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Up Your Average is the “no nonsense” podcast made for interesting people who think differently. Learn to navigate your life with unconventional wisdom by tuning in to Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve every week.
When you share a big dream, there are two types of people that show up. There are a very few who say, how can I help you get there? There's a lot who can't dream at that level who will say, it's too hard. You'll you know, that's fraught with failure. Surround yourself with dream enablers, and you just have to keep talking to people till you find them.
Caleb:Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast, where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life. So buckle up and listen closely to Up Your Average.
Keith:Douglas, good morning. What's up? Hi, friends. I am living my best life this week, and, we are fortunate this week. We you know, we started this podcast with you smirking at me.
Keith:Don't remember when we had that that Zoom call with Caleb, and you said, what should we name this?
Doug:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Keith:And I said, up your average. Yeah. And and everybody's staring at me. And just a reminder to our friends that forgot the name is the idea was twofold. One, that I didn't believe in living an average life.
Keith:And so that was what I thought about being average, but also the idea that you are you become the average of the three to five people you spend the most time with. And Yeah. Man, we are so fortunate today to have my friend Matt Modlusty join us. And and part of why we became friends is I wanted to up my average, and I just sought Matt out.
Matt:I hope I haven't let you down. No. No. Sorry to hear that you've lowered your average amount today. It goes both ways.
Keith:Yeah. There's a little anchor pulling on you there. So so, Matt and I I think our friendship's been about three years, but I I got a a magazine here in the office. I started reading. I'm like, I wanna meet Matt and remember it.
Keith:And Yeah. Encouragement to our friends that are watching is you can do that today. You can You
Doug:can make new friends?
Keith:You can make new friends, and you can make friends that are maybe that you're pulling up, but it's really worth your while to find friends that help up your average as well. And and Matt is a high performer, and it probably is a little humbling for somebody to call you a high performer. I I know Weird. Yeah. Yeah.
Keith:I have been fortunate, and I know you have, Doug, to have some high performers in my circle of influence over my years. Bob Warren comes to mind that his days with playing professional basketball. I thought I was a high performer, so I put myself in the presence of others. I'm like, yeah, I can't I don't have the the I don't have the personality to get to the level they are, but they definitely encourage me to raise my average.
Doug:So high performers, and then you have high performers who have just really interesting successful paths. Like when we think about the odds of Matt doing what he did Yeah. Versus an NBA player Yeah. It's even more difficult for guys like Matt to do what he did.
Keith:Yeah. And hopefully, if you're watching today or you're watching this online, that you realize you don't have to be the highest of high performers, but you can raise your standard of what it is. Yeah. Really, sometimes it may only take five minutes a day. I spent five minutes a day for twenty years reading that day's proverbs.
Keith:Like, today is the seventh. Take me five minutes to read Proverbs seven. I did that for twenty years, and it affected everything I do.
Doug:Well, because you did it, you told me about it, and then my son Warner's done it.
Matt:Yeah. And so it has it has a circle of influence
Keith:for sure. So Matt is an author. That's one thing that we can say about him. I'm not going to read his resume, you can figure it out. But what I find his book is titled the American dream.
Doug:And And look what's on the back. That's the American dream.
Keith:The family. Yeah.
Matt:Yeah. My boys. Yeah. My wife's there. They're tiny.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah.
Doug:What's on the front gets your attention. Yeah. But what's on the back? That's where it's at.
Matt:That little boy laying in the grass is important on the front. I mean, that's kind of the dream, right? You you set up a passion, deep passion to be excellent or elite at anything. It it can't be an idea that you think, well, maybe, you know, yeah, I'll give that a whirl. And it doesn't mean that you have to be successful at that passion.
Matt:But the passion is what drives to me anyway, the belief and the the the work, just the plain work to achieve something beyond good. And yeah, so I think I think a little boy dreaming about flying jets was really important. My mom used to say, even talk he talked about flying jets when you were five years old. So so it was something that I thought about and and kind of inspired me in life.
Keith:I wonder well, before I say that, what I one of the things I really like about this cover, I mean, there's a lot to say about this cover, but I think it's why I get along so well with you is Matt did not his name is not on the cover, and that that represents a lot of humility that I did the math. I don't know if my math is right. According to and I use AI to analyze. But according to AI, there's only 350 people on the planet Earth have done what you've done.
Matt:Yeah. I I think that's
Keith:And they might not even be there. That they they
Matt:I think that's about right. I I think the demo pilot number's a little smaller than that. Okay. So there's there's officers. There's
Doug:pilots. Demo pilot.
Matt:So number one through six fly in the formation that you see in the show.
Keith:Well, we haven't even talked about that. No. No. Matt Matt served as a Thunderbird pilot. Yes.
Keith:And and I'm sure some would argue whether the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds are the elite.
Matt:What the hell? We have a friendly rivalry. We we yeah. No no offense to any of your navy fellows, but we would simply call them the junior varsity. And they would call us really bad names.
Matt:So let's just leave it at that and and live with that. But we had a we we did an exchange tour with them every year, which was super fun. A lot of respect, mutual respect between the squadrons, but a friendly rivalry for sure.
Keith:I think I saw a documentary one time that had both the Blue Angels and the Yeah. And and the Thunderbirds in it. It was kinda interesting.
Matt:Super fun. So before we go too far, the book's not currently in print. So I I'm in the process of maybe re reprinting it, writing up a little, maybe a couple of pages on the math. Then when I wrote it in 2011, I was concerned about the math in the country. And if you're concerned then, you're really concerned today.
Matt:So so maybe, maybe put it back in print, but it's, you could probably find a copy on eBay or something, but it's not You
Keith:cannot right now. Today, as of, November 7, you cannot find it on eBay.
Matt:So I brought one to Keith because he was asking
Doug:for what? The third the third caller at (317) 578-1600 might get an autographed copy, though.
Keith:Yeah. So so so yeah. So I interrupted you there by pointing out just the fact that the the book doesn't have it on there. But but as you're thinking of dreaming, and maybe that's a lost art. That wasn't really in my notes.
Keith:That's true. I think a lot of kids today, instead of dreaming, they're looking at a little screen, and and that can really disrupt the bigger picture of life sometimes.
Matt:It's a it's a horrible trend. Screens in life are a horrible trend. And I I raising my boys used to at least once a week threatened to take everything in the house and throw it in the backyard because because I could see that if we we let them do what they would naturally migrate to, which is look at a screen all day, that they weren't going to get much else done. So we're very harsh on the boys in terms of screen time. Would I encourage every parent to be harsh on their kids in terms of screen time.
Matt:It does diminish thinking. Both of my boys are very successful. One's an elite athlete. One's got his own business and is, you know, getting more and more successful as he works harder and harder at that. But I'll I'll attribute a lot of their work ethic to not spending a lot of time on screens.
Matt:I think it is a it's a bad trend.
Keith:I think what that leads me to think, Doug, is we need to find a expert on how to help people get away from it for a future podcast because I I think it's an addiction. And so it's For sure. Yeah. So we can probably have another conversation even about that. But but I I just am thrilled to have you just imagine what Caleb's sitting over here.
Keith:Caleb is 20 Grinding.
Matt:He's grinding over We're gonna work in bars
Keith:this weekend. So so if Caleb came to you Yes. And you're trying to not overwhelm him with direction and you want to give him some thoughts about this is what I would give you two or three, four things. Talk talk to our friends what that might look like for somebody to raise their average.
Matt:Yeah. So I I think the first thing that we have to acknowledge is they don't get a lot kids don't get a lot of help through the school system to figure this out. Right? So you might have a guidance counselor who says, Caleb, let's sit down and really figure out your strengths. Let's do some assessments on that.
Matt:But a lot of times, you can get all the way through college, and nobody's ever done that with you. So the first thing I like to do with a young person who says, hey, you know, what do you think I should do? Is that I say, well, what do you want to do? Like, what's your objective? And if you use a strategic process to think through this, and there are five steps, like, what's the big picture?
Matt:You know, what's your clear objective? And I mean, measurable, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. Then what's your competition? What's your strategy? What are you gonna do tactically?
Matt:So if you take those and you say, okay, I don't wanna have a strict strategy discussion today, but I do wanna understand what I'm good at. So the first thing I do with young people who are in college, maybe getting ready to interview or thinking about interviewing is understand what your objective is, and then look at what you're naturally good at. And there's a survey out there, an assessment called StrengthsFinders. It's online. It's about $60, maybe $70.
Matt:I don't get paid by Gallup or whoever owns this. But it's a gigantic database now. I mean, it's millions and millions and millions and millions of people who have taken this assessment. So if you're honest in answering the questions, what it does is it gives you your top five strategic themes, the things that you're naturally good at. Then it gives you the next five and then so on and so forth.
Matt:And there's 34 total. And so I like to start there. Like, what are you good at? What do you want to do? And if we haven't thought that through, it's very hard to have direction if we're just aiming at nothing.
Matt:And the clearer your picture gets on what you wanna do and the more value you put in understanding what you're good at and how it's either going to help you get there or maybe you need some other help to get there, then then our conversation can start to have some real meat to it. Like, okay. Well, that's what you want to do. And these are the things you're good at. Are there gaps?
Matt:And what do those gaps look like? And if you're running a team of people, do we have gaps on our team? Do we do we all think exactly alike? And so we've got gaps in the way we think about maybe a new customer or or selling something or whatever it is that you're trying to do. So I like to start with those two things.
Matt:I like to start with a clear objective. Do we have it? And if we don't, that's okay. But it's very hard to have direction, unless it's pointing at something. And so so those are the two things I start with.
Matt:What's your objective? And then what are you good at? It's much easier to strengthen strengthen things you're good at, than it is to fix something that's at the bottom of your list. It doesn't mean that if there's something at the bottom of your list that's inhibiting success or achieving your objective that you don't have to address it, but then we could talk about ways to address it. Do I do I need somebody to help me?
Matt:Do I need a partner? Do I need an assist on that versus me becoming really good at it? And I'll give you an example. So I'm not a tremendously creative person. I you don't want your airline pilot or any aviator to say, you know, I've landed this thing a 100 times same way, but today, I'm gonna do something different.
Matt:We're trading better way. I'm just gonna try something different today. You want you want the same thing every day. So aviators aren't, you know, creative minds. Typically, there are I've got friends that are artists, but by and large, it's do it the same way.
Matt:So I had a VP at Roche Diagnostics tell me one time, you know, mods, you're not the most creative guy. And I stopped him. I said, and, Dan, I don't wanna be any more creative. Like, if you want creativity, pair me up with a creative person. I will solve the problem quickly.
Matt:It may not be pretty. It may not be the most beautiful solution, but I'll solve the problem quickly. That's how I'm hardwired. So once you know what you're good at, and you're okay with that, and there's gaps in what you're not good at, it's easy to say, me a partner that's creative. We'll come up with a creative, fast, good solution.
Keith:Let me interrupt you there. Yes. Sounds like my ADD kick in. Yeah. Tell me one time you were you're you had your hand on the stick and you had to come up with a quick creative solution.
Matt:So I mean, there's a to me, there's a difference between adapting to a situation with knowledge, experience, and preparation. And I think preparation is expect you to answer that question that way. Preparation is under valued today. I just made a post yesterday on LinkedIn about this. The best half of basketball you've ever witnessed was because the coach had his team over prepared.
Matt:The best sales call you ever saw was by a person who was over prepared for that sales call. It doesn't matter what we're talking about. When we went to combat or got ready to go out
Keith:and
Matt:fly an air demonstration, we were over prepared. And so I would say through that preparation reversal, sort of what if ing it, did I ever have a a time where I, you know, I had to do something on the fly? I'm sure I I did. May maybe I can give you an example. And and so it wasn't flying.
Matt:It was flying, but it wasn't flying jets. It was flying up small experimental airplane. So I was flying from Syracuse to Buffalo to see my family when we lived in Syracuse. And the weather was forecast to be great. And the weather as I it was I took off early morning, it was still dark, and the weather kept coming down.
Matt:And I was listening to the forecast. And by the time I got there, it was instrument approach only. The airport I was going to had an instrument approach, but this airplane I was in was it was equipped for it, but not, you know, over equipped. No autopilot for, you know, for a vertical guidance. So I shot one approach there.
Matt:And when it went missed approach because the weather had gotten so bad, I was like, yeah, wow. Let's go over to Buffalo and fly an ILS and just get on the ground. So that would be a time where even though I thought I was prepared, the weather, you know, proved me to be less prepared than I should have been probably for that flight. Doug, you and I
Keith:were having, I think it was lunch with mutual friend of all of ours, Russ. And we were talking about anxiety, fear, and being afraid of things.
Matt:And that
Keith:was pretty much what he said helped overcome a lot of fear and anxiety is preparation. Like your training can get you through things. And we live in a culture today that is epidemic of anxiety and things and maybe preparation is part of what can help them navigate some of those things. Things that are they're obsessed with, maybe they need to step back sometime and think about that. Just what I'm thinking.
Doug:Don't know. Preparation, I mean, some point in time, it was your first time to do something. So when during preparation, when it is your first time, it does feel like it's creative.
Matt:Yeah. So so it's, you know, aviation and air traffic control and maintenance, all the things I've done, and then teaching strategy, I think I I I'm trying to think, you know, what what was it like? I guess the first time you get in an a 10, there's no instructor in it. You're by yourself. So you but we did simulators.
Matt:So there was always preparation for the moment that you had to say, wow. I'm in this all by myself. The instructor literally would get up on the ladder and help you start the airplane because you were so slow doing all the checklist. They would help you start it and then go to their airplane. They'd still be waiting on you when you as a as a new student.
Matt:To help you start it. You fly it. Yeah. And I'll be right behind you in case you do something wrong. I'll be like, that's too bad.
Matt:You know? No. Just kidding. Not not really. They did fly right behind you.
Matt:So so I think there was always preparation. I think it's important for people to push themselves.
Keith:That's what I was just thinking is that most people aren't gonna they're not gonna climb into that a 10, but they can push themselves this weekend. They can do something this weekend that they've never done.
Matt:Yeah. We're not we're teaching kids to be afraid of failure. Right? We're teaching kids that failure is bad. And I think what I what I learned through military aviation was until you try to do something that you can't already do, you're never gonna learn to be able to do it.
Matt:So you have to be okay trying it, not achieving your objective, and coming back and debriefing. This is something we did very, very well. What why wasn't I successful? And I think as I look at Jacob's golf career, he's very good at coming back and saying, didn't reach my objective. Why not?
Matt:Not, oh my god, I'm a failure. Life's terrible. It's unfair. We're teaching kids that that if you don't succeed, somehow it's somebody else's fault. And I think I think that's a horrible way to go through life.
Matt:Like most people have control of their success. They just haven't learned it yet.
Keith:I'm gonna interrupt with the commercial here, Doug, if you don't mind. I think one thing Gimbal does great is we will take risk with your capital because it's hard to risk somebody else's capital. And if it doesn't turn out how we thought, we've got a limited space that we're going to let it happen. And then we go back and say, what did we do wrong? And instead of just crossing our fingers and hoping it works, that's part of the process we do here at Fresno.
Keith:So we we just take the risk. We look at it. And if it didn't work out, what what did we do?
Matt:And it's experienced risk. You're it's it's it's not that you're throwing a a dart at the wall. Right. You've done this. You you know what to expect.
Matt:You've looked at your your experience, helps you make a good decision. If the good decision doesn't yield the result you were hoping for, you come back and go, why not? What what what did we learn that we'll use next time?
Keith:Isn't that exactly what we do? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. That's it.
Keith:I think anybody in life can do that with anything.
Matt:Anybody can do it.
Keith:I I think of RV ing for me. The first time I loaded the kids up in an RV, I had no idea what I was gonna do. But I'm like, I learned every time because because something's gonna go wrong. So so I cannot RV because something's gonna go wrong or I could just say it. We'll figure
Matt:it out.
Doug:Let's figure it out. Sports media person interview a professional athlete. It can be frustrating as a fan to hear this answer, but it's always next play, next game.
Matt:Next play. You have to have a short memory if you're trying to do if you're if you're trying to execute at an elite, an excellent or elite level, it's just not possible to be there every every day, every time. When we graded Thunderbird Demonstrations, we had a scale of one to 10. Our best shows were probably a 4.5 or somewhere around a five. And and we would we would fly
Doug:The Blue Angels are no. No. They're they're
Keith:yeah. No.
Matt:There's probably somebody calling in right now. That's so funny.
Keith:Dave, is it he
Matt:went there
Keith:in the industry. I've never picked up
Doug:I've never picked up by
Matt:the guy who pulled the trigger of a thirty year. I've mailed there in. So funny. True, though.
Keith:Man, I love cheering young people on, though. Like like, I I was bragging on my daughter this morning that she got into a boxing ring to box. Nice. And the first time I thought about that, was like,
Matt:why did you do that
Keith:to your child? My Kelly took up Muay Thai and we drove up to Fort Wayne to watch her fight this year, I didn't want to watch it because of but what Kelly was doing was overcoming life by doing something that just doesn't make sense. And and I don't I don't know how you do that other than sometimes you gotta shove the kids into stuff.
Doug:Well, or like, I mean, your biggest fans are often your your mom and dad or your family. And and for your biggest fans to watch you climb up in a in
Matt:a piper or however you started. Yeah.
Doug:It had to be a big deal.
Matt:Yep. I, you know, I think parents get nervous, right? When your when your kids are trying something that you go, you know, what if what if something goes wrong? Well, I remember telling my mom, listen, mom, if I die flying airplanes, I've died doing exactly what I want to be doing. Yeah.
Matt:And I think I don't think I think it took her fear completely away. But I think she lived with it more comfortably knowing that that was my outlook and probably became hers as well. Certainly watching demos for the first couple of times made her made her nervous. But
Keith:I don't remember the exact quote. It it is something like all people die, but not all people live kind of thing. Like, it like, like, I I just cannot imagine spending my eighty plus years on this planet and not trying to live. I just and and as a dad
Doug:blessed to see it that way.
Keith:Yeah. As a dad, you have to kinda I think you have to look at your kids that way that they have to live. Because if you're trying to protect them, then you become part of the problem, I would think.
Matt:Yeah. I think that's I think that's true. I think you get you're passionate about what you do. And I my brother used to tell me, you know, you know how lucky you are to love your job. And I I really sort of dismissed that when I was flying airplanes until I got out of flying airplanes and realized, I don't love my job as much as I used to.
Matt:And so but life gives you trade offs, And so how much time do you have with your kids? How much time do you have to coach? How much, you know, all the other things that you now start to balance. When I was flying jets in the air force, it was Diane and I and I think on our first date, I said, listen, here's my plan. And I laid it out.
Matt:I was a staff sergeant in the as an air traffic controller. And she's like, don't you think you're setting yourself up for failure? And I'm like, she we still laugh about it. But she's very supportive of that journey, which was in the squadron all the time, studying all the time Cannot imagine. Passionate about pursuing.
Matt:And even if I never made the team, the drive and the hope and the dream of doing it drove me to be excellent at what I did.
Keith:That was one of the That's the key. Yeah. That was one of the ideas I wrote down because you defy the odds. Like, nobody does what you did.
Matt:Yeah. No. No. I think I was the longest serving enlisted person to ever go to officer school and then on to be a demo pilot. There I think we've had a narrator that had at the same amount of time, but I think I think that's still the record.
Keith:So I'm Yeah. So disappointment. I think aiming high part of aiming high is being okay with disappointment because she you when what I was thinking about your preparation for the interview for the Thunderbirds, I'm like, I would I I could never I just wouldn't have done it. What you did, I could have never done. But I didn't ever do what you did either.
Keith:But but the higher you aim, the more disappointment you're gonna deal with in life because Yeah. If you just settle, you won't ever be disappointed.
Matt:Failed at almost everything I tried. Right? I I I applied for an organization.
Doug:You you said hope. Hope. And the Bible says hope does not disappoint.
Matt:No. I think you've got to you know, hope becomes belief when you prepare. When you when you decide that's what I wanna do, and I knew Jacob was gonna be successful when I saw this on a little sticker on his on his mirror. He had all these notes. He had his goals in in high school.
Matt:He had a little note that said nobody will outwork me Wow. As a tenth grader. And I thought, okay, he's got a chance to succeed. Because you have to have that tenacity. Your basketball guy had it.
Matt:Yeah. I'd like to think that most of the guys in the fighter world had it. Like we we wanted to be good at that job. We knew it was important. And we all really worked hard at it.
Keith:And and I think part of that, I'm not I'm not telling you I know what your thoughts are. But with with conversation that I had with Russ over the years, part of that is you have a bigger purpose than just flying airplanes. Yeah. You you you believe in the idea of America. Like, would have I don't think you would have put in all that effort if you didn't believe in America.
Keith:Absolutely.
Matt:If you're if you're in the military, and I would say, especially in the operational elements of the military, because there's there are a lot of jobs you could have in the military that don't feel as quite as operational. It doesn't mean you're not patriotic and don't have the same beliefs. But you could be sort of, you know, working somewhere behind the scenes and not, you know, be maybe as close to the tip of the spear as as oper operators are. But I think everybody who was in those combat roles felt that same way, like we're here because the country's worth it and because defending it matters and somebody's got to defend the country.
Keith:Let me let me circle back to something when we're talking to young people too, because too much screen time, maybe not having somebody like you invested in your boys, like your boys are like they've been trained by dad. And maybe a lot of the young people that are watching us didn't get that benefit in life. But I was thinking like military is a viable option for people where some of that will be taught to you. Maybe not in the the soft tenderness of a dad, but but tell talk to talk to the young people that have never considered military, like what that might do for your possibilities.
Matt:Yes. So I think when you go back and look at what your themes are, like, do the strategic assessment if you're struggling with what's next, then you maybe don't have an objective. So look at what you're good at. Maybe look at what you're not so good at. And say, if I need more of, you know, this, is the military a place, you know, where where that would be grown in me, and maybe it's forcibly grown in you.
Matt:For me, I was raised fairly disciplined by a very disciplined oriented dad. So the military was a great fit for me for that discipline to be to have value. So in the so so in the very first two days of basic training, when you're just getting yelled at, right, no sleep, getting yelled at, everybody's yelling at you. You know, they come around and you got all the stuff that you brought in your pockets on the bed, and they're yelling at you for having this and that. And right then in that very I think it was day one or maybe day two as I'm answering this TI's question and training instructor just yelling at me.
Matt:Right? Yes, sir. No, sir. You know? And I don't call me, sir.
Matt:You know? He said, as he walked away, he goes, maybe you could be a squad leader here, you know, airman Modleski. And I thought to myself, well, I must have done something right in that interchange. So so I had some discipline. And the way I answered those questions, he said, maybe this is a guy that has a chance here to Wow.
Matt:I was a squad leader at 17. And, you know, there's only four of us in our in our squadron. So it was it was cool. And this is some of the things that that working to really important to find what you're good at and start working in that area because it will be validated as important. Right?
Matt:People will see value if you're using your strengths in a place that it matters. If if you're using something that doesn't matter, nobody's gonna reward it in the way that that they interact with you because it doesn't matter. So I I do think that alignment is missing for a
Doug:lot of a lot of kids.
Matt:But the military is a great place to get structure and discipline. And if you're already good at it, it's rewarded. And if you need it in your life, it's a great place to find it.
Keith:Man, I I I just heard last week of this idea called gentle parenting. I I guess it's a popular thing going on now. But it would be the opposite of what you just described. Yeah. So it would seem that our younger culture is gonna it's gonna be more and more difficult for them to come into the military even because of maybe they've been getting them not pushed with discipline as a part of
Doug:their way of life sometimes. Or maybe they haven't seen the areas of the military where there is the value. I think having seen that value is very important.
Matt:Yeah. I I think it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what you do. When when that same VP hired me at Roche, I didn't know anything about health care. I didn't know anything about blood glucose meters. I mean, he hired me to be a regional manager in an $80,000,000 region, and I didn't know anything about that business.
Matt:He just said, I I I know what you've done. I know the way you've trained. I know the way you think. And he goes, I just wanna bring you in as a leader, we'll teach you the other stuff. And so so I think knowing, you know, knowing what you're good at and having that validated, there will be places where it fits.
Matt:And you do need to find somebody who can teach you the other stuff. You know, and if it was working in your world, and that was something that I wanted to do, then I'd sit down with you experts and say, teach me how to do this, and I'll try to use what I'm good at to be successful.
Keith:Man, that sounds good. Can I shift gears now? Yeah. Let's Let's let's celebrate our friends that will be watching this as Veterans Day next, what, Monday, I think. And I'm a little older than you, but this is my thoughts about the backdrop before you got to the point that you got to this is I grew up with I can't even what they're called the little trays that you'd eat on at the sofa.
Matt:Yeah, yeah, TV trays. TV
Keith:trays, TV on a cart. Yeah. Did you have a TV on
Matt:the Yeah, a little black and white.
Keith:Yeah, yeah, so I don't think most of the young viewers even know what we're talking about. But as a 10 year old, dinner included we didn't have blood because it was black and white. Yeah. But Vietnam soldiers getting killed every night. Yeah.
Keith:And then the evolution of that was by the time I got out of high school, Vietnam was over, and those young men were just a little older than my older brother. Some of them didn't come back, but when the ones who did come back, they weren't appreciated. No. And I think history suggests that our government didn't really respect those soldiers so much. I I that's just my opinion of what happened in Vietnam.
Keith:But but the military, if you're gonna give it that one to 10, what do you think about our military score at the end of Vietnam might have been a two or three. I don't know. Don't know what it was.
Matt:Nationwide, that may may be true for sure. There's certain certainly, there was a a large group that that felt that way.
Keith:Yeah. So then you're growing up in that.
Matt:Yep. You're
Keith:wanting to fly planes. Yep. And we we went, what, fifteen years without having combat. I mean, major combat. Right.
Keith:And I don't know where you came into the equation relative to 1990. Like, I don't remember that conversation. Were you in war in 1991?
Matt:So so I grew up in rural America, which was a great place to grow up. I was outside fishing every day and, you know, just being a just being a a crazy young young boy. And we moved to a suburb of Buffalo when I was 12, so that was, like, 1974. And then I enlisted at 17 in 1980. Okay.
Matt:So I was in, you know, coming out of the Carter years, which weren't great for the military in terms of spending and pay and morale and then the Reagan years. Right? So in terms of a boost in morale and hitting the military when there was money spent and generally the country feeling better and better about the military as a whole, would say it came along at a at a great time. I never felt anything, but, you know, most people that you met were were pretty enthused about the fact that you were a young person in the military.
Keith:So so our friends that our friends that often watch this are those guys that came home in 1975. Yeah. So what would you say to those guys?
Matt:Thank you. I think most people who who have served in combat and, you know, I've served from from 20,000 feet, right, not not not doing what they did down in the in the muck of of Vietnam, but we owe you a debt of gratitude. Right? The country doesn't always think clearly. You can look at some local elections recently maybe and think about that.
Matt:Right? So so we go through ebbs and flows, but one of the things that makes the country great is we we tolerate a very wide variety of views and hopefully that self corrects. And I think, you know, the 60s and 70s were a time when we were tolerating a lot of views that obviously today, you know, you wouldn't you wouldn't tolerate that with people behaving that way towards military people, at least at least people in this room wouldn't. So I'd say thank you for coming home to, you know, a period of time that, you know, wasn't great for the military, wasn't great for the country, really, to to treat people that way. I do think these these men and women who served in that period of time are still best friends like like all of us who who served together.
Matt:Right? That becomes your those are your best friends for life. It doesn't matter what else happens. So they still have each other. But but as a as a country, we should say, thank you for their service and apologize maybe for that welcome home, which wasn't so good.
Keith:So with some of those men and women, they would have been ones who trained you then maybe? Were they still in the service then? Or
Matt:Potentially. Yeah. I had I probably had some folks who who crossed over. I mean, by the time I got to flying, there were some old older, I would say older era Vietnam guys probably still flying. But but, you know, I had all that enlisted time between 1980 and going to pilot training in 1987, '88, '87, '88, I guess, '88 into '89.
Matt:I graduated in early eighty nine. So by the time I got to, you know, 1990, if you think, you know, people fly in the 1962, that's twenty eight years hence, most of them, there were still some, but most of them had had retired or moved on. Gone gone on to their next their next thing in life. I mean, many of those guys, you know, you don't, we don't talk about a lot, but but many of them came home very successful businessmen, you know, successful at other careers. They just quietly went about it, and we obviously had some people come home and really struggle too.
Matt:So war stinks. There's, you know, there's there's nothing glamorous about about doing the job for sure.
Doug:Doug, what else? Well, I I would just love to know what would be your one top of mind thing that comes to your mind to encourage somebody who is one of the ones who makes the cut to fly in an American sponsored jet?
Matt:So say that say that again.
Doug:What would be something that you would encourage someone in your shoes when they're maybe 22 years old and
Matt:Yeah,
Doug:they're beginning their career. Yeah, they might have a shot.
Matt:Don't give up. I'll probably get emotional here. When you share a big dream, there are two types of people that show up. There are a very few who say, how can I help you get there? There's a lot who can't dream at that level, who will say, it's too hard.
Matt:You'll you know, that's fraught with failure. And I call those folks in the book dream disablers. And they're not, they're not being mean. They're just limited by their view of the world. And they're limited by what they're willing to dream along with you.
Matt:So surround yourself with dream enablers. And you just have to keep talking to people till you find them. Because once you find them, they'll help you. And sometimes it's just belief. Like, I believe you can do that.
Matt:Sometimes it's a boss who says, well, we didn't get there this year. What do we need to do between now and next year, you know, to get your application further in the process? But I think if you have a big dream, share it with people. And the people that say, how can I help you get there? You know, cherish those folks, you know, and stick with them.
Matt:Because they'll stick with you and and help you achieve.
Doug:Thank you.
Matt:Yeah, you're welcome, sir.
Keith:Matt, thanks for thanks for hanging out with us today. What an honor. And here's what I'm going to challenge you guys with. You guys can be dream enablers. Whatever your past has been, today is the day to say no to the negativity and yes to the positivity and find that young person that you can cheer on.
Keith:And then you can not only up their average, but you can up yours. Have a great weekend.