On Episode 12 of the Art Of Coaching podcast I catch up with my old friend, former trainee and current Army Ranger Mike Meegan. I wanted to get Mike on the podcast because as a Ranger he is not only a true subject matter expert in leadership and what many refer to as “mental toughness” but also what it takes to survive and adapt in high-stakes situations Many of the topics discussed are may seem simple or obvious, yet they are pervasivly under-executed within our current society, and across multiple professional domains as well.
Enjoy as one of our country’s finest leads us through lessons he has considered to be home and hearth to helping him survive, learn and lead throughout his multiple deployments.
Here are the topics we cover on this episode
- Why leadership is a people business
- Should popularity matter in leadership
- What it means to adapt
- Mental resilience vs mental toughness
- The importance of deep self analysis
- Books and experiences that our outside of Mike’s normal sphere of influence
- The importance of morale
- What does Buy-In look like in the eyes of an Army Ranger
- What happens when you try to please everyone
- How to spot the inauthentic
- Personal and professional weaknesses
- Mental resilience for the field of combat vs the athletic performance field
If you want to reach out to Mike you can do so by emailing him at bigmeegan@gmail.com
Thanks for listening!
TRANSCRIPT
Brett Bartholomew
Hey, everyone, it’s Brett Bartholomew. And I hope this finds your week off to a great start. Before you listen to this episode, I’d really appreciate it if you would take the time to leave an iTunes review. Now here’s the thing, we try to keep this podcast, sponsor free, we try to keep it ad free, you know, we don’t make a dime off it. And so your reviews are how, really the podcast spread. So whether it’s young coaches, coaches that are a little bit longer in the game managers, people in different industries, what have you, it’s all word of mouth. So those reviews aren’t really a glorification thing. It’s literally so that the information can find other people like you who may benefit from it. So if you wouldn’t mind just taking two to three minutes, leaving an iTunes review, I’d really appreciate it. Or just tell five friends about the podcast either way, trying to get this information to as many people as possible. And by all means, keep your feedback coming so I can make future shows even better for you. All right, here’s today’s episode, world class
What’s going on everybody, welcome to another episode of The Art of coaching Podcast. I’m excited about this one, I get excited about them all. So I really need to, I need to change that intro there. But this, takes me back a bit, because we’re talking with a good friend of mine, and former athlete, Mike Meegan. And when I say former athlete, I don’t mean he’s not an athlete anymore. I mean, that’s how Mike and I met is, I had the blessing and the opportunity to be able to work with and train Mike for a period of time. And now the rules are kind of reverse Mike’s on the podcast, and he schooled me over the past few years, as we’ve had discussions about, you know, the true definition of leadership and how somebody in his situation sees it. And the reason Mike has such a unique perspective on this is Mike is a member of the Ranger Regiment. And Mike, how long have you been in?
Mike Meegan
I have been in the Ranger Regiment for since June of 2010. So what is that over eight years now
Brett Bartholomew
over eight years, I mean, and we’re gonna dive into a lot of it on the show. But I imagine within those eight years that’s been filled with a lot of ups and downs and learning experiences, you know, and I think the audience as they get a better feel for your background, I think some of the things we want to dive into, is really, you know, your view from the outside looking in or the inside looking out, however, you want to kind of phrase that of what you think that people have been misunderstanding about leadership, whether it’s within the military, whether it’s what you’ve seen kind of popularized on TV, I mean, you’re somebody that every you know, for that time period, you have put your life on the line, you have put yourself in unique circumstances. And you know, I’m just always fascinated to see if, if what we see every day, and what we hear about is kind of the reality. And obviously, there’s some things you’re not going to be at liberty to discuss. But you’ve got some interesting stories, and I definitely don’t want you to sell them short. And I think that you’re somebody that is absolutely an expert on the area, because I mean, the the training that you’ve had to go through and not only that the information you’ve sought out since being a part of the military, the education you’re doing now did many interests you’ve taken into your life. So you want to give a brief background and kind of introduce yourself to the audience before we dive in. Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Meegan
And first off, I just want to say thanks for having me on this podcast. It’s an honor to be here. And I’m glad that we’re going to be able to use some of this material to help some folks out there that might have some questions about this kind of stuff. So yeah, as you introduce my I’m Mike, you know, US Army Ranger. And then down here, Fort Benning, Georgia, since 2009, really, when I went through basic training, Airborne School, and then I went to the Ranger assessment selection program, ended up at Third Battalion enjoyed my time there went to Ranger School. Basically, the standard pipeline for everybody. And I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs in my military career, for sure. Not not just my military career, but in life in general. I also, as you mentioned, the former athlete thing, and I don’t want people to get this twisted. Soldiers are some of the best athletes on the planet. I still consider myself, I’m a professional athlete, and compared to some of the beasts that live on my block, I’m really not that impressive.
But, you know, in sports and in the military in organizations in, you know, whatever team environment or organizational environment, you find yourself. And I think one of the biggest misconceptions, especially in this day and age, about leadership is being a leader versus being popular. And in the society that we live in these days, with social media, everything being, you know, the end of your fingertip basically, I feel like a lot of people get tried in the court of public opinion, rather than with hard analytical facts. And I feel like a lot of people in leadership positions, kind of get scared that they’re going to be unpopular. So they start, as opposed to leading they start getting in to the muddy waters of a popularity contest. Are you, Brett, you’re a Game of Thrones fan, right?
Brett Bartholomew
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Mike Meegan
Okay, so one of my favorite quotes from that show, actually, and this kind of sums up, you know, what I’m talking about with leadership versus being popular? You know, it’s the night, north of the wall, things are really crappy, you know, you got the Nights Watch there. And that guy that everybody hates, I think his name was commander thorn or something like that. The old dude is always mean, you know, talking about, oh, he says a line there that really resonates. Especially it’s very applicable. In my field with the Ranger Regiment is he turns to John Snow, he says, Hey, do you know what leadership is? John Snow, you know, kind of asked him and he says, leadership is making decisions, knowing that everybody underneath you, is going to second guess you. And not like you. And, of course, he used more colorful language and that but um, you know, basically, that really hit home with me, because I think there is a huge imbalance these days between being a leader and making the hard right decisions over the easy and popular. And I think that’s where a lot of people miss the mark.
Brett Bartholomew
I think that’s a good point. I mean, I know even in my field, if you emerge as kind of a leader in this field, it’s very quickly accompanied with people saying you’re now a guru, you know, which I and they use it and not such a harmonious or complimentary term. It’s interesting, you know, if somebody’s a leader or somebody more visible hate and right, yeah, it’s, oh, you’re a guru. And you brought up one thing that I wanted to address is, that goes along with what you said that I think a lot of people misconstrue, but I’d love your opinion on is, you know, people typically think leadership is about one person. But even going back to that quote that you mentioned, a lot of research others says it’s not about a person or like, you know, this great man or woman that gives this huge speech and, asked to make all these decisions. It’s really about how the context both immediate direct or indirect, you know, the time like that you have to make a decision, the history of the place and the environment in which, you know, certain decisions have been made. And, and things have happened in the past, those all interact with each other to create what is eventually called Leadership. You know, it’s not an action of one person. it’s the people involved, the context, the time, the history, the culture, and not like the culture of the workplace. But I mean, literally, the geographic culture that you’re in the region that you’re in, those are all going to influence leadership. Wouldn’t you agree? Or do you think it is more singular? I think it is just
Mike Meegan
No, no, absolutely not. It can’t be the actions of one man. Because, I mean, it’s kind of a tricky question. But, you know, if you’re a leader, and we’re talking about, you know, team leadership and organizational leadership, what good does it do if I run to the finish line? Nobody’s with me, what good does that do? So, you know, it’s funny, you’re absolutely right. Leadership is a people business. It’s a people business. It’s interpersonal relationships that are forged one on one. And then you get these, group of individuals to really have a shared vision and a shared goal. And you know, in your book, you talk about the art and science of buy in and how you foster that with individuals. Well, that’s fine. That’s very important to do because you need to know your men on an individual level. But here’s that, going back to that leader versus being popular thing. leaders aren’t always popular, popular people, and that’s all they care about is popularity or not leaders. And the reason for that is because
Brett Bartholomew
repeat that, because I think that’s an important point repeat that just so the audience gets,
Mike Meegan
I was just saying that, that leaders are not always popular. But somebody who’s only concerned with popularity is not a leader. Okay, and what I mean by that is, you need to know your men on an individual basis, you do. And things do need to be prosecuted on a case by case basis, they do. But here’s the distinction. Here’s the difference. A person who is worried about being popular and being liked by subordinates, they’ll handle everything on a case by case basis, but there’s no foundation, there’s no foundational backbone, to his organization or team, right. So
Brett Bartholomew
meaning what, like, Give us an example of what a foundational backbone, some things could be there, just so anybody listening, if they feel like, you know, they’re trying to figure out exactly what you’re talking about. So they can assess where they’re at, what would you describe as, as key components or examples of a foundational backbone,
Mike Meegan
it’s your core principles, it’s your core principles of what it is that you’re trying to achieve your identity, so to speak, you know, if you look across organizations, in the military, out of the military, sports teams, let’s go ahead and take the Alabama Crimson Tide, for example, or the New England Patriots, right? They hold themselves accountable to the standard. And I want to put this out there, I’m not a Patriots fan, go dog,
Brett Bartholomew
I was just gonna say, you might want to tell people that you are not, you’re a Georgia boy. So you might want to help people that before they click off the bat,
Mike Meegan
I am not a tide fan, I am not a New England Patriots fan, but I respect their process. And that is they have core principles and a foundation that is on waiverable, they have a system and they have a way of going about their processes that bring their players into their fold. They don’t change their foundation for players. Now, if you are handling an issue with your subordinates, or peers or even your superiors, if you’re handling a situation by case by case basis and taking into all the accounts, Okay, where can we meet in the middle, the one thing that shouldn’t be compromised or can’t be wavered upon his core principle, if you have a player or a soldier or a co worker, that has violated one of the core principles of what you stand for, then that mutton a price must be paid for that. It has to be, it hasn’t been no matter how much you like that person, or no matter how much you want to help that person, if they have violated something for the greater good of the entire team or organization, and have violated a core principle. That’s like cracking your own foundation, at that point of your house. It’s like literally jackhammering your own foundation, because all that’s going to do is create divisiveness within the ranks of everybody else that you’re holding to that standard. So, you know, when you have conflicts, take it case by case, but you need to measure it against your core principles and your foundation and say, Hey, this guy violate this? Or did he not kind of cut him some slack? Or can I not? And that’s what makes great organizations? Well, that’s what makes them great. That’s what puts them in those positions where they succeed where others fail.
Brett Bartholomew
The thing I want to touch on in that is, like you mentioned, they’re not always popular. And one of the things that creates conflict in organizations is micro politics. And that’s a term that it’s interesting. It’s a research term I’ve come across in the past few years where they talked about if we think of macro politics, obviously that’s what we see at a governmental level. Right? We hear about that every day on the news, you know, on and on and on, whereas micro politics are kind of internal power struggles. So you mentioned that good leaders aren’t always popular within that, what are some ways that you’ve noticed or that you’ve heard or you’ve read or you’ve studied, that you hear that, you know, somebody’s trying to kind of get involved in a power struggle with that leader? Maybe that person doesn’t feel like they’re acknowledged maybe they feel they’re more competent. Maybe they feel like that leader, you know, got into that leadership role because of a you know, I don’t know some sense of localism or nepotism, but what are some ways that that can affect it and And have you ever experienced that? And if so, what are some ways that you’ve seen that result? Because I think a lot of people listening, they’re not just involved with sports teams or businesses, you know, a lot of them are in different types of managerial roles and even different industries. And I think we all know that person that is kind of like tried to, I don’t know, subvert what we’re trying to do, and how would you have your lessons and the things that you’ve experienced? What principles do you have of how to deal with that? How would you deal with that kind of conflict?
Mike Meegan
Well, again, you got to take it, you have to take it back to what was the point? What was the venture? And what is the goal? What is the goal of what you’re trying to achieve? And like I said, like you said, this could be for sports teams, it could be for military, it could be for businesses, it could be for a damn study group. You know, I started a study group, I’m in college right now, with, you know, being 30 years old, I’m about 10 to 12 years older than most of my counterparts. And we’re in a particularly hard course, in Spanish, I actually started a study group, because I just got tired of hearing everybody complain about what the professor wasn’t doing for them. And I said, Well, hey, you know, what, if you care about your grade, how about you do something for you, let’s start a study group three days a week in the library. But here’s the deal. If you’re late, I’m not waiting for you. If you don’t do your homework, and you’re constantly texting and trying to bum off everybody else for their work, I’m not going to give it to you. And I don’t expect anybody else in here to either. You know, that’s just a very small micro example of leadership. And another one, and those are the core principles is based on do your work show up. We’ll help you out. But you got to help yourself. we’re not here to carry you. We’re not here to cater to you. We’re here to learn collectively. And if you can’t get on, yeah, go ahead.
Brett Bartholomew
No, go ahead, keep Yeah, keep going keep going?
Mike Meegan
Well, it’s basically just if you can’t get on board with that, you know, I’m not going to sit here and cater to you. And I had some classmates know, Mike, you know, he’s a prick, I guess, I don’t know. But, you know, at the end of the day, it didn’t matter, because the collective whole of the class, the grade point average, starting to increase, everybody’s doing better on their tests and stuff like that, in the one or two outliers. Had, I tried to cater to those one or two outliers, as charismatic as they are. Because very often you’re gonna find, you know, that that that politician, quote, unquote, you know, that kind of archetype that you mentioned in your book, you’re gonna find that kind of person every once in a while, and they can be really valuable resource to you. But if they care about their own means their own ends, more than accomplishing the greater good, then you got to cut sling load with that guy. You know, another one
Brett Bartholomew
kind of touches on something that we’re that touches just real quick, that touches on something that I think you do that stood out exceptionally well, even when you were training. You know, when we first met, when we were working together within the group, you know, you were always very good at getting kind of everybody rallied around. I mean, you guys were there on borrowed time, borrowed funding, and some of the other guys kind of got lost in the playground of the performance environment. It was very clear you were there to do work. And that’s another interesting thing I think that audience would be interested to know is, again, you think military that everybody is absolutely regimented to the highest level, everything’s neatly structured. Again, it’s what we see on TV. It’s what we read about in all these books. And I swear, I feel like there’s been so many books written on military leadership in the past five years, you think there were 20 people that shot bin Laden? it only it only requires one good follower and that’s just the research term for like, to do nothing for leadership to fail. So if you don’t cut that thread, if you don’t meet that conflict head on with creative strategies, because like you mentioned, you’ll see different archetypes kind of try to subvert leadership in different ways, then it’s going to poison the well. And I think a lot of times people they turn a blind eye to that I know I have because you want to think the best of people you know, and you certainly don’t want to become a cynic or a skeptic but it’s just the reality like if you let something insidious, just kind of continue to peck away, peck away, peck away, it’s going to erode all the progress you hope to make, not only individually but tactically you know, as a wider organization.
Mike Meegan
Yeah no, without a doubt, without a doubt and you do see that? You do see that in the military a lot. Unfortunately, I would like to say that, you know, everyone in the military has made it to where they are on the merit of their own work. You know, and the thing is, unfortunately, just like in any organization, there does exist the popularity contest and the schmoozers and the oh man you’re into your into the new CrossFit fad me too. All of a sudden, or you know, oh, hey, did you see Sergeant Major, he’s road biking now. And then, you know, you got 25 Guys and Lance Armstrong suits and speed helmets all of a sudden, you know, last week, they weren’t even interested in that. You know, and I would say on a micro level, you know, and I’m glad we’re getting into this right now, because I wanted to address this kind of wading into the, realm of discipline a little bit. If you want to be fit as a leader of a group, or even your family in the household. You first before you set goals and foundations for what, the group you want to leave, you need to set them for yourself, you need to set them for yourself, you have to put yourself against your own core principles and your own values, and find out whether or not you measure up to them. Because you can’t expect a group to follow you and do the things that you put out there if you don’t do them yourself. So you need to lay down like hey, who am I? What am I about? What are the things I cherish and value? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Where do I want to improve? What do I want to get rid of. And then after you systematically put those in place for yourself, then you may be fit at that point to go ahead and start putting that out there for others.
Brett Bartholomew
And that’s without a doubt, a key thing that I think everybody reads about. But very few, what I’ve learned is very few people do. And this is what I mean, you know, so we like at art of coaching, we have an online course. And these courses are created for a lot of like when people reach out and they say, Hey, I’m having trouble with this, I’m having trouble with that. You know, I learned a long time ago, and this was a weakness of mine, right. And I know you can relate because we’ve talked about this, and this is the kind of person that you are. But a week, something that I didn’t realize was a vise because I thought it was a virtue as I used to respond to every single email, Twitter thing, DM you know, whatever every media platform, right, and there’s like eight of them now. And I started noticing like it was creating some kind of sense of emotional exhaustion, because you’re coaching during the week, you’re out speaking during clinics during the weekend, you know, and then I’m trying to answer these things, especially because I didn’t have anybody that kind of gave me that time of day early. But then, you know, somebody challenged me and they’re like, Dude, you’re not really helping, like you think you are. And I said, What do you mean, you know, like, I’m pretty sure I’m doing everything I can to get, you know, people, at least my take on things. And if that helps, or doesn’t, you know, but I’m trying to respond to those, but you’re not scaling it, you’re just gonna keep chipping away at what you think is, you know, you’re chipping away at your energy. And so we started creating broader resources, right course, things like that, that could answer 1000s of people’s questions, not just one in a DM because it plus, if somebody reaches out to me in a DM, that’s great, I want to hear from you. But your question could help so many other people, and they’re never going to see our conversation now. You know, and so my point is, is I created these courses and they have these tools and I’m that make people self reflect like you’re talking about Mike these goals like, what are you trying to accomplish? Why are you trying to accomplish it? What does it look like? If you do if you don’t like what signs and signals, you know, what drives you all these things? And what I find is literally 98.9% of people that take these courses, just watch the videos and never fill out the workbooks ever, ever. And we can track that because we see who downloads it who doesn’t or people would be like, Hey, I watch the videos. Now what? And I’m like, oh, like pray like did you fill out the self evaluation form? Like, I’d love to know a little bit more kind of about you your goals, what drives you? And like where your struggles are? And they’re like, I didn’t know we had to do that. And why do you think? Why do you think it is so easy for people to just kind of nod their head and hear Mike Meegan, you know, a member of the rangers say that you’ve got to define goals and ask yourself really tough questions, but then they’ll never put pen to paper. Why do you think that is?
Mike Meegan
Fear, paralyzing fear,
Brett Bartholomew
fear of what
Mike Meegan
fear of yourself fear of the unknown is what it is, you know, a lot of coaches these days, especially and you hear about it almost like every single year in fact, you Maryland’s program just got into some trouble, unfortunately resulting in the death of one of their players talking about you know, mental toughness and all this other stuff like that, right, you know, and it’s really easy to sit back and try to assess mental toughness on somebody else. The true breakthrough that you’re going to have as a leader, and as a person in general, is assessing it on yourself. You have to be willing to push outside your comfort zone. There’s a lot of motivational speakers and psychologists have done a lot of work and on the study of a fixed versus growth mindset. Are you familiar with that?
Brett Bartholomew
Yep, absolutely. Yeah. Dweck and her colleagues have done some great work on that Carolyn Dweck.
Mike Meegan
Yeah, absolutely. So like the fixed versus the growth mindset, you know, we have the fixed mindset, shuns failure, because they think that, well, you know, this is my left and right, this is where I’m gonna stay. This is what I’m good at. And this is what I’m going to continue to prosecute right here. In a growth mindset, you actually embrace failure, you embrace it, you seek it, you seek it out, because now you are expanding your left and right limits you are pushing in the categories of yourself that you didn’t know existed. And I would say that to anybody who wants to take on a growth mindset and really push through a new threshold of yourself. And again, you can apply this to your, people in your group after you’ve done it to yourself. First is attack What scares you? attack it, go after it. Write down what you are not good at. And go after it. Go attack it, go see how it shakes out. And then assess it. After you know, did you succeed, did you not why? Okay. Then reattach it until you get the results that you’re looking for. That is mental toughness. That is mental toughness. That’s what the essence of it is. And it’s not about who’s the best at working out. It’s not about doing a bunch of stupid stuff. You know, like, oh, well, we’re going to roll on this field for 400 yards because it’s gonna make us mentally cough. You know? No, that’s not that’s not exactly what it’s about. You know, there are physical things that can scare you. There are intellectual things that can scare you. There are tangible and intangible things that can scare you. Systematically seek them out and go push the failure.
There’s a book written by a gentleman named Simon Sinek, which is called leaders eat last. It’s a great read, I recommend it. But anyway, he talks about an anecdote where this guy was a rower in college, which is a very physically taxing sport, as anybody who’s done that would know. And there was a gentleman that he would go up against in competitions and no matter what he did, he couldn’t beat this guy. It was like frustrated tears. He could not beat this guy. So one time he asked this gentleman, he said, Hey, what is it about you that makes you so untouchable? Why are you on just a different plane from everybody else? And the gentleman told him, he said, Well, when I train, twice a week, I put myself into a workout where I know I’m going to fail. I set a goal so lofty and ridiculous. But I still try to get there. But I know I’m going to fail. I push myself to absolute failure, at least twice a week. Another great that you hear in sports, Ray Lewis Hall of Famer, he did the same thing. He said that he would work out until he would failed physically. And, that’s important to keep in mind for yourself and your training. And for the team you want to lead, embrace the failure. It’s okay. There are times to make mistakes, you want to make your mistakes in training, you want to make your mistakes in preparation. You don’t want to have a perfect practice. Okay, everybody talks about these perfect practices and stuff like that. Well, okay, if you ran the script perfectly, and everything went just according to plan exactly perfectly, you didn’t get better that day. You learn more after a failure than you do after success. And that’s a fact because the times in my career in the military where I learned the most about myself, were the days that I didn’t do so hot. And that’s just the truth. There’s something I used to tell my guys I would tell my Rangers this and I also had the pleasure of helping coach and arena football team here in Columbus, Columbus lions. They actually played for the league championship this year. Unfortunately, we came up just short but I used to tell them I said hey guys, you know the things that you are not doing in training, the things that you are unwilling to do in training, become the things that you cannot do. On the battlefield, or in the football field or whatever field you’re on.
Brett Bartholomew
And I think building off of that, and I just want to make sure the audience understands. Mike isn’t suggesting, you know, Chase failure in your workout, like by training yourself to death or pure exhaustion. He’s giving an example of what Ray Lewis and these people have said, right. And that’s, got to be put into context. Mike is talking about do things that challenge you, you know, and I think that’s where we’ve gotten into trouble. It’s within strength and conditioning, we’ve seen this kind of inculturation. And what I mean by inculturation, is there’s been this gradual like acquisition of characteristics by strength coaches thinking that mental toughness is about burying kids that it’s about doing all these things that make them harder, like as if working out is going to create mental toughness, you know, what creates mental toughness is self awareness. And, Mike, you know, and I want your input on this in a minute. But this is how I take what you’re talking about, and things that we’ve talked about in the past. people are not filling out, people are not doing deep self analysis, because they have a fear of what they’re going to find, like Mike talked about, and having tremendous self awareness of knowing how hard you push yourself in any endeavor is, resilience at its purest, I don’t even know if mental toughness is the right word for it, I still think that’s a fairly ambiguous term. And there’s a lot of research out there. And we could go through some of that on another episode. But, you know, the whole point of this is, you know, making sure that you know, you’re not doing something because you think blindly that correlation equals causation. And, oh, if I put little Jimmy Sally Susie, Tommy, you know, through this tough workout, then they’re going to come out transformed. That doesn’t happen, like when it happens is reflection, when it happens is knowing what you are like for me, like, I exercise my way into a hospital at 15. Man, that didn’t make me mentally tough. What made me tough was the isolation of being in that hospital, and figuring out who the hell I was and what I wanted out of life and trying to get some clarity there. So, you know, I just want to make sure nobody misconstrues that like, you know, that that self awareness is what Mike is talking about with the fear. Am I right on that Mike? Or am I completely off base?
Mike Meegan
No, yeah, no, you’ve, yhit it right on the head. And I’m glad you that you use the term resilience instead of mental toughness, I, agree with that resilience, resilience and everything, you know, and there are, you know, what the body will go where the mind wants it to go, your body is capable of doing things far beyond what you think is capable, when you get that mind in line with it. You know, the applications and the possibilities are just about limitless. And it’s resilience. that’s really Yes, absolutely. You hit it on the head.
And, like I said, bringing this back to being a leader, you know, if you’re unwilling to do that, to yourself, the what right, do you have to put that on your people? What right? Do you have that point? You don’t? That’s the answer. You don’t, you should be leading from the front leading by example. That’s, one of the core principles of the Ranger Regiment. You lead from the front, you lead by example, if you’re not right, then you cannot ask your men to do the things that you are requiring of them. You can’t expect them to follow you. And I will say humbly, that I have been that person before, who did not put myself against my own core principles and expect people to follow me. And it ended disastrously that that’s something that I’m not proud of it. But that’s one of the things like if I’m really talking about what scares me, if I’m really talking about that, I have to admit that to myself, too. I have not always been the strong person that I should have been
Brett Bartholomew
that some that I think stood out about you as well as how much you know, you’ve already made it into one of the most physically mentally demanding type of elite units in the world. And yet, you still never stopped investing in your continuing education. I mean, every time I talk to you, you’re either taking a new course, you know, reading a new book, No, you always invest in continuing development. And I think that’s an interesting thing, too, with leaders, is they’ll often get into a position. And then they’ll start talking to people that maybe they mentor and they’ll say, Hey, this is the route, this is the path or they’ll put certain things, your expectations in their way. But then there’s a lot of people that kind of quit investing, you know, maybe they invest in books every now and then a 599 book on Amazon, or, you know, the go to a conference on a topic they’re familiar with, and I’m being challenging with the strength and auditioning audience because I do think that I mean, we’ll hit SEC conferences again, again, again, again, but not very many people ever go to other conferences, you know, and getting out when we were talking about getting out of our comfort zone, what role is that even played in your continuing education or development? Like, what are books you’ve read or clinics you’ve gone to or things you’ve done that are way, way, way outside of your immediate sphere of influence, but brought back tremendous learnings? Is there anything that you can think of?
Mike Meegan
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, well, one, just the, just the decision to first off, I have been enlisted my entire career. And, you know, I went to college, back in first back in 2006, at Florida International University, went there for the wrong reasons, just went there to try to play football. I didn’t focus on my studies very much. It wasn’t that I was stupid. It just I was unfocused, I was lazy, very lazy. I was there for the wrong reasons, I had no core principles, or foundations that I was measuring myself against. I was just a leaf in the wind, if you will. And it didn’t work out for me very well. And then I, you know, continued to kind of puts my way through college for another couple of years. And then I joined the military, and I had success in my career Early. And I’ve still had success in my career. But, you know, I had a talent for it on the enlisted side of things, but
Brett Bartholomew
for what in particular, Mike, what in particular, did you have a talent for? And like, when you say you’ve had success? Can you define what like, how did you recognize that? How does somebody listening know when, when they found success? What did that look like?
Mike Meegan
Well, you know, I just took to the military very naturally, I come from a long line of military personnel, my family, my mother is still in, she’s been in for over three decades. I my great grandfather’s one of the first Green Berets, ever, he was a visa guy back in Vietnam to 35 years. One of the hardest men that you’d ever meet, but you wouldn’t know it, because he was so humble. Um, you know, just so that it’s in my blood that was in my blood, it was in my DNA. And so, you know, when I joined the military, I kind of took to it, I got it, I got it faster than most of my counterparts. And, you know, I ended up being the honor graduate at basic training, I ended up being the undergraduate at Ranger assessment selection program. And I ended up being the honor graduate of Ranger School. And so I just kind of had a knack for it. But I’ll tell you this right now, I wasn’t, we’re talking about like leadership and a group and stuff like that, I definitely didn’t get those honor graduates because I was like, the most savvy guy in the world, or I was like, you know, Soldier of Fortune, Audie Murphy, total badass, or anything like that. I was just the guy that when it was time to get going, especially in these schools that they suck. I mean, they’re not fun, there’s nothing really fun about it. I always kind of tried to find a way to make light of the situation or kind of make things funny. You know, morale is an incredible, incredible tool to put in your, tool shed, if you will. You know, and you can’t ever downplay the importance of morale. So, when something was happening, that was just crappy, I was always able to kind of look at it and find some humor in the situation. And what I found was people were following me, they would laugh and, and we would just do it, we would do it together. And do it with me, you know, not not so much follow me, but do it with me. And that basically, that’s what I’m talking about, with the success that I had, or I’ve had in the military.
But as far as pushing outside my comfort zone, so I could stay enlisted and continue to bounce around from trade off job to trade off job as an instructor or, you know, maybe go take platoon sergeant time in the conventional army. But instead, you know, I sat down with my wife, Brooke, who’s been an incredible inspiration to me, and I sat down, I said, Honey, you know, I think I want to try something else. I think I want to take a swing at my education again, even though it’s been over a decade since I’ve been in a college classroom. And that was intimidating. I want to take a swing at that. And furthermore, I also want to submit a packet for ROTC in college and Go Green to Gold and become an officer and finish the second half of my career as an officer for a new challenge. And all of that’s been a big, very big leap of faith and a very big push outside my comfort. that zone, but I’m willing to do it. And I gotta give a lot of credit to the Ranger Regiment and my leadership as well. Because they really have supported me on this and said, hey, you know what, you do have the potential to do that. And I think you have been shortchanging yourself lately. And why don’t you just take a swing at it and go, just go, man, take a swing.
Brett Bartholomew
So when you talked about and I love the way you worded this, you said, it wasn’t so much that people followed me, but they did it with me, I get asked quite a bit, because obviously, the title of my book has buy in. And people say, Well, what is buying look like? How do you assess it? And I think it’s a little bit of an interesting question, because a lot of times people ask that as if buy in is, easily visible as let’s say we’re trying to achieve hypertrophy. Right? Within our training. Well, that’s a physical adaptation, right? We can see hypertrophic gains, and maybe at first not, you know, unless you’re, you know, we have a muscle, you know, cell under the microscope and tissue under the microscope. And we’re looking at it at a cellular level, but eventually, you know, if somebody’s been doing something that results in physiological or muscular hypertrophy, because we see increases in lean body mass, and you can see that it’s tangible, you can even feel it with by and people tend to be skeptical.
Mike Meegan
Yeah, you feel it? Before you see it. Yeah, you always find people
Brett Bartholomew
tend to be skeptical because they want to see it. It’s almost like it’s Santa Claus. And they want to be like, Well, I don’t know what that means. And, you know, we talked about well, you know, buy in the anatomy of that is commitment and trust, and those together form a partnership. So when you have this dyadic relationship, this partnership where two people are working synchronously, and they’re not somebody’s not doing something from a task cohesion standpoint, just because you told them to do it, but also a relation, cohesion standpoint, or outcome, where they’re doing it because they feel good about you and the ask, you know, is that how you view buy in? How would you assess it? Or how, you know, what, do you think is the anatomy of that? How do you know if somebody’s bought in to kind of, you know, the path you’re trying to get them to follow? Or the changes you’re trying to make? Or even if you’re How do you know if you’re bought into something? Because I’m sure there’s times people have tried to, like, discuss something with you, and you’re inherently skeptical? You know, what does that mean and look like to you, if that makes sense.
Mike Meegan
I mean, that’s buy in is is kind of an intangible, in and of itself. Now, there are physical ways it manifests. But I would say that, you know, if you’re bought in if you are systematically doing the things to accomplish, set goal, you know, if you are really doing them, I think a lot of times you’ll hear people say, man, you know, I really should start my education again. I really want to start my education again. Well, have you applied? Have you gotten any of the literature on the school that you may want to attend? Have you done any of these and, you know, I was sitting on a soldier of the month board a couple of years ago, at a Sergeant Major, great guy, you know, I didn’t get the rights to really use his name. So I’m not going to say, but let’s just call him Sergeant Major D. I was sitting on his board. And he’s asked me to tell him a little bit about myself. And so I’m giving him all the dog and pony answers, talking about wanting to continue my education. He goes, where are you on that? And I said, Well, I haven’t any goes you haven’t done shit, have you? I was like, Well, no, Sergeant Major. I haven’t. He goes, Don’t sit here and tell me things you think I want to hear? He said, if you’re not doing these things, then don’t even tell me. He said that just makes you full of crap. He was like, don’t do it. Don’t tell me things you think I want to hear? Tell me about yourself, you guys, because I’ll tell you something. You said if you’re not systematically pursuing the things that you say you want to do, then you don’t really want to do it. And you can see that in yourself, you can see that in the people that you’re trying to lead as well. I think that’s how you assess buy in lip service is not enough. Even doing the exercises is not enough. You know, if we’re talking about like strength coaching or something like that, it’s is the are the guys taking the cold plunge? Are they getting the nutrition and are they doing the prehab and rehab on their own without having to really be told or like policed up at every turn? I think that’s how you really assess is this guy really bought into this as he’s systematically doing the things that you’re preaching and is he self starting them as well? And I think that’s how you really assess somebody’s kind of buy in on what you can see. Because there’s a lot of lip service out there you’ll have somebody tell you Oh, yeah, man. I think that’s a great idea. And then literally at every turn, they’re doing something that either is not in line with what was put out or even worse, they’re doing things to subvert what it is that that was put out there in the brain. And
Brett Bartholomew
there’s a lot to chew into there like, especially when you’re saying like, what does it look like in the physical manifestations. And I love how the guy put you, on kind of the, on the stake there. Because again, I think that there’s hypocrisy amongst leaders, I think that there is a lot of people that say things. And I’m not, you know, I used to be inherently skeptical of social media, I don’t really give it much thought any more about like it being the demon that everybody makes it out to be because I’m a big believer, and whether it’s social media, email, video, whatever, like, it’s not the medium, it’s the messenger, right? So but what what drives me nuts sometimes about the self image that some people will try to project on social media, is they want to be perceived as a leader, yet everything they post is really safe, meaning they know that they’re gonna post it and nobody’s gonna disagree with it, you know, it’s leadership’s do the right things and care about the right people, or, you know,
Mike Meegan
yeah no, without a doubt
Brett Bartholomew
Doing things the right way, and making sure people know you care is and it’s like, Dude, you’re not saying anything, you know, and, sorry, dudes in a collective term there. We live in a politically correct society. So both male and female as well as non binary as can be dudes in the context in which I’m using it. It said tongue in cheek, of course, but like, just like, don’t, when you try to say something to everyone, you’re saying nothing to anybody, and certainly nothing of us. And that goes back to what you said. Do you think that’s still fear? Do you think people are scared to they inherently want to please everybody, because it builds their own self image of the leader they want to be, but they don’t know who they are?
Mike Meegan
Yeah, without a doubt. Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt. Yeah. You know, I think a lot of people, especially on social media platforms, you know, unfortunately, I’m part of the rigamarole, just like ever, like, I don’t know, how many more and more people there are 4 billion on the planet, that are probably on social media of what, six or 7 billion? You know, yeah, I think a lot of people are more concerned with well, how many likes or loves am I going to get on this right now, as opposed to, you know, putting something out there that may challenge someone, or someone’s opinions or the status quo of things, if you will. You know, for me, I learned very quickly on social media, and this is something that I’m going to share with my, kids, because we live in a technologically progressive society, and it’s not going to stop or slow down for anybody. So my kids are going to end up in this even though you know, my daughter’s two, she’s already you know, watching movies on her Instagram account that unfortunately, you’re probably verified, verified, Mark, Mark. Rowley has a smartphone I don’t even know about but the thing is, you know, something I want to share with them is, hey, you know, you can put out what you put out there communications irreversible once you put it out there, it’s out there, you can delete it, but you put it out there, it’s out there. And the thing is, is you better be ready to accept the consequences or the the opposition of what it is you said, you know, you have to be ready to unfortunately, well, you know, it is a lot of people will put something on there and they can’t go five seconds without somebody attacking it. I feel like I live like that almost all the time. Somebody’s got some frickin opinion about something or other every time I put something up, you know, I could say the sky is blue and somebody wants to argue,
Brett Bartholomew
Hey, have a great Wednesday. Well, it’s Thursday in Australia. Okay, got it. Thanks.
Mike Meegan
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. Awesome. You really brought something to the conversation here. But, you know, that’s Yeah, exactly. And I think that if you’re gonna play it safe, you know, as a leader, or somebody who’s trying to bring some kind of, you know, progressive mindset to an industry, if you’re gonna play it safe. People are gonna see right through that. People are gonna see that there’s not any real substance here. And eventually, you’re going to lose that credibility that you were trying to garner and the first thing
Brett Bartholomew
it does take a while though.
Mike Meegan
Oh, absolutely. No,
Brett Bartholomew
I don’t mean to interrupt. But I do. I think for a while, like people pleasers actually make it and I gotta say this again, I don’t think social media is a problem. There are plenty of issues in the world without social media. I think social media has made things more visible, right, whether like, that’s people coming on, and being hucksters or doing dumb things or whatever, but I think that again, it’s not the medium. It’s the messenger like you’ve got to put something out there and I think the problem is, is that people that are people pleasers or they are the ones that are just gonna share inspirational quotes or play it safe messages and all that I think they get a lot of attraction at first. And that kind of bolsters their self belief. But I think eventually, it’s the ones that are truly discerning and the high level people that are kind of saying, Alright, dude, like, are you going to tell me something here? Or like, are we just kind of trading, which fortune cookie responses like, Give me something, you know, there’s, it’s easier to preach what you practice when you practice what you’re actually preaching. And I think that’s hard to that’s hard for certain people to grasp. Like, it’s okay. If somebody gets on social media and says something that they don’t agree with. Now you have the choice, whether you want to respond to get in some debate, you know, with that person, and I used to be guilty of that I’d fire back as if it was like an m&m Distract? You know, and now I look at that. I’m like, That’s bait. You know, it’s an actual discussion that they want to have. And they’re bringing some good points. Welcome that
Mike Meegan
Oh, yeah.
Brett Bartholomew
Right. But there are some people that really don’t want that. They just want to say all Thanks. Well, listen, like, you know, I’ve learned from everybody that’s smarter than me. And, I deflect and I deflect, and that’s great to be humble. But you can even be prideful and being humble. And you’re still not saying anything. So like, what do you think the timestamp is on that? Like, how, have you been able to tell it say you met somebody, Mike, that seemed to check all the right boxes, right, man, like this person has switched on? They’re locked in? What were some things that you started to notice? Where you’re like, oh, maybe this person isn’t? Who I thought they were like, what are some signs people can look at if they if they are, you know, if they want to be able to spot people that are kind of inauthentic, or maybe just playing it safe and kind of leading them down a path to Nowhere? What are some signs that that you’ve seen?
Mike Meegan
Well, I mean, I think back to my opening statement, I think for anybody that you know, wants to follow a set person and really wants to evaluate whether or not there’s any substance there. Maybe you ask the question, Hey, what is your foundation? What are your principles? What are they exactly? And if they can’t give you a response to that, in and of itself, then there’s probably not too much substance there. You know? Sure, there’s a lot of great self help and coffee shop psychology out there. But if it’s not measured against any kind of real foundation, it’s like building a dam house on sand, you know, on a dam, sand dune, like, it’s like,
Brett Bartholomew
they’ll tell you those, don’t you think there’ll be like oh, God, faith family? You know, don’t you think somebody that’s, almost kind of fake to a degree is going to be able to rattle off principles that sound good?
Mike Meegan
Well, that’s, part two. Part two is if they give you one, then how about you measure it as well, is what they’re saying is what they’re doing, measuring up with what it is that they said in the first place. And I can tell you personally, when I have lost faith in leaders in the past, has been when they have come in and preached something like professionalism or something of that sort, and then turned right around and violated every principle that they were putting out there. And that’s where you kind of lose me. And then not only has that happened with leaders I’ve had in the past, but then you turn around you call them on it, and then they don’t want to own up to it. And then that just is the ultimate full shit for gays the moment for me,
Brett Bartholomew
I think that’s helpful. I mean, I think that being able, social media is not going to go anywhere. And I don’t think anybody go gets anywhere by whining about it. I think it’s up to us to become a little bit more discerning about those things and stack it up against what we believe to be a true profile of not just leadership, but again, does that person seem self aware, I personally don’t trust anybody that doesn’t ever talk about failures that they’ve experienced Not, failures of Steve Jobs, not failures of some other like, Silicon Valley whiz or CEO like that stuff that I think has been interesting and a bit frustrating, in my opinion, in leadership type books is they all kind of seem a little bit, you know, redundant, like, Hey, open up with a story. It’s usually about famous person, either, you know, present, you know, past or historical talk about how they were lovable losers at first, then they found their way. And now you too, can do this, you know, and it doesn’t really talk about, I feel like there’s just this lack of leaders who are willing to say, Hey, this is what it means to be vulnerable. These are areas where I am inherently just brutally deficient. But this is kind of what I do to attack those things. And you know what, I may never get better at those things, but it’s a day to day struggle. And this is kind of what it looks like or some of these things that I thought I was really bad at at first. They ended up being a gift like I used to think that you know my mind or races and anybody that’s been around me not listened to my podcast or read my book, but actually been around me in a lot of different scenarios. I mean, knows how quickly I can kind of go from one thing to the next. I don’t know weren’t near as cool as Tony Stark, but my mind definitely is almost like as ADD as Robert Downey’s is in those movies. But I have learned that if I wasn’t like that, I don’t think I’d see the interconnectedness between things that I do because I’m always kind of researching or absorbing so many different things and then I pair that with my practice and I used to take me on like, why can’t I just be more organized you know, I have friends that you know, everything from their Google Drive to their drop box to their desk to their whole life just to their their house, everything’s like organized like everything I do is kind of just as organized chaos. And then I started to get to an age where I’m like, this works for me, you know, and I’m not gonna like I’m not gonna throw this away just because I read in a book that some people don’t have a cluttered desk or some people don’t have this like you got to find you so
start to close this out and one of the one of the final questions I want to ask you Mike is what is something that you used to think was a really big weakness of yours something that you were even I’ll go as far as saying like, dreadfully insecure about but now you’re like No, I think this is what gives me an edge I think this is kind of what makes me great what is that thing for you? And if you don’t know like, you know, that’s fine I know I’m putting you on the spot but what is it that
Mike Meegan
something that in my professional life that was a you know, like a big kind of fear or like back set for myself where it eroded my confidence from time to time was Believe it or not my image my physical image ythe Ranger Regiment is a place where you know your average size of a an operator in the Ranger Regiment is about five foot nine 5’10 about 185 pounds wiry you know cut up you know, kind of muscular build kind of guys you know, guys that you expect to see doing you know, there’s like this CrossFit competitions competition’s are tough murders or stuff like that. And then you got me you got old Big Meech, that’s my nickname around the battalion Big Meech, it was old. Squad Leader. Yeah, Big Meech. No I’m I’m six foot one 255 pounds I’m way outside.
Brett Bartholomew
Mike looks like he eats the souls of former Genghis Khan warriors for a living like that’s that’s not an embellishment and for anybody like I travel a lot. I always I joke I’m like Big Meech is watching the house. I don’t think you’re going over there. But like, you are absolutely right, man, like but you know what, I’ll say this and I want you to finish but before I worked with tactical athletes or operators or even Rangers, like when I saw you, I was like, yep, that’s what I would imagine an Army Ranger would look like because you look like a damn action figure. So keep going on that. But I actually would have thought the Ranger Regiment, and people like that in special forces. And I imagine there’s some listeners are as well before, they worked with that population, or before they had met a lot. I figured you are the standard
Mike Meegan
right no. And yeah, that is a huge misconception out there. Because Hollywood pushes a lot of you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger walking through the jungle with no water source for six days. Looks like he just did a comp off the freakin screen and, you know, shooting from the hip and all that, all that crap like that. But that’s not the norm. And that’s really not the standard in the special ops community. Like most of your guys are extremely strong for their size, well conditioned, you know, endurance, power endurance kind of guys. And they are beasts, they don’t look like it, some of them but they really are a beast. And the thing that I struggle with, you know, in the past is not have guys, you know, look at me, like, Well, why don’t you look like everybody else, you know, and, and I for a while, you know, I even got to the point where I was like eating, you know, like 1800 calories a day, which is way too low for me. And, you know, trying to physically perform and stuff like that. And, you know, just because I had this, image that I was like, Well, I don’t look like everybody else. And if I don’t look like everybody else, I can’t perform like everybody else. And finally, I just had to be like, You know what? Screw it. Dude, I’m Big Meech, that’s who I am. That’s who I’m always going to be and if I am fewer than 50 pounds and I can keep up with everybody else and hump my weight and get things done. So what if a big guy can get it done so what so what I could be a trendsetter I could be a mold breaker, I don’t really care. I embraced it. You know, I didn’t hop on the fads of training like everybody else did and the damn bicycle crew and shit like that, like I mentioned earlier, and I had to be true to myself at the end of the day. Now I still have to perform the standard like everybody else but you know the image thing that’s something I just had Have you finally just accept and get over, man, maybe I’m not gonna be chiseled like Chris Hemsworth but I don’t really give a shit because Chris Hemsworth can’t do what I did. And I think
Brett Bartholomew
there’s a lot of powerful messages there for anybody listening male or female. I mean, even though this doesn’t necessarily go directly to like body image issues, but, you know, there is an aspect of that, and, you know, I used to be ashamed of talking about it. But when I was 14 15, you know, if you’ve read my book I talked about, you know, I basically had an exercise and eating disorder, which were manifestations of me really dealing with depression, you know, a lot of friends getting into drugs. And, and me, you know, I just had a lot of friends, people that I thought were friends, and they ended up being super flaky and the exact opposite of the person I knew I wanted to be. So I kind of took that my Angelou quote, a little too, literally, like, Be the change you want to see in the world. And I just took commitment and like, obsessed, like, I, I wanted to be everything. I wish, like, I wanted to be this kind of perfect ideal, right? So sports really competitive, I’d start training nonstop, every magazine said eat low fat, low carb, you know, and so I do both, you know, whatever, like Muscle and Fitness and Men’s Health did like, next thing, you know, I’m like working out four times a day, and you know, three to four times a day. I’m like, I think my breakfast was like egg beaters, and turkey bacon. And I’m 14, you know, and it just can take you down. Like trying to be this, this ideal, whatever that is. And what I learned when I was hospitalized is very few people, did it relate to them wanting to be thinner, or food or whatever. I mean, I think I’ve talked about this before, but there were a lot of people that you know, use that as just a form of control in their life, no different than anybody uses drugs and, or alcohol or, or anything. But again, like people missed the boat, that that those experiences create leadership principles, because it’s only through cracks, like where light gets through, right. And until you’ve kind of bend to the bottom or kind of tried to go around that maybe turned toxic that you start to find what you’re really about. I mean, that’s, why they call it learning. Somebody can’t learn something they haven’t tried and failed that. So like Learning and Leadership go hand in hand. So don’t tell people, Oh, I was successful at this, or this is how I did it. People don’t want to know that people want to know, what did your own blood tastes like? And how did you know that it actually was blood? Metaphorically speaking, of course, like, what did that failure taste and feel like?
Mike, as we wrap up, and you’ve given so many awesome, kind of, you know, bids, we’re definitely going to get you on for round two. I’m going to be a little selfish with this next question I asked meaning that I think that this is a message that hopefully sport coaches need to hear I think strength coaches need to hear athletic directors, I don’t care if you low like running the local Marriott, you know, Fairfield and two managers. But what is something you would tell people at the highest levels, you know, like, you have got to get this right about leadership and mental toughness, or you’ve got to quit doing this, like, whether it is you know, you’ve got to stop the extremism around it. Or you’ve got to quit treating things like the military, because the military is a different beast. What is something that you could say that you think would make, you know, a huge impact and how people have misperceived the extremism around mental toughness, leadership or anything we’ve talked about today?
Mike Meegan
Well, again, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. I would say this is kind of the final quote. You know, whatever organization you’re a part of, or whatever, you’re trying to be a leader of, you have to assess it for what it is, first off, what it is and what setting you’re in what your goals are. So you know, if you are, coaching a peewee football team, you don’t need to treat it like the Ranger Regiment. It’s not, you’re not forging kids for combat here. You’re a coach, you’re trying to teach kids the love of the game, and teach you how to play the right way. And so what I would say is, you want to instill mental resilience in your players. And that’s the kind of identity you want. How about you look at forging work, and I’m sorry, players, employees, anybody? Why don’t you look at forging these people who are under your care to be better people, period. Like, take a look at what they’re doing in their lives and where they’re coming from and the kind of inputs they’re getting home their backgrounds, learn about them, learn what’s going on with them, ask yours, ask them their aspirations, share yours with them. And then try to find something that you can apply to about, you know, whatever venture that you guys are going off on together, whether it’s winning a championship or upping profits for the quarter, find something that you can apply about work that could that could help them I’m in their personal life, find something that you are trying to preach professionally, that they can apply to their lives at home to try to give them a little bit more peace in their own lives and try to help them in their own personal situations as well. You know, goals are important, but don’t get so lost in your goal itself that you lose everybody that you that you wanted to get their
Brett Bartholomew
that’s perfect. And then that’s absolutely, start with the person start with the self reflection, quit trying to think that, you know, you’re molding these people for combat and you’re taking that you’re listening live direct to, well maybe not live by the time you hear this, as we’re recording this a day after Veterans Day appropriately. But you’re hearing this from somebody who’s been in combat, you’re hearing from somebody that studied that. And you need to understand the difference not only for your own sake as a leader in your longevity, but more importantly for the sake of the people that you lead. Big Meech, I appreciate you I want to thank you again for coming on, man. If folks want to reach out to you what’s the best way and I’ll be sure to include it in the show notes. So don’t worry about you know, if you feel like you need to spell it or anything, anybody listening? Go to the show notes. If you want to reach out to Mike, and please be respectful of his time know that, you know, he’s a busy guy just like anybody else. And so, but how do you prefer people to reach out to you if they have questions? Big Mike,
Mike Meegan
I have an email address. It’s bigmeegan@gmail.com. So it’s all one word. That would probably be easiest. As my civilian email, obviously.
Brett Bartholomew
I want to congratulate you on having an email address, by the way, I have an email address. Oh, yeah, that’s like, I’m glad that I don’t have to communicate through smoke
Mike Meegan
cutting edge stuff, cutting edge stuff.
Brett Bartholomew
I found Gmail. It’s good news, please, please reach out to me on the Google
Mike Meegan
I definitely made that email handle when I was 21. Also, so you know, don’t judge me for the address. But that’s what it is. You know, and if anybody does have any questions or anything like that, you know, or just comments or even critiques or criticisms, anything, it’s just open, you know, you go ahead and send it to me, and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can. And thank you again for having me on.
Brett Bartholomew
No, it’s my pleasure. And thanks for your service. Thanks for your friendship. I know I speak for everybody, when I definitely say thank you for your service. There’s nothing we can ever do to repay you for that. And I know everybody in the Armed Forces kind of brushes that off and everything but it’s people like you that allow us to do things like this. So thank you, and we’ll be in touch soon.
Mike Meegan
I would just real quick, I would like to say thank you to the people listening, I would like to say thank you to you. And I’d like to say thank you to the American people for their support. It’s very different. You know, any political divisions aside, whatever it is, it’s a very different world for soldiers it is today than it was for people like my grandfather who who came home and were not met with support for things that their country sent them to do. And so I appreciate the support. You’re at home and I think I speak for most veterans, and people still serve and now that we appreciate y’all just as much. Yeah brother. Take care.