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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:01.07] - Cal Riley
You don't have to be sick to want to get better. There's this mentality that we have as tough guy Veterans that the therapist is bad. You don't need a coach. You just need to grind it out. You just need to grit it out. That's not what transcendent leadership looks like. That's not what it looks like to take it to the next level. What got you here won't get you there. You need new thinking and doing to break through to the next level.
[00:00:23.11] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. Today's guest is Cal Riley, a leadership coach entrepreneur and combat Veteran. Cal is the author of Entrepreneurial Compassion. Cal, welcome to the show.
[00:00:37.09] - Cal Riley
Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
[00:00:39.20] - John S. Berry
Well, thank you for everything that you do, not only for our Veterans, but also for our business community. I know that you are heavily involved in EOS, and you also have a company. Tell us everything that you're doing right now.
[00:00:52.05] - Cal Riley
I am an EOS implementer. EOS is the entrepreneurial operating system. It's a way to run your business. It's a business operating system. It's not a software, but it's a way to maximize all the human energy in your business. We like to say, as long as there's humans in a business, EOS can help you. I'm an EOS implementer. I'm an entrepreneur, so I own a company, about two, three dozen people. Been running this company for about 10 years. Then I recently wrote a book, and I am here to share some of the things in that book and to help add value to you and your listeners.
[00:01:33.16] - John S. Berry
Great. Well, first of all, I like the fact that you're an infantry officer, so you know how to get stuff done. But more importantly, I got to tell you this. The first time we had an EOS implementer, let me take you back to 2017, and the guy had no business experience. And so, what I really like about bringing out everything that you're doing is that you are actually running a business, investing in a business while coaching EOS. And so, for our Veterans that don't know, EOS is the entrepreneurial operating system written by a guy he has a book called Traction. The author's name is Gino Wickman. Great book for people wanting to get started. And one of the issues we deal with is Veterans, we get their VA disability benefits, and they have the ability now to do more, and they want to get back involved in the community, build a business or a nonprofit, and they start to build it. And after two, three people on the team, they start to realize, oh my gosh, I'm wearing all the hats. And EOS really separates the visionary from the person who is actually running the organization.
[00:02:31.05] - John S. Berry
So please walk us through that.
[00:02:32.13] - Cal Riley
Yeah. So as the visionary, we have this unquenchable drive for success and achievement, right? And nobody's ever going to take that from you, right? If you're a visionary of a company, You're an entrepreneur. You know exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's probably not you. You might be this other guy who's the right-hand man to the visionary, right? So, the integrator is the one who harmoniously integrates the visionary's vision and helps them execute on completing that vision, right? So when we think about a company, if you think about your company as if it's a car, your visionary is like your gas, right? Or your nitrous oxide, if you're one of those street racing guys, whereas your integrator is more like your brakes and your steering wheel. The integrator is making sure we're managing the energy. The entrepreneurs got that drive that is just going to push that company. It's interesting, John, because a lot of us as entrepreneurs, a lot of us as Veterans, when we transition to being an entrepreneur, it's interesting because as a Veteran, we've got the brotherhood. But as an entrepreneur, it's lonely at the top.
[00:03:42.04] - Cal Riley
It's just you. So as an entrepreneur, as a visionary, you need that integrator because they're the one that's going to help you rock and roll. They're the one that's going to help you get it going. And I was talking about this drive that we have. And when we think about that drive, this is one of the things that I talk about in my book is all entrepreneurs have this drive. Nobody can take it from you. They couldn't pull it out of your cold dead hands. It's not going anywhere. But a lot of times that drive, and I'm closing my fist right now for those of us that are listening to the podcast, a lot of us that drive, instead of a closed fist where we're like, heck, yeah, we're going to do it, it ends up being a fist that's going to punch somebody in the face. It can be off-putting to people. It can push people aside because we're so driven and we have so much that we want to do. Other people see it as like, we're a jerk or we're out of touch or whatever. So, what I write about in my book is this concept of entrepreneurial compassion.
[00:04:39.12] - Cal Riley
And it's all about really how to take that drive, which we need to have as entrepreneurs, and pair it with compassion, because when we can do that, that's when the sky is the limit, man. We can do anything if we pair that drive with compassion. But a lot of times that drive, it's our superpower, but it can also be our kryptonite at the same time.
[00:04:58.08] - John S. Berry
Interesting. Yeah. So you use the fist, right? So, okay, one fist, one knife hand, we can get it done, right? But you're saying, no, we need some compassion here. We need some empathy. Yeah, two fist. But once again, I think the reason why I'm really interested in what you do is because I've hired coaches, I've hired EOS implementers who do not run their own businesses, who are not in the middle. Maybe they ran a business 20 years ago, or they're complete students of EOS, and so they don't have any practical application. And that drives me crazy because then as they're asking questions, they don't understand what questions to ask. And the sign of intelligence is the quality of question that you can ask. So let me take you down that road.
[00:05:42.22] - Cal Riley
I sense a good question coming.
[00:05:45.04] - John S. Berry
No, actually, I don't have it. We've run EOS now, or a variation there for about seven years. What happened was I brought in a new leadership team member, a C-level team member, and we were going through some changes. And I said, I'm going to bring this implementer back in. And this guy, he wanted to do the full two days, redo our core values, all these things. And his business that he would have involved in before he became an implementer was much smaller than ours. And I said, no, we're not doing that. I said, This is where we are. And he would not agree to just do a day of... I said, This is where we're stuck. And he said, Well, I can't do that. I have to do the whole two days. Now, is that like an EOS corporate thing, or is that more of you get that flexibility when you're an implementer?
[00:06:32.01] - Cal Riley
I mean, you have the flexibility. I think that there's a human component, right? When I talk to anybody about EOS, I think one of, if not the most important things is, do you click with the other guy, right? Do you, as that entrepreneur, click with the EOS implementer? Because if there isn't that click and that mutual respect, it's not going to be fun, right? We spend enough time with each other where If you don't have that, it should be an enjoyable experience. We do have a process. Some of us are more dogged with following it than others. I think at the same time, on the flip side of that, when One of the things that we talk about, and that's really important as leaders, is we've got to meet people where we are. Like, John, you every day, you got to meet your team where they're at. Adaptive leadership. The same leadership technique with every single person will not get you the same result. We've got to temper ourselves. We've got to figure out, hey, what does this person need from me to get to this next level? How can I best coach this person?
[00:07:40.15] - Cal Riley
I just say that to say we're all different, and you're going to get a different experience slightly every time that you talk to somebody, but we all should be doing EOS. I think if you've got somebody like you guys that have been running on EOS for a while, you should be good with coming in. But again, I probably don't know enough to really comment on the specifics of it. But there are definitely implementers out there that are very like, No, you will start at this and you will end at that, and we are going to follow that agenda to a T. Then there are ones that do pretty much whatever they want and everything in between. I think it's all about finding that good fit is really important. Just like with our employees, coaches are the same way. We got to find a coach that not only are they a good fit with us personally, we want to coach. If we're a driven entrepreneur, we've got to get somebody, to your point, that's got that drive that's like, holy crap, this guy's trying to get to the next level. And I think for me, at least, it's really important that I'm never comfortable having a great quarter, but still working towards that next thing, right?
[00:08:46.21] - Cal Riley
Trying to be a better coach, sharpening the tools, that thing.
[00:08:49.19] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I think that's a great point. Finding great coaches is difficult. Great coaches are worth their weight in gold, but they're difficult to find. So a lot of times I'll start with Veterans who got there. Because at the end of the day, we have a general philosophy and core values and stuff come pretty easy with Veterans. We get it. We don't need to spend a lot of time on it. And that's why we built a team of Veterans here at Berry Law. But other organizations, they have to spend a lot of time and figure out what core values mean. Where I really found the gold was not from a coach, but we built our EOS core values. Then we built our core value posters, and then we started giving out quarterly awards for the core value nominated had $250 for the team member that exhibited this core value. But that didn't do it. What did it for us was when I could come out to quarterly meetings and say, you know what? Here's one of the core values that we didn't live by this quarter, and here is how it bit us in the ass, and here is how, or in the alternative, I'll say, you know what?
[00:09:49.04] - John S. Berry
We had to make a really tough decision here, and we had to rely on our core values, and this is why we made that tough decision. As much as it's the cheerleading and giving awards and patches, like the military, that's great for a while, but to really build that culture to show, like, no, we are really using these core values to make very difficult decisions. When we fail in our core values, we're going to let you know. I found that that vulnerability with the team has really made a difference in helping them understand and then embrace the core values.
[00:10:20.03] - Cal Riley
Well, we are what we tolerate, right? And when we say, Hey, these are our core values. This is one of my handful of rules. And then we tolerate and we permit people to break those rules and people see that, that's, Hey, that's what we are, right? But when we say, Hey, this guy broke a core value, guys, this is why he's not here anymore. People look and say, Oh, okay. You guys, you mean it, right?
[00:10:42.12] - John S. Berry
Why, Rolex is a scorecard, all right? You've got real account ability there. I love the scorecard. I can just tell you; I just screwed this up a couple of weeks ago. I have to go back to the team with some humility and say, I screwed this up. But we had a standard on the scorecard. Every other business, we're in an entrepreneurial business. We're in a rapid growth phase. And team members said, well, I don't think we can hit this metric and that metric. So, I think one of them has to go. Now, as a leader, I should have pushed back and said, well, we set these. Suck it up. I mean, obviously, you were an infantry officer Special Operations soldier. You didn't say, Well, no, that's too hard. We're not going to do that. We're not going to go on that. No, we're not going to do a 12-mile ruck march. We're going to do an eight-mile because it's a little bit easier and people are tired and their feet hurt. So When I got into that and they're like, We can't sustain both. Instead of me saying, Well, then hire more people or do whatever, I listened and I said, Okay, fine.
[00:11:39.23] - John S. Berry
We have a fix, but we're not going to have the fix till next quarter. We're just going to let the team know that this metric is not that important. I'll just tell you, that was a complete failure because the secondary and tertiary effects of that was like, oh, do the other numbers matter? Are you really serious about the other ones? And by the way, for that specific thing on our scorecard, when we pulled it off, we saw other problems. So, we forgot why it was on the scorecard in the first place. I would just say, one of the great things about EOS is that, and let me just back up for those of you that don't know what it is yet. It's one of the Rockefeller habits. There are other ways to do it. There's scaling up. There's a bunch of other different brand names that do it. What I have found is EOS is the simplest. If I'm a young infantry officer and I'm talking to soldiers-
[00:12:28.15] - Cal Riley
Us infantry guys like simple, right?
[00:12:30.09] - John S. Berry
Let's just dumb it down. But also in any organization, we're a law firm, we can't waste brainpower on figuring out systems. So it has to be a simple system that everyone can use. But tell us just a little bit more about the scorecard and why it's so important.
[00:12:44.07] - Cal Riley
No. And I love this. I love this conversation. I love what you said. I find it really interesting, right? When we're not hitting our scorecard, so in EOS, we're all about figuring out what's the root of the issue, right? So, we're not going to hit it. All right, do we do we take it off there? Do we just say we're not going to hit it? Do we drop it down the issues list? Well, that is actually, in my opinion, that could be a people issue. Hey, somebody's not holding somebody accountable. It's a weekly number. We agreed on this. Why aren't we hitting it? Hey, drop it down. You need to double up next week. And for a scorecard, too, and I'm getting into EOS, and I'd love to talk more about the book, but I love talking about EOS anyway. But for a scorecard, too, I think some of the most common, just so you know, most common mistakes that I see are people putting things on there that are not activity-based and that are not leading indicating. So, what that means, what's the difference between an activity-based measurable and a results-based measurable? The result, obviously, is the thing that you get by doing the activity.
[00:13:45.09] - Cal Riley
So, what we want on there is activity-based, not result-based. So, the more activity leading indicating we have, we want to turn this into a system of dials where we're turning it up. Hey, we can get more marketing, more sales efforts equal more operations. Then we do more recruiting, more operations quality. We want to be able to dial those efforts up and down based on what's going on this quarter. So, we hit a really, really high revenue. We have a really high revenue and profit goal this quarter. We're Q3, for example. We always know we're busy in Q3. I'm going to jack up those sales and marketing metrics to ensure that we're getting those clients in the door, or vice versa. Hey, we had a great last quarter. You know what? We're actually fully booked or whatever is fully utilized. I'm going to pull that back a little bit. I don't need to make as many prospect calls this quarter because we're in good shape. I need to focus on doing the work that I've already got. So that was the first thing that I thought was really interesting. I think you mentioned a couple of things, too, John, that I think were really awesome.
[00:14:48.12] - Cal Riley
And I think the first thing that you said that was so powerful was letting the team know that you failed. That is so important for us to do as leaders because it humanizes us and it lets them know that we're not perfect. There's oftentimes pushback to that from clients where they think that we've got to show that the team that we're absolutely perfect, we never fail at anything. But the team doesn't resonate that with us. They want to see us in there with them. Hey, guys, we had a tough quarter. We set too many rocks. They weren't smart enough. We didn't get them all done. We're going to get after it again next quarter, but we learned to set smarter rocks. When we show them that we fail and we show them that we learn from it, we're leading by example. We're showing them it's okay to fail and it's okay to learn from it. But these leaders that are constantly showing that they're perfect are really doing themselves a disservice. They're showing their teams that it's not permittable to fail. So therefore, the team members are not going to try to do anything outside the box.
[00:15:47.17] - Cal Riley
They're not going to try to go out on a limb. They're not going to go the extra effort. They're just going to color within the lines or shut up in color, as we used to say in the military. The other thing, too, is, and you mentioned this, John, I thought this was really powerful. I think apologizing when we're wrong to teams is one of the most underrated things that we can do. Apologizing to somebody on our team, it shows that we care about them. It shows that we care about the work that we do. It shows that we care about our company. I would say to the listener, if we mess something up as leaders and we apologize to the team, we are building our credibility with our teammates. We're making it so they're going to know that we really care about them and that we're really locked in with the way that they feel and what they're all about. Because at the end of the day, if they see us and they see this detached leader who doesn't give a shit, I don't know if I can swear on here or not, but I did.
[00:16:40.07] - Cal Riley
Yeah, say whatever you want. You can edit it out. Who doesn't really care, then it's not going to resonate. They're not going to follow you. But if they see that we care and they see that we're fully bought in, they see that we're fully connected with them and we're doing things like calling it out. We're like, Hey, I messed that up. Hey, we didn't hit that number. We're going to work on it. We missed that rock. Hey, guys. Then that's really going to help inspire them to really achieve your vision rather than just be like, quiet, quit, or like, they're checked in, but not really, right?
[00:17:10.12] - John S. Berry
Yeah. I mean, years ago, we actually had somebody send an email to the supervisor saying, They were a proud member of the Quiet Quitting Movement.
[00:17:17.15] - Cal Riley
Oh, jeez.
[00:17:18.18] - John S. Berry
Obviously, they're no longer on the team. Right. But I mean, that-
[00:17:22.07] - Cal Riley
I would say that's probably not a quiet quitting. You actually just quit.
[00:17:26.01] - John S. Berry
Yeah, but that's the great thing about EOS is it shines a light. When you have metrics and you're tracking them and everybody has a weekly scorecard, you can really see who's performing and who's not. At the end of the day, everybody wants high performers on their team, but the price of high performers is transparency. It's crazy. Here at Berry Law, we have leaderboards, 84-inch screens all over the non-client-facing areas, so everybody can see who is number one and who's not. And they flow from our EOS scorecards. And the top performers love to see their name on the top. I've had some other, the lower performers and say, well, you're shaming people into performing. I'm like, well, if I have to shame you into performing, this is the wrong organization. We represent America's heroes here. We represent Veterans, and they're relying on us. And so if you don't want to be a top performer to help our Veterans, you can't be on this team.
[00:18:19.03] - Cal Riley
Yeah, I love that.
[00:18:21.00] - John S. Berry
I love that, right? I'll tell the new kids, the new kids on the team, I'll say, Look, the kids, the new players. I'll tell them, This Cal, it's okay that you're not on the leaderboard, but that's okay with me. But that should not be okay with you. You should want more. Sorry, I cut you off. Go ahead.
[00:18:37.17] - Cal Riley
No, I love that. I love that, right? There's this old EOS story about the scorecard, right? The scorecard shows you who are your puppies and who are your cockroaches, right? When you're in a dark room and you turn on a light, what does the puppy do? Runs to you, right? Wags its tail. Look at me. Look at me. When you turn on a light and there's cockroaches in the room, what do they do? Run away, right? So the scorecard is that light. We're turning the light on in the organization. We're showing, Hey, this is who's doing the work. And we want more of those puppies, more of those people that love to do the work and love to get that acknowledgement of doing the work. And the people that maybe don't want you to see them, of like, oh no, you're shining the light on me. I don't like that. They tend not to work out well in EOS run organizations. But I think something that's important, too, is when we think about running a business compassionately, which is the work that I did with my book, which is all about, is that when we do it compassionately and we show our people that we really care, those results and those numbers comes so much easier than if we're just cracking the whip constantly like, Hey, beat the drum, hit the number, hit the number.
[00:19:48.18] - Cal Riley
I don't care. It just resonates with them so much more. They're willing to do it. And not that that's the reason why we should be compassionate. We should do it just because it's the right thing to do. But it almost reminds me of the story we were heading to my last deployment in Afghanistan, and this was right at the peak of the green on blue. And green on blue, I'm sure most of your listeners probably know what green on blue is. But back in the 2010s, I want to say, we had a pretty serious problem with the Afghan ANSF, Afghan Security Forces, getting infiltrated by the enemy. And what they would do is they would become co-opted by the enemy to act on their behalf. And they would basically ambush us in areas that we were feeling safe, right? In the chow hall on the fob, they would throw a grenade in there, or they would do terrible things, like assassination-like stuff, what our enemies were doing in the rear safe areas where we had our guard down. So going into this last deployment was the peak of that. I'm sitting there and I'm trying to think about, and we're trying to figure out, how do we tackle this green on blue problem?
[00:21:14.14] - Cal Riley
Because it's ever present. It's not going anywhere. We got to be ready for this thing because this was the heat of this. This is the peak of this. Most likely combat engagement is going to be with a partner force, and we got to make sure that we're ready for that. I came up with this battle drill where basically we would always be in two-man teams, and we're literally and figuratively watching each other's backs. So, one guys in the chow hall, we're sitting facing each other so we can see each other 6 o'clock. If we're in the gym, whatever. If we go to a key leader engagement, anything that we do. Obviously, you're on a regular mission, you're on a raid, you're on something like that. You're pulling security all the time. But this was taking it to an extra level. So, we come up with this. I come up with this battle drill, and we go to the range to test this thing out. All right, let's see how this is going to work. So we've got two guys, buddy-man teams. One guy engages the target. He's engaging the target. The other guy draws his weapon, but he's facing his six o'clock.
[00:22:17.21] - Cal Riley
It was interesting because we had a bunch of these trainees there. They were doing just some regular stuff at the range, and they were looking at us in our full beards and full kit with our plate carriers. They were like, What the heck are these guys doing? Like throwing smoke, engaging one way, and then the other guy's facing the wrong side of the range, which we all know in basic training, and even beyond that. You never do that. But here we are doing That's what we're talking about. It was funny because one of the instructors came up to us afterwards, and he's like, I know exactly what you guys are doing. You guys are preparing for a green on blue engagement. Because we would engage the front target. The guy with the 6 o'clock, he'd raise his rifle ready Because what they would do was they would engage you from one end. Everybody gets sucked in. We're facing that way. And then they hit you from behind with a machine gun or with grenades or whatever. So what we figured out is the guy facing the six o'clock, he's ready up, engaging, engaging. He's looking for targets.
[00:23:16.10] - Cal Riley
He's scanning, he's scanning. And then as soon as the other guy is almost dry in his magazine, the buddy does a 360, he doesn't about face, and then he starts engaging the target. So that way we're covering the 6 o'clock while we're not getting distracted. But the cool thing about this, John, and the thing that ties this back into this theory of compassion, is it was all about how I've got your back, you take my back. We're going to take care of each other. We're in this together. We're going to prepare before we need it. It's us knowing that we've got each other's back and not having to think about it. I think the same thing is true in business. When the team knows that you've got their six o'clock and we're able to take good care of each other and we're watching out for each other, they're going to bend over backwards for us and they're going to crush it, and they're going to be happier, and they're going to be more motivated about doing it. You're not going to have any quiet quitters in that environment, and they're going to tell all their friends.
[00:24:17.22] - Cal Riley
So, the thing that this does when we think about compassion in the business, and when we think about entrepreneurial compassion, is not only is it good for the entrepreneur because it's healthier for us, but We also have healthier outcomes. Entrepreneurs are at a high risk of suicides. We got Veteran entrepreneurs on this call. Those are two of the highest risk groups. We got it, guys. We got to take care of ourselves. We've got to do this work. We've got to do this self-work. We've got to meditate. We've got to take the time to journal and think about ourselves and think about our lives. So that way we're okay. We got to put our own mask on first because then and only then can we help the other people in our area. It's the same as this green on blue. I've got to be able to engage my target effectively. If I can't do that, that guy is going to get me and my buddy. So, it's just taking it all back together here of this concept of how as Veterans, we know to look out for each other, but we've got to start for ourselves, and it's all about compassion.
[00:25:17.10] - Cal Riley
If I take care of them, they're going to take care of me. It's the same as any deployment any of us have ever been on.
[00:25:24.09] - John S. Berry
Yeah, absolutely. Take care of your team. A lot of times, that means making the hard decisions for your mission and for your A players. You remember the saying, Mission first, people always. What I found is that compassion a lot of times is best directed at your high performers. Because here's the thing, If you tolerate low performance, you are hurting that high performer. If you're tolerating a low performer in your organization, that high performers coming home is upset, frustrated, probably their wife, their kids are dealing with it. And guess what? You as a leader, it's your fault. Because you were tolerating underperformance, which made them tolerate the underperformance, and you're making their life miserable. And so, what I found is, it's okay. Look, if people don't make it. I played college football. I made the team, but I never saw the field.
[00:26:16.20] - Cal Riley
What position were you, John?
[00:26:18.18] - John S. Berry
Fullback.
[00:26:18.18] - Cal Riley
Fullback? Cool.
[00:26:21.06] - John S. Berry
So, hey, failed my first time through ranger school. Got injured, failed out, everything went about six. Look, both times, I wasn't good enough. Hey, it's okay to not be good enough. But guess what? We didn't let the rest of the team suffer because John wasn't good enough. I think it's the same thing. As you build a team, your best players today, and I love this about college football, your starting quarterback today, they may get injured, they may enter the transfer portal, or guess what? Someone may beat them out next year. When you're building a great team, it's all about the compassion for the team. Sometimes when we get really soft because we care about, oh, Susie is failing now. We got to help her. Well, yeah, we do want to help Susie, but not at the cost of Sherry, our top performer. That's the difficult thing. You've got limited resources. You want to help the mission; you want to help the team. How do you do that?
[00:27:15.00] - Cal Riley
Yeah, it's like you're on the boat, right? About to do a mission, and there's a hole in the boat, and everybody's trying to plug the hole. Everybody's trying to get the water out of the boat, except for one Jackass who's trying to change his socks. It's like, man, now is not the time to change your socks. We got to take care of the boat, right? At the same time, if somebody's trying really hard, right? And they're the right person, they're the right fit, they might just not be in the right seat, right? That guy who's really outgoing, who's really charismatic, but he's in the finance seat or he's in the finance department, maybe that guy needs to be doing sales or vice versa. You've got that hyper analytical genius mind that is out there trying to do business development, but he just stands in the corner with his gin and tonic, and he doesn't talk to anybody. It's like, hey, man, give that guy a spreadsheet, and he can tell you what clients are the best clients, and you need to be chasing those clients, and what clients or what business lines. Hey, maybe you need to pivot from that.
[00:28:06.07] - John S. Berry
EOS has a tool for right person, right seat. It's called GWC. Tell us about that.
[00:28:11.11] - Cal Riley
Yeah, GWC and the People Analyst. We take Basically; those core values. We want to think about, do these people that you have on your team fit your core values? You list out your core values, and then you say, black or white, yes or no, do they fit the core values? The core values, guys, it's all about loving working with your people. I like to think about this as if you're not walking into your office every day and just amazed and proud and happy that you get to work with the people that you get to work with, that is a pretty big indicator that you might not have the right core values. The right core values will attract the right people, and they'll repel the wrong people. We want to think about for right people, that's what core values are. It's like Two things when we think about people, it's the right people in the right seats. So, core values, right people. They fit your core values. You love working with them. Right seats, GWC. They get it, they want it. They have the capacity to do the work well. But I think what needs to be understood is that as leaders, we're going to attract what we're putting out there in the universe.
[00:29:25.21] - Cal Riley
So, when we're compassionate and we show people that we care, they are going to tell other great people, and they're going to attract other great people there. This is a recruiting multiplier. I've been doing this in my business for probably in earnest about five years. I've never had a recruiting issue. We find the best people, we keep the best people, and people talk about that. When you have a company that's just a fantastic culture, people talk about it. I mean, it's something that people aspire to. Nobody leaves a company unless it's for the boss. They're not going to go for a little bit more money. They might come for more money, but they're going to leave the boss. It's all about the boss. That's why they stay.
[00:30:11.12] - John S. Berry
Or they're going to leave to go to a better boss.
[00:30:13.22] - Cal Riley
That's what I mean. They'll stay if you're awesome. If you're an awesome boss, they won't leave. I don't know about you. I've had some bad supervisors in my career. I've had some fantastic ones, but I would never take a job where I'm... And not that I'm employable now anyway as an entrepreneur, nobody would ever hire me because I don't show up on time and that thing. But I would never take a job with a terrible boss. Who would do that? So if we think about that, how much would you be willing to take a job and how much would you seek out a job where you have a fantastic boss who's super compassionate? That's just how our people think. I think something when we think about this, and I write about this in the book a little bit, is all of this stuff, it's got to start with ourselves. It's got to start with the way that we think about ourselves. You ever go see a doctor and the doctor is pretty unhealthy-looking and he's going to give you health advice and it's like, I don't know, man. You don't seem like you know what you're talking about.
[00:31:15.09] - Cal Riley
I think it's very similar with our teams. Our teams can tell when we're super hard on ourselves. They hear that negative self-talk. Even if we're doing it, maybe we think on our own when we're not it in front of them, they can hear and they can sense that from us. If we're going to talk to ourselves negatively, Callen, you burn the steak, you idiot. How could you do that? You've made steak a thousand times. You did this wrong. You messed up that phone call. You messed up that podcast, whatever. How could you do that? But when we think about ourselves like that, we wear that on our shoulders, and our teams can see that, and they can sense that. When we do that, what they I see is if that dude is talking to himself that way, there's no way that he's going to be talking about me or thinking about me in an even higher capacity. We're setting the standard with ourselves. That would be one of my things to think about as the audience is we're these tough former military people. A lot of us have been to combat, done all kinds of crazy stuff.
[00:32:25.19] - Cal Riley
But this softer side of things is like, hey, being okay with going to see a therapist, having a coach. You don't have to be sick to want to get better. There's this mentality that we have as tough guy, tough guy Veterans that, oh, the therapist Just as bad. The coaches, you don't need a coach. You just need to grind it out. You just need to grit it out. That's not what transcendent leadership looks like. That's not what it looks like to take it to the next level. What got you here won't get you there. You need a new thinking and doing to break through to the next level. And I would say, and I would argue that as Veterans, we're already operating at a high level. So oftentimes it's even harder for us to see that. It's like, well, how can I even get to this higher level? I wake up at 4:00 AM, I run five miles, I do whatever, whatever, whatever. I've got however many companies, super successful. But there's always another level to get to.
[00:33:23.08] - John S. Berry
Yeah. And I think as a leader, sometimes it looks different because you have to work hard and grind. But look, grinding only creates dust for a while. I love that. You can grind and grind, and you think you're building more capacity, you're building more strength. But I think it was Tim Grover, Michael Jordan's trainer, who said, You don't want to grind, grinding builds dust. But what I found is as you grow and build that team, sometimes it's more about you just building the platform for your senior leaders to succeed. In other words, the more specific you get in your vision, which is great, but you don't to get so specific in the day to day because that affects their jobs. We've all worked for micromanagers, and I think the best leaders I had in the military were the ones like, Okay, you understand your mission? Go do it. I'll check in to see what you need, but I'm not going to micromanage it. I think that's the great leadership we learned or learned to avoid in the military.
[00:34:20.10] - Cal Riley
Was it the best commander is lazy and smart. The worst commander is dumb and ambitious because that dumb guy, he will Keep you busy with all kinds of crazy stuff, right? Yep. Now, well put.
[00:34:33.23] - John S. Berry
You'll be highly efficient doing things you don't need to do.
[00:34:36.14] - Cal Riley
Yeah, totally.
[00:34:38.19] - John S. Berry
Well, that takes us to the after-action review. Cal, I'd love to hear your examples of great leadership and terrible leadership. Now, you can talk about things in the military business. You don't have to name names, but let's start with the great.
[00:34:51.13] - Cal Riley
Great leadership, man. I had a commander when I was in the military, and he was the type of dude that every single unit that he had, his guys would do anything for him. Anything. His name was Mark Leslie. Fantastic guy. I still keep in touch with him today. You know what made him great? It was two things. It was number one, he cared deeply. Obviously, I'm all about that. I wrote the book Compassionate, all about being a compassionate leader. Cared deeply. Cared deeply. I have met very few leaders that cared as much as him. But the other one is that he was hilarious. I think that there's something to be said for when we're in it and it really sucks to have a leader who's got a sense of humor. Guys, when we can have that sense of humor and we can joke around about it with our team, we'll have things happen here in one of my companies, and I'll say to the team, Hey, guys, it's okay. Nobody's going to die. We're not getting shot at. It's all right. We'll figure it out. Having that sense of humor is really important, or at least just trying to.
[00:35:57.06] - Cal Riley
It just shows that we're human. So that's my example of great leadership. My example of terrible leadership, I'm going to go ahead and pick on myself for this one. I was a pretty arrogant second lieutenant, and with hindsight, with 20 more years of leadership experience under my belt, and it took quite a while for me to really see this. But man, we had a mission, and I planned this mission, John, it was the perfect mission. I was like, my God, this mission is like, it's going to be the best mission anyone's ever done. As soon as our helicopters, as soon as our rotary wing aircraft were wheels down, the mission just went complete to you know what. It was from the moment we hit the ground, the Chinook, the ramp goes down. Follow me, charging out of there into a huge ravine. 30 dudes right on top of me, dead of night nods. I'm like, No, I'm going to be really cool because I'm not going to use my flash light because I want make sure I'm keeping noise and light discipline. But yeah, like a cherry second lieutenant, jumped off of that. Luckily, nobody got seriously injured on that.
[00:37:10.03] - Cal Riley
And that's just one of terrible things that I did. But The really bad thing that I did as a leader was, no surprise, I was not incredibly compassionate with my guys. I didn't take the time to learn about them, to learn about where they're at, where do they want to go, who are they, to show them that I really cared. And that would have made such a difference. Frankly, that's the reason why I wrote this book, because my brother, he died by suicide, and this book is in honor of him. And I think that if he had more of that compassion more of that type of leadership, maybe he would be here today. But I know for a fact that if we have more of this in the world, that it will make the world a better place. That's why my mission with this book, John, I want to create 1 million compassionate leaders that will prevent 100,000 Suicides. And the way that I want to do that is I want to spread the word about compassionate leadership. And there's three things that I'm going to call the audience to do. The first one is please pick up my book.
[00:38:12.21] - Cal Riley
It's on Amazon. It's called Entrepreneurial Compassion. All profits from the book go to stop soldier suicide. So, this is all about just putting something good out there. Read the book. If it resonates with you, let me know. Put a review on it. Tell other people about it. That's the first thing. The second thing that you can do is if you're curious about this, after you read that book, I've got a survey on my website. It's on calriley. Com, C-A-L-R-I-L-E-Y. Com. That's C-A-L-R-I-L-E-Y. Com. There's a free survey that you can take. Take a look at it. See how you're doing at this. Check in with yourself. See where you could improve. The results are for you. I'm not trying to keep your names or anything like that. The last thing that I offer and that I would request is to go on my website. I gave the website, take the pledge to be a compassionate leader, because we can create a million compassionate leaders together and we can prevent 100,000 suicides. But I can't do it alone. I need you and I want you. So go do that. Tell your friends about it, tell your people about it, and go out there and go crush it and be a great leader and be somebody who you can be proud to be with.
[00:39:22.13] - Cal Riley
Let your people know that you really, really care about them.
[00:39:25.20] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I cannot overemphasize the importance of this. And this is where Veteran Led came from. At Berry Law, we've gotten over half a billion dollars for Veterans and disability benefits. And you would think, okay, this Veteran, they need medical treatment. They need to take care of their family because they're facing bankruptcy, unemployed, their health issues are haunting them. And so, we'd help them get the benefits that they earned. And then it didn't stop the suicide. It didn't stop the hurting. And so, what we found is most Veterans need a mission and a team, just like we had. You're out there doing great things in the military, and you get out, and all of a sudden, your network, half your network disappears overnight. You don't have the team, and you don't have a mission. And so, at Veteran Led, we're looking to help those Veterans who have... They've got their benefits. They're at that place of stability, financial stability, but they need to be a part of a mission in order for life to have meaning. And so, they're looking for that greater That's the last thing I wanted to talk with you about. We know all about your book and your mission, but there are also a lot of Veterans out there who have started companies, businesses, are working in nonprofits, and they need help.
[00:40:42.09] - John S. Berry
Where can they learn more about hiring you, Cal, as an implementer, or at least reaching out to you to find out whether EOS is right for them?
[00:40:50.07] - Cal Riley
Yeah, absolutely. On my website, calriley. Com. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, I'm on all the social medias and stuff. So yeah, feel free to reach out to me. I'm here to I might not be the right fit for you as a coach, but I know I can help you find somebody that is a good fit for you. EOS is one of those things, John. I'm one of those guys. I drank so much of this Kool-Aid, now I'm making it. It works. And the only time it doesn't work perfectly is when we don't do it right. Get an implementer. There are so many good ones out there. They can really help guide you. I'm happy to hop on a call and talk with anybody more about that if you're a business owner. But for me, if you want to work with me, I only work with compassionate leaders. So, if you're not a compassionate leader, if you read my book and you're like, hey, this is Gobly Goop. I'm not into it, then you're probably not a good fit for me. But I can help you find somebody that is a good fit.
[00:41:45.04] - John S. Berry
Outstanding. Thank you, Cal, for all you do for our Veterans and our leaders.
[00:41:49.07] - Cal Riley
Thank you. Appreciate it.
[00:41:56.02] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we seek to help Veterans build an even bigger, better future after military service. Unfortunately for some of our Veterans, the roadblock to a better future is that they are not receiving all of the benefits that they earned. If you need help appealing a VA disability decision, contact Berry Law.