

Speaker 2:

Second thing is ability, we said to unite the country, to bring people together. Third is executive presence gravitas. We need somebody that has confidence and the ability to step into conversations with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and our adversaries in North Korea and other places and hold the line and negotiate in our interest and the interest of America, without being taken advantage of or having their own experience and their wet behind the ear-ness get us into trouble. We need a leader to bring together a talented, diverse team, and I'm not just talking about diversity from a point of view of ethnic, gender and race diversity, while that's valuable. I'm talking about diversity of points of view that can look at the issues we face in health care, in the economy, in other, to make sure that we have a really stellar team. And then, finally, it's the ability to do effective execution the ability to fairly execute on the vision, the policies, to bring the team together and to get things done.

Speaker 2:

So those are what we're going to be focusing on, and let's start by a compelling vision. And let's start by a compelling vision. So which, as you look at Trump and Kamala Harris, what would you say about compelling vision, ryan? Why don't you start with this one? What would you say is where is and how does vision hold together? Not just policies and ideas and things I'm going to do like increase the child care credit or whatever you know on your taxes, but what holds that all together? So we're moving in one direction, and which candidate has that?

Speaker 3:

I like the way you put it in terms of the guiding star, the North Star that guides us, star that guides us. Otherwise, if you don't have a compelling vision of where you want to go and how you want to achieve that ultimately, then we're all subject to shiny object syndrome oh, this is what's popular right now, this is what's popular right now, and ultimately, we never achieve towards our end goals because we're constantly chasing the shiny object towards our end goals, because we're constantly chasing the shiny object. I think that's important to recognize, not only from a corporate America connotation, but for a nation, national connotation. And so I think that you see very clearly that Trump has articulated what is his vision in terms of making America great again. It's constant, it's everywhere, it's all that you see in terms of MAGA Make America Great Again. Well, what's included in that and there's any number of policies and procedures that you can go to his website and see what Trump is specifically saying is a part of his agenda. And I want to note there's been a lot of propaganda around this Project 2025. And it's a misnomer. Trump has nothing to do with Project 2025. This was born out of a think tank that he had nothing to do with and has come out repeatedly and said I have nothing to do with this, I'm not involved in this, and this is not a part of who I am and what I want to espouse. If you really want to know what he's about, go to his website and you can see exactly what his plans are for the future.

Speaker 3:

Now contrast that with Kamala Harris, and it's very difficult to get her to speak succinctly on any policy or procedure. You just don't know where she's coming from, and up until a couple of weeks ago, even at the time of the initial debate between Trump and Kamala, she had nothing on her website that articulated where she stood on anything. It's true, and I think that's where the shiny object comes from. And I think that's where the shiny object comes from. I have the clear impression that she will say whatever is conducive to getting her the most likes, the most approval, whatever is popular at the time, and one great example of that is fracking. How she's changed her opinion on fracking. She was adamant against it and even sued California's governor at the time because of continuation of fracking. She did not want that to take place.

Speaker 3:

And then she'll come out and do a speech in Pennsylvania and say, no, no, I actually do support fracking. Well, what's changed? Why has that changed? Those kinds of questions aren't allowed to be asked, and she would certainly not speak to those things on her own. So it's not just a lack of vision, but it's a lack of how we're going to accomplish that vision as well, and that's something that you can contrast very clearly. Not only does Trump have a vision, but he talks about how he's going to accomplish that vision, and so, first and foremost, kamala has failed on the very first core leadership competency. There's not a very clear and compelling vision that inspires anyone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I would go back to. Yeah, I agree that the make America great again, prosperous again, affordable again, safe again.

Speaker 2:

It's really all about looking at where we are now and let me like I don't understand why this is so radical. This MAGA is so radical. It's become so radical that the MAGA people are the devil. That the MAGA people are the devil. I mean, and I just, you know, I've investigated those that go to Trump rallies and they seem like good human beings to me. They're not crazy people. In fact, there's several funny videos of actual liberals going to Trump rallies and falling in love with the people at the rallies and saying these are pretty amazing people. So it's funny to see that people. We have this idea of who people are until we talk to them because we're told to stay away from them because they're dangerous, and there we go. But I think that to me, that is that he has a crystal clear vision that I think if you really think about it, you can get around it. You can get around. And he has those 20, 20 clear policy stances which has closed the border, end inflation, make america dominant and energy producer again. He has clear things he's going to do to generate that. That he's going to that. He did a lot in his first administration right that. Now I think he's going to even do better in this administration.

Speaker 2:

If he gets an opportunity and you say Kamala, the best thing she has is a new way forward, well, who's been in power for the last three and a half years? So what is the new way forward? Are you jumping back to Trump's administration and saying we already started the new way forward? Because, going to your point, if the new way forward is what we've had in the last three and a half years and she hasn't discerned and stepped away from Biden optics and some of the other policies that Joe Biden has instituted, so what's the new way forward and what's this new opportunity economy? And why haven't you been doing that and influencing Mr Biden, who apparently, on the View the other day, said that Kamala has been at his right hip the whole time, influencing everything he's done, including the border? So again, you have to say that in black and white what is the new way forward and what are you going to do? It's not inspiring and it's not held together by anything. So you're going to say something, right?

Speaker 3:

It just goes back to the psychological component of this, which I think is so important for people to recognize. You know, how is it that we've been framed, that anybody who touts the idea of make America great again or that we've been a part of the label of MAGA extremists, it goes back to that idea that they have put you in a fear-based state of mind. So when you continue to pile fear on a foundation of fear, it continues to amp up people's awareness and self-protectionism mindset. And so when you constantly hear MAGA extremists in the news, it perpetuates that mindset and once again you're not thinking critically because you're in that fear-based mindset. And you know I want to explain that biochemically speaking for your audience as well, because I think that's an important understanding for all of us is you know, we all are familiar with the fight, flight or freeze system that is built within us and what actually happens when that takes place is the blood that circulates in the prefrontal cortex, where the higher processing and cognition takes place. That actually separates us from animals is this notion of fight, flight or freeze. And so when you engage in that and your system is triggered into fight, flight or freeze, the body literally shunts the blood from the prefrontal cortex, where that higher processing takes place, down into the hippocampus, where it's the most reptilian aspect of the brain that equips your body to fight, flight or freeze. So, in other words, you're not going to be solving math problems when you're running away from bears.

Speaker 3:

You're not going to be able to think critically when you're in a fear-based mindset. And that's important for leaders to recognize, because we all face a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety around that leadership role and there's a lot of things that come at us in a very short period of time, and so clarity of mind is critically important to make good decisions for your company, but the same is true for yourself and your own agency, but as well as for the country as well, and I think I pointed out and articulate this because I think it's important for us to all check in with ourselves and say, yeah, we have to recognize we are constantly being manipulated around the basis of fear, because they know the people that have the agenda to manipulate. You know that you can't think critically when you're a fear based mindset and think critically when you're a fear-based mindset.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's so true. And this starts going into the second thing we want to talk about, about who is a uniter and a divider, because I think the divisiveness of the resources and we'll hopefully have some time to get into this and I share this on the web page that I've developed a lot of the things that have come out about Trump like he's warned there's going to be a bloodbath if he doesn't win or he's going to be a dictator from day one have all been interesting parts of a quote out of context, and these are the things that get floated out, and I think the formula that they have figured out is that, as you saw in 2016, the initial reaction to Trump was what I don't really like what comes out of his mouth. I don't know if I could. He's out there, what the heck? And they leveraged that and then started dumping lies about the man into the public to corroborate that blood rushing out of the prefrontal cortex into the survival mechanism to give you more reasons to dislike the guy, and they've been mostly lies, if not all of them have been lies.

Speaker 2:

I'm not saying that he's the perfect human being. Nobody is. He's got his issues. Sometimes the hair goes back on my back when he says things, but the bottom line is where you have to go back to what actions are being taken, not just words and emotional reaction, but what actual actions have been taken. Just one other thing I was like actions have been taken. Just one other thing I was like. So I have a video on that web page that shows what the media has said. It's going to be a bloodbath. And then the actual quote, which is what he in this case. I'm just going to say what it was. He said the American car industry is going to go down the tubes if they win, because they're allowing China to import cars into Mexico, to be made in Mexico and to flood the US car market and if that happened, it's going to be a bloodbath for the US car industry. And they said Trump said if he's not elected, it's going to be a bloodbath.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's kind of like that trope yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of like that trope of Charlottesville that there's fine people on both sides. I'm said it's not acceptable. You know those people are not, you know, white supremacists and those people are not somebody that we should be, you know, supporting at all, and that was put out of context again. So so that to me it goes back to like the division that's happening. But who's going to unite us now?

Speaker 2:

I would say, in a way, trump is a divider. He provides a dividing line. Want a country that continually is going down a path of it not being it's kind of being anti supporting of the citizenry and the people, or do you want the people to be supported? So he is a divider to the side. That is creating all this propagation of propaganda against him. He's, and that's you have to start paying attention. Why are they after him so much? But he is separating himself and shining a light on something that is dividing, is creating a division. But it's getting you to see the choice and then you have to look at how was I convinced on this other side of this choice? What is it that I actually see in reality that cooperates my choice? Do I look to comments, he said, or do I look at actual actions he took and how he took those actions. But at the same time, I think, if I look at becoming an American again and having an American identity, to me it's a very clear choice. Trump is trying to get us to re-identify as Americans and reconnect to the founding principles of our country.

Speaker 2:

Now many people would say that, well, look at what he did at the end of, you know, 2019 and 2020. He denied the election. He was behind J6. So what are your thoughts on that? I mean, I would say like isn't he dangerous in that way? Ryan?

Speaker 3:

Well, I think that I'd have a little trouble with the election too when you have as much information that's been coming out related to how the election has been manipulated. You know it's very suspect that five swing states all stopped counting the votes at the same exact time, only to recontinue counting the votes at three o'clock in the morning after a mail in ballot dump. That, on its face, is quite suspect. You mentioned something else beyond the election, the January 6th. On the election of January 6th, it's not lost on me that his Twitter account was canceled right after that event. And what did he do is he went to Twitter and the video was shown of him in his speech that specifically said let us assemble peacefully and patriotically and have your voices heard.

Speaker 3:

And for a couple of years that he was banned off of Twitter. That message wasn't allowed to proliferate. You went to Google, you went to YouTube, you went to Facebook Anytime. You posted that video of him saying let's assemble peacefully and patriotically and have your voices heard. Let's assemble peacefully and patriically and have your voices heard. It was taken down because that wasn't allowed to be a part of the messaging out in the media. So you see that there's obviously some clear manipulation of what's being shared, what can be shared, what's not allowed to be shared, and that should get you to question everything. Why is that taking place? And again, I think he's a uniter. He's also a provider of freedom, of empowerment, of autonomy, of self-agency and sovereignty, and everything that you see outside of that is designed to control you, manipulate you and make you think in this very certain and diminutive way, in terms of not only yourself, but your neighbors and the people around you, and I think that there's a clear contrast for people who have eyes to see.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Well, there's so much misinformation. I mean he actually asked for 10,000 troops to be deployed on J6 ahead of time, knowing that it could be a tricky day. That was said no, that didn't happen. But now it appears that during the J6 committee there was testimony from his chief of staff that actually, indeed, president Trump did request those troops and that has been buried in the testimony the testimony JSP Pelosi even has a video clip, which I share on my webpage, that acknowledges in her car, privately, that she was responsible for the lack of security on J6. Also, it's interesting on J6, there was a chief of police for the Capitol Police. I'm sorry his name escaped me because I was getting so ready for this podcast, but it's also that video. He was interviewed for the Capitol Police. I'm sorry I can't remember His name is escaping me because I was getting so ready for this podcast, but it's also that video. He was interviewed. He was not interviewed by the J6 committee. He's not been on the mainstream media. You would think that chief of the Capitol Police would be pretty important witness for the J6 committee and also important guy to talk about J6. He's been wiped off clean until Tucker Carlson had an interview with him and his story in that interview is also on the webpage and you watch that interview. He has a different perspective of what happened at J6. And when he was constantly calling Nancy Pelosi to call in the National Guard please, nancy, call no, no, no, no. 6 pm. Finally she calls him in when it's all over. So again, I just think there's a lot of misinformation about that, the other side of this.

Speaker 2:

Going back to the uniter, I want to just say what Trump has done with the Republican Party, because most people think of the Republican Party still in the old way. He has remade the Republican Party to be more like the Democratic Party I used to love. It's a big tent party. It's now and he's pulling 25% of the black vote. Right now Most people don't realize. That is amazing and historic. Not since Ronald Reagan has a Republican pulled so much of the black vote. He's got 55% of the Hispanic vote. In fact, you know, now women in middle America are starting to lean into him because of his protection of children and his desire to protect children and his policies to protect children and to cut down on child trafficking. So he has built a big tent party and that's why you have Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney and some ex-presidents, republican presidents coming out supporting Kamala. Now, which is really weird, that now we're celebrating Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney supporting Kamala as a great endorsement, when fundamentally Dick Cheney if you point down to it, you could say he was a war criminal. He got us to go into a war, along with Mr Bush, that didn't have any weapons of mass destruction. So again, I don't think that I'd be proud of those endorsements if I was them.

Speaker 2:

So let's move on. Let's move on to gravitas and weight and executive presence. So what are your thoughts about the difference between Kamala and Donald Trump? When I coach executives and you coach leaders, executive presence is the foundation of leadership. It's your ability to walk in the room and deal with whatever you have to face and somehow process it with some resilience and centeredness and ability to hold the space in the moment and then be able to direct people in a healthy, effective way to move things forward. It's the foundation of leadership, right? And if you don't have somebody with executive presence and they're walking in with a world leader that has more executive presence than them, more gravitas than them, who wins that negotiation? It's the foundation of negotiation, et cetera. So tell me, who do you think among these candidates? How do they weigh in on this area of executive presence and gravitas?

Speaker 3:

gravitas. You know, what immediately comes to mind is it wasn't. It was only a couple of weeks ago that the Biden-Harris campaign was in Pennsylvania, at the exact same time and the same location as Trump, and they visit a local community there I believe it was a fire station or something along those lines and you know, Biden and Harris come walking in and everybody's still milling around talking with one another and they literally walk in the room and no one knows that they walked into the room.

Speaker 3:

And then a few minutes later, you know, someone sees Trump approaching the building and you hear someone go hey, he's coming. And the entire audience turns around to face where Trump is, coming into the room, and immediately they explode with a roar of applause and clapping and an appreciation for him. I think that that's a very it's superficial, but it's a stark comparison to that executive gravitas.

Speaker 2:

The other example is meeting with Zelensky the other day. Example is meeting with zielinski the other day. So when you have, when you have uh, you have kamala harris at the podium. I'm, you know this. I'm just saying what I see. I'm not like trying to make her bad or wrong. She's where she's at in her experience and you know which is. You can see it show up in front of the camera. She was on a teleprompter at a podium sharing her ideas about Ukraine and what we have to do to support Ukraine, while Zelensky is on the side listening right Now. Juxtaposition that when Zelensky and Trump talked before they went into the conversation, no teleprompter, no teleprompter. Trump was very magnanimous in sharing his engagement with Zelensky and saying that we have to figure out a way to end this war, to stop the carnage, stop the destruction. We have to make sure it's fair and you know, you could also tell when Zelensky's standing next to Biden and Harris versus when he's standing next to Trump.

Speaker 2:

Zelensky's not necessarily as comfortable in his own skin next to Trump as he is against Biden. He's a little bit more. You know, I'm kind of taking charge of this conversation with them. I want that with my president. I want people to be a little bit like not walking on eggshells, because I think Trump is very respectful to people and world leaders. World leaders have a great deal of respect for him. You know and I've you know, you hear that that, uh, so I, I see that again. The weight of who do I want? And I go back to there's one story I love. That's a little bit shocking maybe to say, but I I go back to how he dealt with the Taliban and the story of Trump and the Taliban leaders.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean, here's he, he, this is what we want for president. So we had the Taliban leaders and this is the 18 months it was like a two years before he left office he's been to the Taliban leaders. And Trump had a plan to leave Afghanistan in a staged, effective way, you know. And he was meeting the Taliban leaders and he's saying we are going to we way. And he was meeting the Taliban leaders and he said we're going to exit Afghanistan in this staged, methodical way and so I want you to know that we are leaving your country. And we understand you'll probably be a big part of the leadership there after we leave. We understand that. So we want to let you know we're doing that.

Speaker 2:

And oh, by the way, and uh, he said if you touch one hair on a us soldier's head in the next 18 to 24 months as we do that stage withdrawal, I will kill you. And and the translator stopped and looked at trump and like, got like his eyes. Are you sure you want me to translate that? And Trump said translate that. And then he had a guy come in and he said show him the picture. And he went over to a picture of a satellite image of the guy's house and smiled and said we understand each other. Not one hair on one soldier was touched in the next 18 months, so sometimes you have to come from a position of strength. I know that sounds pretty brutal, but that's the leadership that we need in this country at this time that kind of bravery and that kind of strength. So I just wanted to share that. So I mean that to me is groggy.

Speaker 3:

And to your point, David, and once again, in contrast and comparison, I'm not aware, and maybe you might be from your own experience, but I'm not aware that Kamala has had these kind of conversations with world leaders. I know that she met with Zelensky, but has she met with Xi? Has she met with Brazil? Has she met with Saudi Arabia? Has she met with Putin? I mean, how do you think she would stand next to Putin in terms?

Speaker 2:

of articulation. No, she hasn't met the media, she hasn't confronted the media, I mean. And so what I'm saying is that and that's to relate to what you're saying if she doesn't have the courage to go and have a debate with Fox or to go into the Fox station and have an interview with them off script, trump will go into any place, he'll go into enemy territory, most liberal press territory, and have a conversation with them without a teleprompter, and she can't do that. So to me that extrapolates to what you're saying is that's a whole different territory. You talk about the media. You go to a whole other level when you're talking about world leaders like Xi and Putin, etc.

Speaker 3:

That's right. And if you don't have the executive presence and gravitas to even handle Fox News media, come on. How are you going to run a nation and how are you going to exhibit the strength that is needed across the world? I think it's clearly evident that you can't do those things. You only operate in environments that are friendly to you. You're going to see that there's not too many friendly environments out there.

Speaker 2:

Well, let's talk about, like, the next step, which is ability to bring together a team that's going to succeed at the endeavor. So what have you seen about? I mean, I'm not as privy to how calm was building a team. It's been, it's. There are probably things I could have done more research on, but I don't know if you have thoughts on that, but it has been clear of the people that are surrounding and collecting around Trump. So what are your thoughts on the ability to know we what we need as a leader in an organization? You need somebody that has thick enough skin and ability to hear things that go against their beliefs and be able to take that in and even be willing to change the viewpoint of themselves to look at things in a fresh way to solve problems. So who is creating a team like that? So I mean, that's the thing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's precisely where I was going to go with it in terms of that flexibility and learning. Because the very first thing I think about and I was very critical of some of the people that Trump surrounded himself by in his first term of some of the people that Trump surrounded himself by in his first term, you know, you had a lot of neocons and people that were a part of the globalist agenda. That is not, you know, america first, and so when I started to see that and also see that they were summarily dismissed in their roles shortly after they arrived, I was refreshed to see that. But at one point in time I remember making a post on social media saying you know, I think the Trump administration really needs some HR consultants in there related to some of the talents that he's bringing into the workforce.

Speaker 2:

I think that was his learning curve.

Speaker 3:

I do too, and again that's my point. It was his learning curve. I do too, and again that's my point, it was his learning curve. But he learned, he grew, he adapted, he was flexible and he's grown from that experience that RFK Jr would have come out and endorsed Donald Trump and even said, yes, I'd be honored to be a part of his administration, should he win in the future. And then you've got Tulsi Gabbard, another one that you have high respect for in terms of her service and in terms of her agenda and what she's trying to achieve as well. You start to see that he is really starting to assemble a power team of people around him that can really execute. I mean, he even has Elon Musk who's being considered for a Department of Efficiency.

Speaker 3:

You know, that's really remarkable to see, because we all know the government is a lot of things, but efficient has never been one of them. I remember working in the public sector both local public sector, government and federal government and I remember thinking to myself several times when working in those environments if the citizenry only knew how their tax dollars were being utilized, there would be riots.

Speaker 3:

So it's obvious that we have gross financial waste in our government and as a taxpayer myself and you as a taxpayer, I think we want to know that our dollars are used wisely and in the best interest of America, not to the detriment of America wisely and in the best interest of America, not to the detriment of America.

Speaker 2:

We have a $35-plus trillion deficit, a debt right now that now I think our interest payments are exceeding our DOD budget, the Affirmative Defense Budget. Wall Street Journal came out and basically said this is not related to Common Step, but I'll get back to that that. The quote unquote inflation reduction act and column was tie breaking. Vote on that. Exasperated inflation greatly. They're spending fever. They're spending.

Speaker 2:

I mean, trump did spend a lot around the pandemic, but you have some and moments like that. You do have to throw some money at a situation to keep the country from going into a depression with everything that happened. But they continued it and escalated that to you know and I find it funny that they want to now go after price gougers that their policies actually created the potential of that happening. So to me, the hypocrisy in that we're going to litigate this, we're not going to talk about how we created it Again, I've been here for three and a half years and that inflation was at what? 2%, 3% or something like that before when we started. Now where is it at now? And now I'm going to go after price. That's how we're going to solve it. To me that's that's ridiculous, but I also look at to look at.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, good.

Speaker 3:

And to me it's. Let's look like we're doing something about the problem but not actually do something about the problem, and I've seen that in corporate America as well. We run around and talk about the symptoms all day long and how awful those symptoms are, but you dare not look at the cause.

Speaker 2:

Because, oh, let's look at the border, let's look at the border bill that they say that Trump killed. Right, everybody says we had a chance. Of course it took us what, how many. It was like just last year that they finally came up with the border bill because they had to do something about it. And I have a video on five reasons why. It was a good reason why that bill was killed.

Speaker 2:

But one of the things is people don't realize it was $118 billion bill, $20 billion of which was to be used for the border. What was the other $28, $90 billion being $298 million wars in Ukraine and Israel? It was for foreign aid. So the border bill had 80 plus percent of it cordoned off to foreign aid and 20% of it to the border. So again, they throw something at it and then you know like it was almost like it was dead on arrival. So you wonder like who's making the political stunt here? Right, you know? Oh, they're going to kill the bill. That's going to make us bad, but anyway, I don't. That's conspiracy theories, I don't want to get into that.

Speaker 3:

Well, I do want to add the mention that I think the border bill was a straw man to begin with, and if you understand what I mean by the straw man allocation of terms, we never needed a border bill to address the problems at the border. The president has that as a part of his empowered autonomy to be able to address national security, of his empowered autonomy to be able to address national security. There's no bill, there's no necessary approval by Congress. That's already a part of the powers of the president. And you know Trump enacted those kind of things when he was in office and he didn't need a bill to do it. But in fact you saw that there were political factions that tried to fight his authority and power to do those kinds of things. So to say that hey, we had a border bill out there and it was great and it was going to solve all our problems, but you know Trump got the Republicans to shoot it down, is a complete misnomer and a manipulation of facts.

Speaker 2:

Well, the proof of that is, after the border bill didn't pass, biden did do executive orders, but he did executive orders not in the same way that Trump did them. So that's you know. They ended up doing that anyway. So again, it's funny. Well, you know, and so I mean.

Speaker 2:

The last thing I'll say about you know, dividing building a team is, if you look at the teams that they had, and both Kamala and Trump have had fairly high turnover rates. Trump has been lower than Kamala's turnover rate. Kamala has a 92% turnover rate on her team. Now, if you imagine an organization as a leader, if you had 92% and these were voluntary resignations, not forced resignations people could not live in the toxic environment that she created. That's well said, and there were a lot of articles on that before she got anointed to run for president that I point to again on my webpage. People, they get chewed up and spit out around her.

Speaker 2:

Now Trump had a higher I can't remember what his turnover rate was, wasn't at 92%, but they were involuntary resignations. They were forced to resignations like, okay, you're not doing the job, you're fundamentally fired, but I'm going to let you do a resignation letter because you're not doing the job. So there's a difference in how you execute, and that's the last thing I want to talk about is execution is who has the ability to execute on their vision and get people to do stuff that is consistent and it goes back to your thing the promises made are promises kept. So any thoughts you have on execution ability between the two characters here?

Speaker 3:

between the two characters here. Well, I think that we have a clear, rich history and documentation of all the impact that he had, not only in his first term, but the promises that he has made and set up for his next term, should he come back into the office. And you know, we can see, in stark comparison with the Biden-Harris administration, what has been done over the last three and a half years. I would challenge your audience to identify one thing. I'm not asking for a list, I want one thing that this administration has done for the betterment of America. I think that your audience would be hard-pressed to come up with that one thing and to actually have it be truthful and authentic and not just a media talking point that they've put out there, Whereas I think that we would have a laundry list of items that and we've discussed some of them here today in terms of what Trump's impact has been on America and how it's been instituted all to make America more healthy again, wealthy again, abundant, prosperous all the things that I think that we want, and a big part of that is free agency to make our own decisions for ourselves.

Speaker 3:

Whereas what do we see in the Biden administration? The mandates, the lockdowns, you know, having permission to do anything that we really want to do. That's not America. That's antithetical to everything that America believes in. So I think that there's some real stark contrast there. But I know that you've probably got some things in mind, too that you're going to speak to.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think you've said it in a nutshell. I want to use some of the rest of the time to talk about maybe what some of the things we started talking about, like you know what's happened over the last three and a half years, what are some of the lies that have been propagated, because I think the execution is clear. Clearly he's a better executor. He's run businesses. He knows how to execute. He knows how to get a team to do stuff. He clearly did that as president more than people are willing to admit. His results speak for themselves. You know, to me I look back at the. You know the inept execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the tragic results of that execution, which apparently Kamala was the last in the room in those decisions. She said it out loud I was the last in the room and I was very intimately involved with those decisions, so that's on tape for her saying it.

Speaker 2:

We lost 13 soldiers in that evacuation. Nobody had been lost up to that point. Trump had the last 18 months of his administration. No life lost in Afghanistan. We left millions of dollars of military equipment behind, including for you dog owners, the dogs who the Taliban hated. So you can only imagine what happened to those poor dogs when the Taliban found them and we had people climbing on planes. We remember the images. That was one of them and I agree it's one of the most embarrassing moments in US history for our country, and you know what.

Speaker 2:

The other thing I want to say is the commander-in-chief would have reached out and talked to those 13 families. Those 13 families have never would have reached out and talked to those 13 families. Those 13 families have never, ever, according to their words, never heard from Biden or Harris. However, trump has spent hours with them without being even on the TV or being known. So I mean, that's an example of execution right there, a lack of execution. So I mean the whole thing in Arlington Cemetery that got blown up about him not following these photo.

Speaker 2:

This is the stuff the media does that drives me crazy. Pointed to that 12 of the 13 families of the fallen victims of that Afghan came out and said how dare you, kamala Harris, say that we invited him to be here and he spent hours with us behind the scenes without the cameras on? People don't know that because it's not covered. I mean, see to me, that is an example of a difference between the two right there, and what you do in one place you do in all places. You know that care and attention that he showed those families throughout the period of time since that withdrawal and the way he spent time with them. I mean Tulsi said she watched and almost came to tears because of his attentiveness and caring with those families.

Speaker 3:

And that's not— and to that point and not to put too broad of a stroke on it, but it's the old golden rule what would you want for yourself? Do unto others as you would have done unto you. What would you want for yourself? You would have done unto you? What would you want for yourself? You know, having faced a tragedy, are you looking for people to come alongside of you to pick you up, to dust you off, to empathize and demonstrate that compassion, to say it's going to be okay, we have a brighter future ahead?

Speaker 3:

And Trump's the only one doing that, and he recognizes that many of us have been traumatized and put under a great deal of weight as a result of this administration, today's current administration, Biden and Harris and their policies and how they've had a real detrimental impact to the economy. It always amuses me when I get into a conversation with someone who has a very different position and position on what's happening today and they say, hey, we can talk about politics, but you can't bring up economy. Well, wait, a second. Economy is what meets us every single day when we come out of our homes and roll out of our bed in the morning, when we go back to our homes and look at our bills.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. It's everywhere.

Speaker 3:

Exactly right. You know when we go down the road and put gas in our vehicles, you know, and we can see the stark comparison to the prices that we're paying and not only that for the groceries that we're trying to put food on our tables. One of the best Trump ads out there is Kamala Harris talking about how everything has been more expensive over the last three and a half years. Yeah, that's exactly right. It has under your administration and for some reason, we're to believe that if you're to be inaugurated as the new president, things are going to change. Why would that be? You presided over all of this inflation and you've done nothing to benefit any of us.

Speaker 2:

So, as we start, I really appreciate that. That's so true. I mean, to me it is really obvious if you're willing to look and we have to, as I say, look away from the emotional charge and what we're told and do our own research and be critical thinkers and not the powers to be and especially recently, most recently, the Democratic Party has been brilliant at words and stirring the pot of emotions. But when you have a conversation about facts that are basing that which, to me, comes down to, as I tell my leaders all the time, you may have a belief about yourself or others that have you, look at the basis of that belief, because if you're not doing that and you're making decisions like this choice for president, based on some belief or assumption that has been emotionally charged that has to be true, because I feel it to be true, assumption that has been emotionally charged, that has to be true because I feel it to be true you are already in dangerous territory, because you then may be making a choice emotionally that is not grounded in reality. You know, I go back to a quote that Obama actually said in a speech when he talked about sending out misinformation and how you destroy a democracy. Now many people have this out, like he's sharing the secrets of what they're doing. I'm not gonna go there, but I still think his words have weight in how we're wrapping up this show today. He said to destroy a democracy, you just have to flood a country's public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plan enough conspiracy, theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe and know what is true. Once they lose trust in their leaders and the mainstream media and political institution and each other and the possibility of truth, the game is won. I'm going to go back to what Ryan has said. Look at what they've done over the last three and a half years and I would invite you to challenge what you've heard. And I want to summarize some of that and we can touch on it.

Speaker 2:

So, before Donald Trump came down the escalator in 2015, announced for presidency, he was everybody's friend. He was beloved in the media. He was on Oprah in the 90s and she was telling him he should run for president. He went to, I think, chelsea Clinton's wedding. He was, he was, he was. Everybody wanted his endorsement, everybody wanted his money.

Speaker 2:

But once he announced, what did he deal with. He dealt with Russiagate in his first two years in office, which I think overshadowed the results that you, ryan, spoke about. They basically covered up what he the good he was doing for the country and every day on MSNBC we had Rachel Maddow saying we finally got him. We got the smoking gun. But there was never any smoking gun because it was a lie created by Hillary Clinton. That's now been proven factually to be a lie. That was propagated and got the FBI to investigate and there was nothing ever there related to that. It was totally false, fake and Hillary Clinton had to just pay a little fine and a slap on a hand for doing it and we forget about that. We had two failed impeachments impeachments. The first one, paradoxically, was where Trump pressured Zelensky to give him more information on Joe Biden and his relationship with Hunter Biden, with Ukraine and Burisma. Now, as it turns out, that was and basically Zelensky eventually said he didn't do anything wrong and they basically dropped it. It didn't go anywhere.

Speaker 2:

But when you think about Biden has been looked into by House Republicans, obviously, but there are real receipts that over $10 million came into his family through 24 shell companies. There's bank records that show this. Now we can't say whether Joe Biden was involved. I'm not trying to paint some seriously theories, I'm just having you paint a picture for you. This money was going in the bank accounts of Jim and Hunter, but not only that, their wives and children and grandchildren bank accounts from China, romania and the Ukraine. And they can't say what business they were in. There's no profit and loss statements, there's no list of employees, there's no list of services rendered. Money is just showing up in these bank accounts and it can be seen through the records.

Speaker 2:

Now, I'm going to stop there with that. I'm not going to say that Joe Biden was involved in that, but let me ask you what business were they in? And if this would have been the Trump? I'm going to stop there with that. I'm not going to say that Joe Biden was involved in that, but let me ask you what business were they in? And if this would have been the Trump family, if this would have been the Trump family, would we not be on top of it like a fly on? I won't say what. So I mean, you know we have Hunter Biden's laptop. 51 intelligence officials signed that document that turned out to be. Their arms were twisted and it was a lie, that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation. That wasn't done by Trump, who twisted their arms to sign a document they didn't even believe in.

Speaker 2:

Then you have the indictments. We'll just go into that a lot, but I will say that many legal scholars say that Trump's Sixth Amendment was trampled all over in the case in New York and that that is a weak at best conviction that will be overturned easily. And so funny that the 32 counts you think of 32 counts. 32 counts, that was the number of months that the record was on. And it's like think about your QuickBooks or your P&L statement. 32 months that it was on your P&L or your QuickBooks statements, that's the 32 counts that this particular misappropriation or legal fees was wrongly labeled.

Speaker 2:

That's the counts that would go against them. And when you think of it that way, it's not really much, if it is anything. So we continue from there with Trump being on three assassinations now, three potential assassination attempts One succeeded in shooting him and two were failed and there's some information coming out that missiles were being actually well gotten into the country to potentially go after his plane from Iran. We'll see if that's true. That's still being looked into. So the question I have for everybody is why is he with nothing and all of this, would you say? Anything has been found out really, ryan substantial, about Trump being negative? Do you think anything has come out about him that has shown that he's something wrong here?

Speaker 3:

Nothing that's been substantiated. Not whatsoever, not whatsoever. And I'd also add that Matt Gaetz came out in an interview and said that they're aware in the intelligence community that there are five cells in the United States that are active in terms of their intentions. Cells are from foreign nations, so we have foreign interference being involved in this as well. So I mean, obviously that's alarming and something that we need to be very diligent about and address understand that we obviously have a stance here.

Speaker 2:

But the stance I want to remind you of and I'll let you have some final words here, ryan is that we care about this country, we care about the underlying constitutional principles because, again, this country was built on the expression of spiritual freedom and expression of the human spirit. And you know, here we have over the last number of years, slowly but surely it escalated, as Ryan said, in the last three and a half years of a dampening, of putting down restrictions on that freedom through First Amendment situation, through First Amendment cancellation, etc. Second Amendment being tampered, fourth Amendment being minimized and obviously, in certain ways, in you get to the people, the city and state governments is where you have the greatest power of citizenry and we've created a country that allows for that power to be exerted no-transcript conversation, and I hope that your audience really receives this with the intention that it was put out.

Speaker 3:

There is for critical thinking and discernment and to really stand back and evaluate from a leadership lens. You know who you're going to make your choice for in November, and, to that point, I subscribe to a model of leadership that's articulated as servant leadership, and so I'm going to share with your audience very quickly some characteristics of servant leadership, and I'm just going to ask that, at the end of this list, you think about which candidate personifies more of these characteristics than the other. Being purpose led and we talked about having a vision and mission and purpose, and who actually has one. Authentic values from top to bottom, that empathy, that compassion, that love, that freedom, that empowerment and that appreciation for all people. Being service-oriented. Being economically sustainable giving is a part of the culture. Having a multicultural view that big tent that you talked about, david, where all are welcome. Being transparent as well. You know love them or hate them. You always know where Trump stands and he's going to share exactly what he's thinking.

Speaker 3:

Flexible practices learning, growing, adapting and being flexible based on the conditions that you're facing. Being collaborative and inclusive as well. Focusing on culture and brand. Continuous improvement is a part of our DNA. This is how we operate. We're constantly looking to improve. Service is everyone's job, and personal responsibility and ownership predominate. The relationships and characteristics of the culture those are servant leadership characteristics. Those are what I espouse in terms of my work with leaders, and I know that those are what you espouse as well, david, and I would just ask everyone in your audience who's listening to this to think about that in the context of how they're thinking about the world around them today and the two political candidates that we see before us. Context of how they're thinking about the world around them today and the two political candidates that we see before us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and yeah, I think that I really appreciate that. It was a great summary for the flavor and what we were trying to filter this through. And I would say that if you had an emotional reaction that Trump or Kamala doesn't fit that, then do your research and make sure that that reaction is true and grounded in reality. And I'm not saying that you're not thinking this through, but we all have our reactivity and that reactivity has been ramped up to a ridiculous rate. Right now. We need to find our center again and feel connected to our hearts and what we care deeply about, and we all know that, as we said, a house divided cannot stand, and we are divided right now. We need an ability to find a way back together. That will either occur through leadership or some event that may lead us down a path. We don't want to go into a place that we then have to build back up, Because what happens is, when the human spirit gets confronted, in a sense, its context gets destroyed or is greatly impacted. Eventually we get down to our heart and say we got to do something differently, start working together to build this back up, so we can either allow the thing to completely spiral out of control, or we can start saying who can take us back forward to reconnect, and ultimately we've said who we think that is.

Speaker 2:

But you know I want to, Ryan, I want to really thank you for joining me today in this conversation and for your powerful insights and just the ones you shared on servant leadership and everything else you said around critical decision making and all that your personal journey and your vision. I always just enjoy having conversations with you about things and I appreciate your willingness to dive in this, and so I wasn't doing it all alone, Because this is a big step for both of us. You know we're coming out because I feel it's important to come out and to talk to executives and leaders out there about what we're facing now, and I again respect whatever decision you make. I love my clients, I love my audience members and I deeply appreciate your ability to believe in and act upon what you want. This is what makes this country a great place to choose whoever you choose for president and to not listen to me at all. That's your right and your privilege and I, of course, honor that.

Speaker 2:

But I hope you found some, you know, found some value in the subject, even though they were difficult to discuss. They found some value in the subject, even though they were difficult to discuss. They found some value in the subject we talk about today and we've covered a lot of ground and try to discuss it from a true leadership lens point of view. Somebody has, as Ryan's summarizing integrity, vision, courage to protect our freedoms, to ensure prosperity, to unite us as a nation. These are the questions we all have to reflect on, as Ryan so eloquently just said, and I want to be in service to that.

Speaker 2:

And in service to that, I have created a webpage and the webpage is and I'll also provide this in the description below davidcraigottscom forward slash 2024 election and it provides videos that fact check a lot of what the media said. It corroborates a lot of what Ryan and I have said. It cuts down on the misinformation. It's verified and I did a lot of work to make sure that these are sources that are directly from the horse's mouth and we'll give you some information about what the choice really is really is.

Speaker 2:

So if today's episode resonated with you, I really want to invite you to share with your colleagues and friends and anyone else who might benefit from looking at this in more of a creative way or a critical way, and I'll also be posting additional websites on the webpage as I think fit. So keep on coming back and checking that. So, once again, thank you for tuning in to Unfazed Under Fire. I'm looking forward to our next show with Gary Lamb, which will be dropping in another week. I'm David Utz, the Leadership Alchemist, signing off for now. Have a great rest of your day.