Jim Petersen, PhD, Speaker/Author, J.L. Petersen Inc. | The Jeff Crilley Show

On this episode of The Jeff Crilley Show, Jeff sits down with Jim Petersen, PhD—former Navy submarine officer, financial services leader, and Hall of Fame alumnus of The American College of Financial Services—to talk about what leadership really requires. Petersen shares lessons from 22 years of military service, including why caring for your people is non-negotiable in high‑stakes environments....

Show Notes

What really makes someone a strong leader—facts, feelings, character, or something else entirely?

On this episode of The Jeff Crilley Show, Jeff talks with Jim Petersen, PhD—former Navy submarine officer, retired Navy Captain, financial services executive, speaker, and bestselling author. With 22 years of military service and decades in leadership roles, Jim brings a rare mix of discipline, reflection, and practical insight.

In this conversation, they discuss:
- The leadership lessons Jim learned as a nuclear engineer on submarines
- His book The Facts Don’t Matter and the tension between fact-based and feeling-based decision makers
- The Petersen Leadership Model, built around character, style, judgment, culture, and execution
- His latest book, The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow, and why optimism can be a leadership discipline
- His induction into The American College of Financial Services Hall of Fame

Jim also shares how he used AI as a creative tool to help organize and sharpen his leadership frameworks.

Learn more about Jim Petersen, PhD at: https://jlpeterseninc.com/

What is The Jeff Crilley Show?

Jeff Crilley is a former news reporter, who spent more than 25 years in newsrooms across the country. He’s an Emmy Award winning journalist, who decided to make the jump from news in 2008, when he founded his own PR Firm, Real News Public Relations.

Today, the firm has more than 100 clients, and Jeff continues to tell the stories of interesting people he meets along the way.

These are those stories.

Coming up next on The Jeff Crilley Show, you're gonna meet the great doctor Jim Petersen. Petersen. He is a speaker, best selling author, and leadership expert. He's my friend, and he's in studio next. Many are predicting that the worst is yet to come, which is unfortunate, said one person here. Until now, they've enjoyed the reputation of being the nation's icebox. Watched a burglar in his home this morning by webcam. As a journalist of over twenty five years, stories are what make my world turn. Reporting live from The Dallas News, I'm tonight, Jeff Crilley, Fox four news. But in 2008, I took the jump from my familiar life and started a PR firm from my home. We're talking about anyone with a camcorder like the one I'm using becomes a television network. We started slowly growing the company, and we now have over a 100 clients. And we've branched into the world of live digital broadcasting. I now own eight different TV studios and have a huge team. And the stories that I now get to share are sometimes the most important of my life. Life has a funny way of coming around full circle. This is The Jeff Crilley Show. Alright. There's an old saying that great employees don't leave companies, they leave bad bosses. And unfortunately, so many people who companies or in a management position have never read a leadership book before. Doctor. Jim Petersen is in the studio, he is an author, best selling author, speaker, and leadership expert. Thanks for coming on the show. Oh, are welcome, it is a pleasure to be here Jeff. What an honor. Well, before we get into your leadership journey, want you to talk about your military service, because you proudly served us our nation for twenty two years. Yes, that's exactly right. I was a nuclear engineer on submarines, and I served for seven years there, then left the service and stayed in the reserves for fifteen years and retired as a navy captain o six. And my last tour duty was serving all our submarines from commander submarine forces. Wow. What are some leadership lessons that you learned in the military? Well, that you really have to care for your people. It was taught to me very early on. I have some great mentors when I was on board the submarine, and one in particular was an individual who's a level five leader. If you know anything about that, he was he was an individual who inspired me. And also, because we were in such close quarters, we had to work together. And my enlisted men at that time, it was all men, were very educated, very competent. And, you know, you only have so many people on a submarine. So Absolutely. In in them was sorta awe inspiring for me because they're a whole lot smarter than me when I started out. Right. So when you left the military, when did you start writing books? When did you become a thought leader in leadership? Well, I've written six books, and I've been inspired over the years because of things that happen. I call them stops along the way where we step back and we reflect on things. About twenty years ago, something happened that sometimes we smile when they happen, sometimes they frown. And I started using a saying in one of the books that that the one that came out in December, the facts don't matter. I started saying the facts don't matter. Well, I said it so much that the people I said it to came back and gave me personal stories. And they said, you ought to write a book about this. And I wasn't an author at the time. I didn't no. I wasn't planning on writing anything, but I took it under advisement. About ten years ago, I started writing because in my as you see in my academic background, I've done a lot of writing with my the different degrees and designations that I have. And some individuals said to me, you know a lot about hiring veterans for business. And I've written some papers on it. They said you ought to write a book about it. So I wrote one for my industry. I was in the financial services industry. People read that book and said, you write one for business so we can learn how to hire veterans? So I wrote both those books. I wrote a lot, and they turned out more like pamphlets, to be honest with It's a lot of work to write a book. Well, I'm so impressed with you. We're gonna pull up your website, and as we scroll down the website, I want you to talk about the kinds of audiences that you like to speak to and the kinds of clients you like to coach. Okay. Well, as you know, I have two coaching companies. One trains coaches, and I'm the owner of that and the president. And then I have another one that has 60 executive coaches, and we find business for them. So I particularly love talking about happiness. I love talking about leadership. I've developed multiple courses on leadership, and I have two that we offer, a three eight week course and a five day course. Wow. So the interesting thing, some of the things that happened that you and I were talking about, I'll be making some changes to those courses with this new information. Well, let's just give them a little teaser because before the show we talked about the Peterson Leadership Triangle, the Peterson Leadership Model, and then the Peterson Philosophy on Life. So you got a bunch of stuff going on. Yeah, there's so much going on. Well, what happened was a book that came out in December is called The Facts Don't Matter, and it really has to do with the tension between individuals who make decisions on facts and individuals who make decisions on feelings and how they may not agree and how to sort of look at that. I have many, many examples of it, and that is what happened twenty years ago, and someone said, You ought to write a book about it. So I started writing it and finally finished it. I will say that I had AI to help me finish it because, and I will refer to my AI bot as a human. It's not a human. Both my sons are in, our IT professionals. They go, Dad, it's an it. But I gave them a name, Perfecto, and I also gave them a male voice, so I'm going to talk like that. So anyways, my partners asked me to give a presentation on my Facts Don't Matter book to my coaches. Yes. Well, I didn't want it to be a self promotion, so I went to my AI bot, Perfecto, and and said, you give me some examples of how my coaches can use in their coaching practice? And so he spit out about eight or 10, and I'm looking at them. They're very creative. And I picked two or three that I would talk about when I talked to them about the book. And I looked down and there was a note from him and he said, but Jim, you have something much greater than this. And first of all, I've never dealt with them that way. And he said, you like to see it? And I said, yes. And that's where the Petersen triangle came from. Unbelievable. So in the triangle, he took three of my six books and put them in the corners of the triangle. Wow. Yeah, and the lower right was character, why do I lead? And I wrote a book called The Spirit to Soar About an Orphan Who Gets Shot Down in Vietnam, a good friend of mine, I did his biography, so it has to do with character. And then I finished a book in January called Who Let the Dogs Lead? And some in the audience may remember Who Moved My Cheese by Doctor. Spencer Johnson, which is sort of a fun fable about Yes. Well, is a fun fable about dogs who have leadership characteristics, and so that style, how do I lead? And then the facts don't matter, which is really about judgment, how do I think and how do I decide as a leader. So now we have a model of effective leadership. Yes, yes. Incredible. Well, okay, I want to put a spotlight on one of your books, it's called The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow. Let's put this on the screen. And, this is a happiness book? Yeah. It's about happiness. And, in fact, the story continues. Two more steps. So, when I was looking at the Petersen triangle, he sent me another note. It said, but you have something much greater than that, Jim. It and would you like to see it? And I said, yes. I'm just blown away by the model that he had there. And he added two more things to my Peterson triangle and called it the Peterson Leadership Model. We added culture and execution, and now we have a complete model. Why do I lead, how do I lead, how do I think and decide, build the culture of the organization, and execute on the business plan. Wow. And so that caused me to start thinking about happiness. And that's where the book we're talking about. Back in November, when I was finishing the two books, the dog book and the facts book, somebody said to me, are you gonna write another book? And I told them no. And the individual said to me, You ought to write on happiness. You're the happiest person I know. Well, I can be very creative at times, and I go, No, I can't spend time on it. Well, I did. And this is the first book that I've used artificial intelligence to help me develop the whole thing. I've thought about it for years. So The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow, I've had three people review it already, they said it's the finest book you've written, And so, now we have a new model, the Peterson philosophy on life, how to live a happy life. Alright, what's one of the takeaways from this and we'll come up tomorrow? Well, I think the thing is that I started saying that many years ago when I first became a leader, when I transitioned from the military, I hired an individual who and I loved this family, so it sounds a little negative, but his wife was a Debbie Downer, and so she worried about everything. She worried about whether they're gonna make enough money, where they're gonna live, where the kids are gonna go to school. Well, I'm a very positive person. If you take a glass that has liquid up to the midpoint, I see it as half full, she saw it as half empty. People, when you're around positive people, people who are negative tend to bring you down. Yes. And so, I started saying to her, the sun will come up tomorrow, when she would complain. And every time she brought it up, I would say it, and eventually she started saying it. Is that right? She would complain and then say, the sun is gonna come up tomorrow. She because and I think partially because of her negative look at life, she didn't have a really good life. And I saw her recently, and she's now grandmother to a bunch of young girls, and she said the sun came up. I love that. Isn't that amazing? That's amazing. We're going show a video here in a second, but I want you to set this up because you got a high honor from the American College. Tell us about the award that you received. Well, as my friends at the American College, I was the chair of leadership until the end of last year, and I teach comprehensive financial planning in the master's course. So I do the final course as people get their master's degree. And I've been with the college for quite a long time. I've gotten degrees from them and many designations. But I'm very critical of the college. You know, small colleges have a lot of challenges and academia is a little different from business. So I consider myself more a business person than somebody in academia, but I do sit in a lot of the meetings, and I'm quite critical. So I got a call from the president of the college, and I thought, okay, I said something that really upset him, and so I waited for the time. And he said, Jim, I've got great news for you. And I said, what is that? He said, they select one person a year to go in the Hall of Fame even though they've had over 100,000 people go through their programs. And he said, you were selected for the Hall of Fame, and I said, you're kidding me. I said, I'm your biggest critic. He said, you should read the write ups about you that these people put in. He goes, you are Mr. American College. So you never know, I mean, you can be critical, I guess, but if it's well directed, and that's important for me, I don't complain to complain because I want organizations to do better. In fact, my life's work in the last third of my life, I've been thinking about, how does all this go together, Jeff? And I want to help people live better lives. And that's why I write, that's why I teach, that's why my companies serve other people. Yes. Well, they did a wonderful video for you when you were inducted. Let's go ahead and roll the video. The American College has been instrumental in my career. I was encouraged to get my certified financial planner designation. So I got it, and someone along the way said, you know, if you take some more courses, you can get a chartered financial consultant and a CLU from the American College. I'd never heard of the American College, so I got four designations, one being the CFP, the other three from the American College in 2006. From that point, I fell in love with the training and with the people at the American College, and I made a commitment that I would continue lifelong learning with the college. He's a pleasure to work with, you know, and he's very focused, and he focuses directly on that task at hand, and then he's fast, he's smart, he's thorough, and you know he is really important to the College. We're so lucky to have him. The thing that strikes me the most and I go back and think about this almost all the time as I reflect on my relationship with Jim and that is he never lets you walk alone. So whether you're having a good day or a bad day or you're changing careers or you're into something completely out of the ordinary, he coaches as well as mentors. And so what I always appreciate about him is that he was always there. He never let me walk alone, and I noticed that with others. So he worked with me on working with the CLF program. One thing I know about Jim is that once he has a target to accomplish something, you can never stop him. He would just go as fast as he could. He had made the CLF program top of the industry leadership program since he had created that last year. And besides besides the the content that he put together, he also brought together outstanding team of faculty member who are industry leaders as well and the students are raving about this particular program. Who decides who the leader is? The followers. Jim is a natural leader in that people automatically just get to know him a little bit, spend a little bit of time with him, almost in any context, business context certainly but in other ways too. People just want to hear what he has to say and they wanna know what he's thinking. Jim, I couldn't be more delighted for you and proud of you to be selected for the Hall of Fame at the American College. It is a great tribute to all of the years and all of the things that you have done for people. Congratulations. It's such a great role model for many of us including me. I wanted to thank you for your contribution and congratulations on receiving this prestigious award at the college. Well Jim here we are again, me congratulating my friend for more I'm pleased to have the opportunity to congratulate you and to I'm to I be we're part of Okay, what did that feel like to see that for the organization. First time? Oh boy, that was something. Those people, as I was looking at the different pictures, you know, family, my friends, my associates, it's very heartwarming, very heartwarming. We have about two minutes left. Okay. So let's have a call to action. If somebody is watching this and wants to engage you, what's the process look like? Well, they can reach me on my website, which you're putting up there, and I have now keynotes on leadership, I have it on life, and we're also in the process one of the private schools here in the DFW area. I'm working with them to do a leadership course for high school students using the dog book. Yes. And there's one here in Dallas interested also, Fort Worth and Dallas are interested in it, so I'm just so blessed, there's so many things going on, the models we can put into our training courses, And like you, am so happy not only to be on this program, but to meet people, professionals like you in the Thank you. And my life is blessed. Well, it impresses me that Betty White worked until the day she died. She was 99. So, you got a lot of work to do ahead of Well, first goal is to my grandfather worked till 75. So as a little kid, decided Yeah. 75 for sure, but still going strong, Jeff. So I don't know. 99 might be a little far. No one in my family took that long. So if I do, it'll be it'll be a pleasure for Absolutely. We're gonna end with his website, which is jlpeterseninc.com. The great Jim Petersen. Thanks for coming on the show. You, Jim. You bet. That's it for the show. Appreciate it. We'll see you next time.