Robin: “Today I’m so excited about Mr. Mike Mooslin being with us today. He has been such a wonderful supporter of the ABF Career Alliance from the very beginning and we love everything that he is and does. He was president of Color Me Mine until his retirement in 2019. He’s also president and chief operating officer of Los Angeles-based Ku Kuru which was a creator of a whole meal replacement concept Michael will tell us more about. He also spent 37 years as a chief operating officer and consultant in the restaurant industry.

He’s a graduate in economics from UCLA and a frequent guest lecturer at The UCLA Department of Economics. He’s a lifelong Christian Scientist, currently the first reader at First Church of Christ Scientist in Newport Beach. He’s taught the high school and college Sunday School class in Newport for 50 years, and is currently teaching an online Sunday School class for the First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, the Mother Church. I could just go on and on but you know the best thing for me to do now is to turn it over to Mike.

Mike: “Well thank you, Robin! Hi everybody! Secret Sauce, huh? I first heard the term “secret sauce” when I was a teenager working in McDonald’s. The company was introducing a new burger called the Big Mac. We all wanted to know what was in the sauce and they told us it was a secret. Thus the name “secret sauce” was coined, and we called it that from that day forward. The question is, what is your secret sauce, your special, unique gift? Why are you here today? Are you looking for employment? Money? Security? If so, you’re not thinking big enough. Why not seek that which inspires you to higher accomplishments? We mustn’t start from a standpoint of a limited need or problem. You know, the Bible doesn’t start…’In the beginning, oh, a problem of mine,’ and the Lord’s Prayer doesn’t start…‘My problem which art on earth.’ Of course we both know they start with God, and God must be first and only. And he has much bigger plans for you than just finding a job or making money [Start 7:03][End 7:57]… Mrs. Eddy writes in Miscellaneous Writings ‘the mere puppets of the hour are playing only for money and at a fearful state.’ As we glorify God, we tune in to the blessings just waiting for us to discover. God knows what we need even before we ask (quoting a 1979 journal article called Supply and Transparency.) The writer says lack isn’t truly overcome by getting more money, education, or possessions, but by relinquishing the concept of limitation. Real supply isn’t things coming to us. It’s ideas appearing through us, through the transparency, the clarity, purity, and spirituality of enlightened thought [Start 8:13][End 9:08] Let me just repeat that. Lack isn’t truly overcome by getting more money, education, or possession,s but by relinquishing the concept of limitation. Real supply is ideas appearing through us, through the transparency, the clarity, purity, and spirituality of enlightened thought. Enlightened thought–it is a unique gift from God to you. Enlightened thought is your ‘secret sauce,’ your weapon in the battle, a barrier to entry by others, but that means reading the spiritual landscape as well as the competitive one and focusing on what you are seeing as an unmet need as opposed to simply your own economic game! I’m reminded of the little known story in the book of Numbers about Balak and Balaam. Balak was a King of Judah at the time, and goes to the prophet Balaam, and asks him to curse the children of Israel as he’s fearful they will overtake his country. But Balaam says he needs to pray about it. Well, he did, and that night God said to him ‘No, the children of Israel are blessed. You may not curse them,’ when Balaam told Balak he could not, since god would not approve. Balak responded by offering Balaam a promotion–power and money, lots of it! Balaam responded that if Balak were to fill his house with gold and silver, he would not betray God’s will. Now what would you or I have done in that situation? All spiritual advancement–and that includes your business success–comes from God revealing his plan to our thought. In other words, inspiration, as opposed to humanly willing, manipulating, or outlining something to happen. When we’re receptive to a higher thought, human consciousness becomes enlightened; new ideas reveal themselves, and we must remain loyal to that inspiration and stay focused on the good it foresees. For example, the intense focus and persistence of some famous modern visionaries, I think the current term is ‘market disruptors,’–the Wright Brothers, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs all developed products that change forever the way we live. Wilbur and Orville however didn’t invent flight, Jobs didn’t invent the laws behind the smartphone technology, Musk didn’t invent electricity for vehicles. What they did was discover pre-existing laws that only needed to be discovered and then put into practice. These were ideas that were needed before anyone realized the need for the laws and ideas. Their discoveries have always existed. The laws of flight existed before man was on the Earth, so what was its source? There must have been an intelligent source, something Christian Scientists refer to as divine Mind, the same mind that was also in Christ. So here’s the question of the hour, what is your yet to be discovered idea that you will bring to the world? Think big. No, think bigger. Think about the future needs of mankind. But you need to really listen to what the mind of Christ has in store for you. The key is being responsive to the need even when no one else knows they have a need. [Start 11:11] [End 13:26]

Here are two personal examples. In the 60’s and 70’s, women were entering the workforce in record numbers for this country if they weren’t home cooking meals for their family. Their two incomes were needed for mortgages then, and there was a rising divorce rate, so a lot of working women, and the hottest industry at that time was fast food. In many cases fast food preempted the family tradition of having a home cooked dinner together. Mom didn’t have any time to prepare a meal and I saw a need, being in the restaurant business, a new kind of restaurant that would serve fresh, homemade quality food that working moms could bring home with pride. I called the concept ‘home meal replacement’ and I wrote some articles about it in the restaurant news and I took over the management of a failing chain called koo karoo as a vehicle for my idea. ‘Home Meal Replacement’ is now commonplace in the restaurant industry, but it was non-existent at the time. Later in the mid-1990’s as Koo Koo Roo was being sold I got involved with a pottery painting concept called Color Me Mine, that was losing $3 million a year on its 14 pottery painting studios. We were publicly held at the time and the company was being sold. Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacoco, who was on our board at the time, came in our office and asked me to get rid of Color Me Mine. He said it was a loser and killing the sale of Koo Koo Roo to El Torito, who eventually brought our restaurants, I didn’t want to go to work for El Torito, instead I opted to buy a Color Me Mine. You see, I saw another need that no one was really aware of. There was a need for a communal family bonding concept accomplishing just what home meal replacement did for restaurant. It came to me that Color Me Mine was the perfect answer. You see, when a family celebrates a special event, what do they do? They typically go to a restaurant. Each person around that table expresses their own individual expression by ordering something different on the menu, but at the same time they bond together in a communal activity. And it dawned on me that pottery painting was and is the only activity that duplicates simultaneous communal activity with individual expression. People sit and paint, do their own thing, but they talk. Good idea, but I didn’t have the assets to cover the three million dollars in losses. Nonetheless I held firm to my understanding that the idea came to me with the means needed to be fully realized by listening. You might say my prayers paid off. Funding was made available by a source I had never thought of, and I was able to buy the company and turn it around. By the way, the restaurant chain I bought around ‘Home Meal Replacement’ achieved the highest sales per outlet of any quick serve food chain in America. And as for Color Me Mine, it became profitable, the only franchise of its kind, for the 30 years that followed and continuing to this day with 150 pottery studios around the globe. You see purpose was a conduit for profitability.

What are you seeing mankind needing today? Open up your entrepreneurial vision, stay focused on that vision, and never become discouraged. Meet all obstacles with prayer and persistence and resilience and you’ll bring the opportunity to fruition. Align profitability with purpose. Remember, then, your yet-to-be discovered ideas will attract into your experience like-minded people who share your vision–funders, team members, and most of all, customers. You will need to research the competitive landscape, to identify what is missing. Put together your team, show proof of concept, write the business plan, and then execute it with confidence because it is purpose-directed. Of course, you’ll need to seek input from others, but beware of those giving advice or attempting to discourage you. Musk, Wilbur and Orvill, and Steve Jobs were all told their ideas would not fly–pardon the pun–and they had severe funding needs, bad press, stiff competition, and many initial failures. But they prevailed; not yielding to discouragement and ignoring opposing human opinions. They were obedient to the vision. Their success was based on the impact of the vision, not the profitability. When God speaks to you, there is no need for advice or confirmation from others. But the big question is, how do you know when it’s truly an inspiration and not just doing your own brainstorming? In my career I have found five surefire signs that told me it was a divinely inspired voice speaking to my thought. I’ll list them for you. First, the new idea is free of self. It’s never about you, it’s always about God, good. It’s about the idea; no self-pity, no self-justification, no self-indulgence, no self-will, or self-promotion. Second, it’s free of fear; it has an immediate rightness and peace about it. Third, it’s free of lack. It comes with everything it needs to be realized. God would not give you a mission without the means to fulfill it. Fourth, what blesses one blesses all. the success of your idea is not at the expense of anyone else, it’s not a zero-sum game, your winning does not involve another’s losing competition is not a factor when you are vision driven. Fifth, unexpected good occurs. That’s the $2,000 check in the mail from the aunt you didn’t even know you had at exactly the time when you needed $2,000. We have all had that kind of experience from one time or another.” [Start 17:16][End 20:35] In other words, God winked at you with a sign you could not have made happen yourself. When those 5 ingredients are all present, you need to stand and take notice–a new idea is being revealed to you! The question is, are you receptive? So enter the closet referred to on page 15 of Science and Health, and quietly listen to the Father shutting out fear, human opinions, and discouragement. He will answer you when you get yourself out of the way and stay mission driven,’ Eddy writes on page 117 of Miscellaneous Writings, ‘God is the fountain of light, and He illumines one’s way when one is obedient. The disobedient make their moves before God makes His, or make them too late to follow Him. Be sure that God directs your way; then hasten to follow under every circumstance.’

Before we go to questions, I’ll leave you with a prayer by a 17th century theologian poet and writer, the French Roman Catholic archbishop Francois Finland, who wrote ‘Cheered by the presence of God, I will do each moment without anxiety according to the strength which He shall give me, the work that His divine providence assigns me. I will leave the rest without concern; it’s not my affair.’ [Start 21:58] [End 22:17] Thank you all! And now Robin, I think we’ll take some questions?”

Robin: *asks what’s happening with entrepreneurship today, how do you learn about it, etc/ how he interacts with UCLA and the kind of program they have there*

Mike: “Sure, I’ve been a guest speaker for the Econ classes at UCLA for the last six or seven years, and for the last probably 5 or 6 years, I have focused on a subset of entrepreneurial- focused classes called ‘social entrepreneurship.’ That’s where there would be 50 in a class, and there’d be 5 to 10 teams of 5 each, and they would seek a non-profit that would need funding, a continuous form of revenue generation, and they would have to come up with a for-profit business plan that would support the non-profit. And it’s become so big that every university across the country has a social entrepreneurship program in their Econ or business department. And venture capitalists have expanded to where there’s a whole set of venture capital only focused on social entrepreneurship, which is really well-timed today, it’s where the action is. I’ve been a judge when they have a competition. We just entered one yesterday, in fact, and I mentored one of the teams that ended up winning it. What everyone is looking for are three factors: scalability, sustainability, and barrier-to-entry. A secret sauce is something that is missing from the current competitive landscape. Something fresh, something new that would be very hard to copy or compete against when those three factors are there and it’s a worthwhile idea. There doesn’t seem to be any limit to the funding available so really it just takes inspiration.” [Start 25:46][End 26:39] In the last five years we’ve launched over 200 entrepreneurial ideas at just one university.”

Robin: *asks how he deals with divine inspiration that results in failure/ how he remains receptive to divine intervention*

Mike: “Well you know I go back to the example of the three visionaries I mentioned: Jobs, the Wright Brothers, and Musk. They had so many failures before they succeeded. Sometimes it’s not you doing it, sometimes you need to hook up with a company that shares your vision and you’re just the right person that they’re looking for to help it succeed. Don’t be discouraged by failure. You’ll have multiple failures until you succeed.”[Start 28:26] [End 29:21]

Robin: I think failure is a great educator. I’ve failed so many times with things I’ve started and stopped. People think failure is horrible but even Apple’s most recent IOS 13 was fraught with failure right out of the box, but sometimes you have to get things moving forward so the things you need to work out will reveal themselves. Would you agree with that?

Mike: “Yeah, I guess the question goes back to where Adam was hiding himself from God because he was naked, and what God said to him was, ‘Who told you, you were naked?’
So who told you it was a failure, and not a step in the progress or the development of the idea? And boy I’ll tell you, I’ve fallen on my face over and over again. That’s how you learn each time, and the next time you pull it out.

Robin: *asks if he thinks there’s an entrepreneurial DNA that some people have and others don’t. Can someone who has never been entrepreneurial become so later in their life*

Mike: “That’s a great question. When you go through the Bible’s heroes, one after the other, it’s the most unlikely group of ne’er do wells and they always responded the same way, ‘Me? You’ve got to be kidding, no not me.’ It has nothing to do with your inclination, talents, DNA, or anything else. It has to do with what happens when inspiration calls. It comes to you for a reason. You know Moses fought like crazy to get out of the job of going to let the children of Israel go to Pharaoh, and Gideon said, ‘My family is the weakest of everybody’s here and I’m the weakest in my family.’ And poor Jacob was a con man all his life until he had that little wrestling match that caused him to wake up. So I mean, it has to do with being receptive to a calling. Your first reaction is, you’ve got to be kidding, not me. I don’t have the money, I don’t have the talent, I don’t have the experience. No, no, no! Listen, listen to the idea that comes to you. It may not be an idea you develop, it may be something you share, may be a company you go to work for, but it all comes back to going to God first and listening[Start 32:34] [End 33:06]. I’m thinking of Noah, I’m thinking of Saul; the list goes on and on.

Robin: * Asks about programs at local community colleges across the country and how to determine the difference between which failures are to be lessons, and which ones highlight inspiration as actually human determination?

Mike: “The answer is always the same. Get yourself out of the way. You know, sometimes we’re our own worst enemy. Father, what would you have me to do? That’s the question. That really takes a sense of humility, a sense of receptivity, a sense of obedience, a sense of expectation, and when the humility is there the human will is gone. And when the fear is gone, it just opens up all sorts of things. You know what the definition of fear is: ingratitude in advance. You are already ungrateful for the bad you think is going to happen. And so, what is love? If perfect love casts out fear, then love must be gratitude in advance. You know, Jesus when he raised Lazarus, didn’t say, ‘Oh Lazarus, I hope you come forth, a lot of people are watching. It will be embarrassing if I don’t pull this off.’ And the first thing he said was, ‘Father I thankthee.’ He started off with gratitude, and I love that. When you’re grateful and grateful for what you expect to happen, and know that will happen, then you’re really approaching it from a spiritual standpoint ,a divine standpoint, and human will is never a part of that .[Start 35:30][End 37:26 ] So I hope that answers the question.”

Robin: *Asks how to approach someone in your industry after being away from it for awhile

Mike: “It doesn’t even matter if you’ve never been in the industry. When you recognize your own natural talents, when you’re an artist or a musician, or you’re into computers, or you are a graphic designer–whatever it is. When you know that’s a passion of yours, (mine was cooking, it was food) when you know that’s a passion, you go out and you meet everybody in that industry. You talk to them, you let them know about your passion and how much you like their company, and why you like their company. And I’ve told this to people over and over, offer to go to work for them for free. Say, let me sweep floors, I just want to learn. There’s not a business owner out there that would not respect that kind of humility, that kind of honesty, that kind of work ethic, that kind of passion. And there’s nothing wrong with going to work for a company and learning the industry from the ground up before you launch your venture. [Start 38:04] [End 38:59]There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Robin: *remarks that Mike’s time at McDonald’s must have been valuable as he moved through years of restaurant business

Mike: “Right, the stories I could tell you about Ray Kroc would keep us here all day, but you know I’ll give you one quick story that’s really fun. I’m 14 years old. I weigh about 100 pounds, a skinny kid, and Saturday morning comes, and Mr. Kroc comes in the back door and I hear, ‘Mikey, how you doing?’ So Mr. Kroc is here and I’m shaking, and he takes me by the ear–he couldn’t do that today–he takes me by the ear and drags me into the parking lot and shows me weeds in the garden between the parking stalls and wants to know why I didn’t pull them. I say, ‘It’s not my job.’ He replied, ‘Never say it’s not your job. You see it, you fix it.’ Then he had me take off my paper hat, my apron, my McDonald’s shirt. Here I am with my white t-shirt, my black pants,–and skinny little kid–he has me open up the trash can. You know, the fiberglass trash can out in the parking lot, and pull out a lot of the papers, the bags, and the cups. He says, ‘I want you to go up and down the street and I want you to throw them along the street, along the gutter. Don’t let anyone see you. So, ok, all right.’ I begin to do that. I come back and he says ‘Now, get dressed, put on your new shirt and apron, here’s a lobby pan, a little toy broom, and little bobby pins. I want you to very boldly and in front of everybody go up and down the street and pick up that paper.’ See, he wanted everyone to know how busy McDonald’s was and then he wanted everyone to know what good citizens McDonald’s was. Well, that’s how you did some gorilla marketing in those days when you didn’t have any money for advertising. That’s innovation. That’s entrepreneurial spirit. He never knew any limits, and he always found a way to get the job done.

Robin: * Asks about age-related issues in dealing with senior executives, entrepreneurs.

Mike: “Yeah, story of my life. You know when you start with age, it’s the same as starting with unemployment or lack or fear. You’re starting with a problem. Mrs. Eddy founded The Monitor when she was 90 or 88, or something like that. Yeah, the idea doesn’t know how old you are, doesn’t know your gender, doesn’t know your educational background, doesn’t know your bank account balance. And you know, Ray Kroc, when he started McDonald’s, already had a career behind them, so it doesn’t have anything to do with any of that. [Start 42:05] [End 42:50] Although there are places like SCORE for senior citizens to help share their talents with younger people coming up, there’s opportunities in business to go to a company and say to young management, you’d like to be a consultant and help train and give some wisdom to the younger managers coming up. You don’t have any aspirations of advancement, you just want to contribute. There are so many opportunities for seniors. People I know that are retired, their schedule is busier than ever because they’ve learned that they have so much to give and they want to give. And boy when you want to give, there are always takers. So that’s got to be the mode of giving, not starting with the limitation of I’m too old.”

Robin: *Asks where to start, how to turn around a company with a huge debt and find motivation”

Mike: “Boy, there was plenty of bad press about it, too. We were publicly held and everybody in Koo Koo Roo stock was flying high, and the Wall Street Journal was calling it Color Me Blind and gosh it was just horrific. But I knew this idea of communal bonding and individual expression had a need for ‘mommy and me,’ and that was so strong that I was able to convey that vision with the funders, and the funders had an equal understanding of it, and they agreed. And I saw Color Me Mine strictly as a vehicle, not as a concept that I could make money off of, but a vehicle for this idea. Purpose-driven profitability. And as long as I stayed with the purpose we would be fine. [Start 44:50] [End 45:31] And I had a background in franchising all those years in the restaurant business. I basically ran a publicly held company and we were franchising and we were trying to run these Color Me Mines ourselves. And I saw it being a more community intimate concept that needed an owner on the premises, so the other idea that came to me was franchise.”

Robin: * Asks how to promote franchising and find prospects*

Mike: “No I never advertised one day for a franchise. I went to the stores, redesigned them, focused around mom, and a hundred percent of our franchisees over the next 30 years were customers that fell in love with what we were providing. And the applications started coming in on their own because they saw the vision with me. They knew I was filling a need they never even thought about. And when that clicked, it was like a light switch going on, and it wasn’t the case of paying down a 3 million dollar debt, the franchising was going to shrink those losses and did so. And it was through franchising that it happened, but I never had to prospect. I never had to do that. I did have to take the first couple of them and virtually give the franchises away to prove the concept. I had to have proof of concept, and I needed a couple of successful franchisees to do that. I mentioned that in my talk that proof of concept is one of the human footsteps you have to take before you lay out a lot of cash and commit yourself to leases and other things like that. You need to prove your vision works and then you’re off to the races. Then it’s going to be hard to stay up with the vision. It will be dragging you along.”[Start 47:31] [End 47:51]

Robin: * Asks if he faced resistance about his changes to business*

Mike: “No, I mean if I did from an employee, or anyone else, I just politely told them they were working for the wrong company. You have to stay so strictly to the mission and not allow any distraction or anyone to pull you off of what you know to be the reason you’re there. You can’t deviate at all. And, well you look at the growth of Christian Science in the early days and Mrs. Eddy’s strict adherence. When she said that’s the way it was, look at the opposition she had to having the words Christian Science in the Monitor head, you know, The Christian Science Monitor. Everyone tried to talk her out of it. Everyone. Right down to Calvin Frye and Adam Dickey. They all tried to talk her out of it. And one last try, the head of the publishing society walked into her office, and the meeting lasted about three minutes. When he came out all the rest of the directors were in the hallway waiting for the answer and his answer was, ‘the name of the paper shall be The Christian Science Monitor.’ You know she just wouldn’t tolerate anything that deviated from what her vision was with the revelation that came to her. And that’s an example that’s relevant for all of us. Stick to your guns.” [Start 48:14] [End 49:36].

Robin: *Asks how to juggle the new workload with existing workload*

Mike: “Oh there’s always time. There’s no limit there. The way I always ran my companies was something that you guys teach in Albert Baker, and that’s servant leadership. And you want to pull out the best in the team you’ve surrounded yourself with, and so you learn to delegate trust. Support and make other people successful by aligning their thought with that same vision. Like-minded purpose, that’s always the answer and that doesn’t take time, that takes love. When you’re around someone who genuinely cares for you, you’ll do anything for that person. [Start 50:04] [End 50:45]

END

Robin: “…Bruce we’re so happy and we thank you so very much for all your work as a Regional Ambassador with the Albert Baker Fund. How long have you been an RA?”

Bruce: It’s been about 14 years now. In fact, my good friend Dan Herbert, who was chairman of the board went to college, and, went to college together in eastern Pennsylvania, and he’s the one that recruited me 14 years ago. So I’ve been doing interviews with college students for that long and it’s so enjoyable and so inspirational really.”

Robin: *asks his thoughts on what are some of those important issues that he’s been thinking about in today’s environment*

Bruce: Yeah, of course today’s environment is very different than we’ve all been experiencing over our careers and so I’ve been thinking a lot about the metaphysical aspect of all this. And then of course, on the practical side, I’ve been working with how to do social distancing both at the church, and reopening the church, and also in theaters. We kind of feel like theaters will be probably the last to open up because social distancing can really be a challenge, there, but I’d like to give a quote from Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health that really helped me. I recalled it just recently, but I’ve worked with this quote a number of times in the past. “If selfishness has given place to kindness, we shall regard our neighbor unselfishly, and bless them that curse us, but we shall never meet this great duty simply by asking that it may be done.”(S&H 9:11)
And what’s so important to me, is that … it’s so important to actually get things done. I mean planning is so important, and the better and more that you plan, the better the outcome will be. But at some point, you just have to take action, and for any of our folks listening out there, taking action is an important step in your progression overall. So I really think that that’s an important part of what I’ve been working with, and from a sales standpoint. [Start 6:41][End 7:54]

I’ve been a sales consultant for the last 15 years or so after having a long career in sales, and sales management, and executive sales with some major companies like IBM, British Telecom, and Westinghouse. But I’ve also worked for a lot of smaller organizations as well, software companies, hardware companies, outsourcing, and so forth. But I always felt that sales has to be a very principled activity. It’s so important, when I was managing a small group of salespeople, that I really impressed upon them not just the ethics of sales, but telling the truth without over- embellishing, putting your product or service in the very best light of course. And quite often a sales rep would come back to me and say, you know, we got a problem with a delivery of this equipment or delivery of this software, what do you think we should tell our customer? And I would always say something as bland as, how about the truth? You know the truth really does work, and you know, don’t try to make some excuse about something. Customers are smart, they’ll look, they’ll see right through it. But you will gain great respect from your customer by just telling them the out-and-out truth. So I always use that as an important management principle. And the in terms of tying in theater with sales management as well, treating your employees, and in the case of theater, your cast and your crew, treating them better than anyone else. It will pay huge dividends over time. [Start 8:22] [End 9:54] My theater company, Front-Porch Theatricals, it’s in Pittsburgh, and we have a huge reputation about treating our cast really well. In fact, I was talking to an executive managing director from the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, a very large theater in Pittsburgh, and he even said to me, you know, you guys at Front Porch have a terrific reputation to treat actors so well, because they tell us when they act in our shows as well.”

Robin: *asks if he believe success comes from treating people with integrity, honesty, and that “Christianly” way we are taught to do*

Bruce: Absolutely. I grew up in the Christian Science church. I had strong Bible and Science and Health training from some fabulous teachers, and so that basis is absolutely there, and it’s the Christian ethic, of course. And so I practiced it and still do practice it in my dual careers. [Start 10:46] [End 11:07]

Robin: *asks how he stays motivated during these times with all of the things he’s reading about on a daily basis*

Bruce: Yeah, sure. You know, my message in this slide is really more for others in looking for a job. But I get motivated by just doing a good job, certainly on the sales and sales consulting part of the job. In theater, I just love theater. I am jazzed by theater. I also had a musical career way back in high school and in college. I was in a rock band I play four instruments. In fact one of them you can see right here, my guitar, my piano, and so you know music motivates me. But when I talk to people who are looking for a job, especially during these times, I remind them that even though they need to talk to a lot of people in order to do that, a very important skill called networking, I remind them you really only need one job. And so in sales, it’s important to have many customers. And so you have to prospect, and you need lots of people, lots of prospects or potential customers in your pipeline, so to speak. But in going out and finding a job, you only need that one job. And I have given the advice of asking people for their advice, other people in in a different lane, if you will. So if you have a resume that’s all about sales, it’s possible that you could pivot to another form of sales, maybe customer service, maybe hospitality. So there’s other jobs that you might be able to get beyond just sales. That sales background is really important because basically you’re already selling yourself, and that’s so important and certainly from a religious standpoint listening closely to God for his plan, not just focusing on your plan. You have to take the human steps, yes that’s true, but you really have to pray and listen for that ‘still, small voice’ that will tell you and advise you and motivate you to find the right path for your next job in your career.” [Start ][End 14:20]

Robin: *asks if he agrees if now is a good time to develop some of those “soft skills”*

Bruce: Yeah, in fact, in my sales consulting I’ve done a lot of sales training, and the one principle that is so important in sales is listening. Listening to your customer. Any of you who go out and buy a car, buy a house, or buy a large appliance of some kind, you can tell if you have a good salesperson if they are listening very carefully for what your needs are. Because it’s not about their product, it’s about your needs. Listening carefully is so important, but you’re right Robin, that skill is useful in so many parts of life–in relationships, in jobs, and careers. Whether the job be in sales or not, listening very carefully, spending time to really make sure that you are active listening and understanding what someone is telling you. [Start 14:48][End 15:44]

Robin: *asks if he recommends having conversations with professionals “outside your lane”*

Bruce: Yeah, learning what works for others is applicable to your own career pursuit, that’s true. You know, anyone looking for a job has to create a resume. But I always used to say, as a hiring manager, I want to see your resume just so I get a sense of where you are, and what you’re doing, and how you present yourself in a resume, but I’m not hiring a resume. And those people who are looking for jobs have to recognize that you’re not going to get hired exclusively on your resume. I mean there’s a lot of people I know that send out thousands of resumes. You’re not going to get a job that way. People don’t hire from resumes, but a resume is a ticket to get punched, that you can use to get to the next step, and that’s to have a meeting, have an interview. That’s really where you have an opportunity to pursue opportunities, perhaps outside of your lane. People tend to pigeonhole you into one particular thing, but once you get to an interview, you have an opportunity to present yourself as a person, and have the hiring manager see that value. But just a little tip here, having at least 5 meetings a week when you’re out looking for a job, that’s so important, writing down a list of all the people you know, and then calling them and trying to get a meeting with them, and then when you do have a meeting, before you leave that meeting asking for one or two other references that they might have, so you can build your list of prospects, if you will. But I go back to the ethics and the professionalism of leaving your career. Always be courteous, always show gratitude, [Start 16:06][End 17:58] And I was thinking about that point the other day, and I realized I am known to my colleagues as someone who doesn’t swear. And a lot of people will swear from time to time, and then they’ll look at me and they’ll say ‘oh gee I’m sorry,’ and that’s because I built an image, an action of being professional. If you were talking to a customer, especially on the first meeting, you wouldn’t be saying swear words to them. That’s being professional and I think that I have kept that through my entire career and I’m proud of that reputation.

Robin: *asks if he has found it to be the case that talking to people outside of your normal wheelhouse is where you kind of ‘rock and roll’*

Bruce: Yeah, there’s no question about that. You know, when you look at a resume, for example, and you try to get a perspective on someone, and who they are, and what their experience is, but then when you finally meet them in person, it can open up a whole other spectrum of other types of roles. I mean I’ve seen situations where someone comes in to apply for a job in sales, let’s say, and it ends up the hiring manager might or I might say, you know, this person would be better- suited in a little bit different role. [Start 19:47][End 20:29]

I also want to mention and apply this to the theater world, because my theater partner and I always interview for a director, a very important role in a theater production; also for a choreographer and a music director. Those are the three key people in the creative team. And when we do interview people in the theater world, it turns out that their qualifications are important, but we’re looking more for the person and what humanity they bring to it and what creativity they bring to that particular role. And we end up hiring people that we just really like the way they approach things. Certainly they have to have the right qualifications, but we have always hired directors who we think are up-and-coming. So maybe they don’t have all of the credentials that we might need, but they have this spark, this real interest in what we do in a particular show that they want to direct for us, and a passion. And so we’re always looking for passion in that, and I would translate passion from theater into the business world and call that enthusiasm, [Start 20:53][End 21:49] which if any of you are scholars of words, enthusiasm simply means the spirit within. And so that’s what we’re always looking for, in people, whether it be in theater key positions or in business as well.

Robin: *asks him to talk about the top three takeaways*

Bruce: You know, when I say take action, you know if you’re in a discussion with someone and it’s clear that something has to take place, there is always this feeling like, well okay, I’ll handle that tomorrow; it’s that procrastination thing. But I always like to encourage the people that work for me to pick up the phone and call someone. Reach out right away, and sometimes I’ll maybe just send an email when I maybe should have really just picked up the phone and called someone. Not quite as often; you don’t always get them on the phone, but taking action, that’s what I mean. Don’t wait for something else to happen. [Start 22:22] [End 23:04] Being a person of action; I think that that’s really important. We always talk about being honest and telling the truth, being principled, and in the Christian Science world, of course, expressing principle in all situations, in dealings, with relationships, with issues with customers, with personal goings-on or even in the theatre, be truthful to people and show really good integrity. And then finally, what’s most important, is probably the first not the last, but listening for God’s plan, just don’t just push ahead with your own plan. Make sure that you are listening very carefully, listening to people, and most importantly listening to God.

Robin: *asks if he has discovered something new or rediscovered any new kind of thing in his professional life during this stay at home period*

Bruce: Well I think certainly Zoom was a new thing, and now it’s not a new thing to most people. I actually used a different program for a long time called GoToMeeting and when I was a sales advisor and a VP of sales for a software company, we would always use GoToMeeting because you could share your screen like you’re doing with zoom. But Zoom has now become the video conferencing of choice overall, so yes, being in the theatre business, as you can well imagine, theater is being delayed or postponed. My posters up here are the shows that I’ve done in the past, and we’ve done two shows, one in May and one in August every year. But of course, as you can well imagine, we’ve had to postpone both of those shows, and we’re going to do them next year. But we talked to the director of the shows, and we’ve really felt, you know, we’ve already cast the show, so we have 16 people in the first show, and 24 people in the second show. So to keep that enthusiasm going, [Start 25:05][End 26:23] we decided to have a table read. And for those of you who are not familiar with theater terminology, it simply means we all sit around a table, under normal circumstances, and read through the script. And the actors actually act out the scenes by sitting down at their chair. And then if in a case where we are doing musicals, they then sing a song. So next Friday night, we’re going to have a private zoom meeting of all 16 cast members, plus a few other folks that are coming along, the director of course, and so forth. And this is the new part we’ve been working on, how to figure out how to get music into a zoom. Well, it’s difficult for group singing, but we have figured out how to do solos, and that’s gonna work out great! So we’re excited about doing that, and we’ll do that for the August show later on, as well.

Robin: *asks if he has any suggestions for artists trying to show their work under the current situation*

Bruce: I know that it’s not the same, but you could have a kind of an art show and the curator could maybe explain, or the artists themselves could maybe explain what that painting is all about, and invite people to the Zoom show, and make it fun. I mean speaking about fun, my wife and I had a Memorial Day picnic for 35 years in Sewickley here. And we’re not gonna be able to have it this year, because of the group thing, but we’re gonna do a Zoom with everybody who has come to our picnics. And so, you’ve got to make it fun, and so we’re gonna ask questions, you know, how are you handling things, and it’s going to be a lot of fun. So Zoom, or video conferencing, could really be a lot of fun, even for something as difficult to do over the Internet as showing paintings [Start 27:54] [End 28:49]

Robin: *asks what kind of technology/skills to work on should people be thinking about in their offices to make them seem more professional*

Bruce: Yes, so the question is what kind of technology would you suggest working at home. And I think, certainly, the number one thing, and the most obvious thing is you’re using Zoom now a lot more than we all have ever done, so video conferencing is important. If you can’t meet in an office, you can meet through video conferencing, and I think that that’s very important. I can’t really think of a software app necessarily that would help or enhance you. I think the basic skills of the Microsoft suite are important to know. I mean, I know some people from time to time aren’t particularly good in Excel, but Excel can do a lot of things that Word can do and visa versa, so I would say there’s some basic apps out there that you should always have a good understanding of. [Start 31:13] [End 31:37] But other than that, other than Zoom and your basic Microsoft suite, I really can’t think of anything else that is important to have. I have Alexa as a companion. Ooops, she’s gonna speak to me here again if I say that, careful, you never know. So I ask some questions of her from time to time and I think that’s always good to kind of get answers. What Google has done, and browsers have done to change our lives is immense. Think about all of the times we use a browser or a google type of system just to find out information about things. And when you’re going for a job, or when you’re just learning about people, or things. I’ve used Linkedin when I’m going to go meet someone to see what their picture is, so that I can recognize them if we’re supposed to go to a coffee shop. I’ve also used Google to find out more about that person that I’m about to talk to, and again from a sales standpoint, finding out more about your prospects. There’s a lot of software out there that can really help you learn more about the prospects, and the people that you want to be targeting for your sales [Start 32:04] [End 32:55]

Robin: *suggests getting a microphone* *announces job openings at Crystal Lakes camps and ways to stay connected with ABF* *Thanks Bruce*

Bruce: It’s totally my pleasure, I really enjoy doing this and I really enjoy the Albert Baker Fund foundation and my part in interviewing students. I get so inspired by their enthusiasm and their careers that they have worked out for themselves, it’s a terrific role!”

Robin: *thanks Bruce again, ABF, and the viewers*

Robin: “I met George many moons ago on a hot August day in Elsa, Illinois at a Principia College football camp. George was the offensive left tackle and I was the defensive right end and we squared off against each other every day and we’ve been close friends ever since. George has a wonderful background with the State Department with law enforcement and security…from Washington to Moscow, to Monrovia, Boston, Baghdad, and Houston. Today we want to see what’s on George’s mind and see what kind of important things you’re talking about thinking about today George.”

George: “Well I think everyone has been affected by what’s been happening the past month or two months and the thing that I’ve noticed the most is that there is a lot of fear out there, you know there’s fear on both sides of the political spectrum. Either people are afraid of disease of or economic turmoil…I feel that when it comes to fear there is really no debate there’s no argument, there’s nothing that you can do to convince someone that they shouldn’t be fearful. The only way that have ever overcome fear myself, or helped anyone else to overcome it, was really just bringing a higher sense of love into the situation. In my job it was all about diplomacy and peacemaking, and my job was to protect the peacemakers to enable them to make peace. So I am very sensitive to trying to bring two sides together, trying to get people to find agreement and that’s really what I’ve tried to do all my life and in my career. Even though I was on the security side, I was still trying to work things out, whether it be a foreign government or different US government agencies, or just trying to get people to come together for a common solution, overcoming their fears that it couldn’t be done…I would always fall back on my faith, my Christian Science background which is just to love people. Of course it’s not a Christian Science thing it’s a Christian thing. Jesus, you know, giving us the Golden Rule, and all through my career,that really is the best form of leadership. It’s operating according to the Golden Rule, whether you’re dealing with people that are below you, or people that are above you, that principle is what ends up making things work, that brings a sense of peace to the situation.” [Start 8:28] [end 9:42]

Robin: “Well you know George, it’s interesting when you say that, I think about the parallels to today…the differing opinions there are…there just seems to be this huge gap… how do you bridge that, I mean how do you … help people think about this?”

George: “Well, of course you’ve always got to think about others, you know, how do they perceive things? You can’t operate based on what you think about it. You’ve really got to include others in that process and when you take that step to think, okay, well, how do they feel or what is their fear, or what is their concern? Well then you’re more apt to be able to act in a way or to say something which is helpful, that is calming. I found that, and really all through my career I was in environments where there was a lot of fear… and so I always leaned on just the simple ideas that, you know, we’re all the image of God, and it doesn’t matter what they believe, or what they’re afraid of, they’re the image of God too. And I’ve had to deal with people that thought very differently than I do, and I really just got used to the fact that people think differently, but that doesn’t make them any less of the image of God. And as I approach them in that way I have found so many situations that seem very difficult and hostile just melt away, even though we were coming from two different directions.” [Start 10:42] [End 12:02]

Robin: “It seems so simple George.”

George: “Yeah, well you know, my experience is that it is simple … and of course what happens, I think is people tend to complicate things they get caught up in you know they get caught up in you know whatever they have come to believe over a period of time of what they think, is the right way of doing things, and they forget that, you know, the most simple thing you know, what Jesus was asked, you know what’s the most important commandment? And he said to love God, and to love our neighbor as yourself. He said everything in the Bible hangs on that. And you know, when I was in the prison ministry I was dealing with people of all different kinds of Christian faiths. I dealt with Muslims, I dealt with Jews, I dealt with atheists, I dealt with Satanists, and I found out the only thing that would bring unity to the conversation was the idea of love. That was the only thing, because of all of those other theological dogmatic discussions and debates …they all ended up in disagreements and arguments. But whatever I brought the conversation back to love, everything just became peaceful and quiet because no one disagrees with the idea of love.”

Robin: “… so what does the future look like, how are we going to move forward? These are the kinds of things that are on people’s minds. So how have you gotten through some of the challenges in your past … with respect to your career and facing different obstacles in your way?”

George: “Well I’ll share a couple of instances. Most of my career I was in an environment where there was a lot of fear, but there’s two things that come to mind. One, I was in a newly independent Soviet republic in Central Asia and the crime there was just unbelievable. People were afraid to go out after dark. They were even afraid in their own houses. I mean within two weeks of me arriving there we had armed assaults on Americans and other westerners, we had home invasions, we had beatings, robberies, rapes on the street, we had a murder of an American. It was probably the scariest environment that I had ever experienced, and there wasn’t really seeming any answer to it. But I was doing all of the things according to my job. I was meeting with the police, I was contributing where I could, I was bringing in experts from the US, I was sending local authorities, doctors. I was briefing the Americans on how to be safe, I would go out at night time, we had patrols. I mean we were doing everything humanly possible to try to create as safe of an environment, but there’s always a certain point where humanly there is just nothing left you can do. And there was one gang in particular that was committing a number of the crimes against foreigners, and Americans, and you know the police force was just developing, and there was a lot of corruption and there was a lot of inexperience as to how to deal with such things. And so it was something where I would always bring prayer into the situation. You know I would do everything humanly I could, but still I had a daily practice of prayer. And one day as I’m about to leave my apartment to go the embassy, and I lived in an apartment building where I was the only American, and I had my chevy S-10 blazer parked outside, and everyone knew there was an American living in that building. I remembered that I had promised to pray for someone in the family who had a job interview and so I went back to my living room and I sat down and I spent about a half hour praying for that person, and praying that they would reflect the mind of God, and that they would know what to say and what to do and you know, that God would lead the way. And certainly knowing that one Mind was in control of everything. And so that was about an additional 30 minutes, and I went down, and I got in my SUV and I went off to work. Later that day the local police came to the embassy and said, we have a report to share with you that’s very important. And the report was that this gang that everyone had been looking for had targeted an American, and they were waiting outside his apartment building, and they had weapons, they had rope, there was five or six of them. They were prepared to kidnap this American, and so at the bottom it said what the address was. Well it was my address. They were preparing to kidnap me that day, but during that 30 minutes, because they had showed up to be there right as I would normally come out, during that 30 minutes I was praying. One of the neighbors looked out, saw these guys sort of, you know, hanging around, and called the police. And in this country that’s really an unusual thing, first that a neighbor actually would get involved in looking after their community that way, and second that they’d call the police, and third that the police would actually show up. The police showed up, they detained them, took them to the police station, and they admitted to all of the robberies and the assaults on Americans and westerners, and they were put away for a long time. And so it’s a good example where, you know, I tried a lot of things humanly to help those guys get wrapped up, but the thing that did it was me sitting down and praying for my family member for 30 minutes and that was an incredible example.” [Start 19:45] [End 20:20]

“The other one was in Baghdad at the end of my career I volunteered to go to Baghdad to be in charge of security at the US embassy…and so while I was there, there were about 50 rocket attacks on the embassy and that had been in an I mean that had been going on going on for a number of years and it it just seemed that there’s nothing that could be done about it we had the US military we had the friendly Iraqi forces we had we had everyone that you could possibly have to try and resolve the situation and yet it continued to go on and and so while I was there I prayed every day about it and I was protected I had a month I have several really close calls myself and some people who work closely with me had very close calls but everyone was safe but there were other people that did lose their lives and were injured and I kept thinking to myself you know what more can I do in my prayers to do something about this to put an end to it and one day as I opened up the bible and I’m reading in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says to pray for your enemies and I realized well you know I have been praying for myself, I have been praying for the people I work with, I pray for family and friends but I’ve never prayed for my enemies before and right now I’ve got some pretty serious enemies.”

Robin: “I would say yeah”

George: “And so I just started doing that I made that a part of my daily prayerful work I was praying for the guys that were firing the rockets and that’s just as simple as as knowing that they too are the children of god and that God speaks to them just as God speaks to me and within a couple of weeks the rocket attacks stopped and no that didn’t happen anymore while I was there in fact there hadn’t been any rocket attacks in the past ten years and there were just a couple in this past december january when you know there’s a bit of a flare up there but those rockets didn’t hurt anybody and I think most of them just went over the compound so I learned there that you know we have to pray for everybody we’ve got to pray for the people that are opposed to us the most against us or what we believe or what we think or what we’re doing and only then do we do we gain the peace that we’re looking for.” [Start 22:15][End 23:16]

Robin: “Well I love it I’m gonna move on to our next and final question so in this environment that we’re in today, how do you have a conversation or should you be having conversations with different professionals you know people that aren’t necessarily where you are in your career path or maybe even not in your career and I pulled this down from the Wall Street Journal today where it says you know there are silver linings out there there are things that are positive there are openings that if we just take advantage that we can find them, what are your thoughts about that George?”

George: “Well you know since I was in that career for 27 years it had been a while since I was in a situation where I was in a situation where I really needed to start reaching out to different people to find out what next steps to take while throughout my career I would certainly talk to mentors and people within my my agency but when I decided to retire, I realized well okay what am I going to do after this and you know these are big steps I started doing job interviews and networking and you know working on my resume and doing all that kind of stuff and I realized you know I really don’t know too much about this stuff and so I just started calling up people or contacting people who had made that transition into retirement and I would go and have lunch with people I would talk to them on the phone I would do it via email or messaging and I would just say look would you mind if I could bend your ear for a while and just find out you know how did you make that transition from working to a new career or maybe its a similar career but it’s something different and and I found that people were very happy to sit down with me or have lunch with me or whatever it was and talk about their experiences and I would just listen and I certainly had questions but I found in that process where I was starting to interview and I was starting to have to make those kinds of decisions that whether I was in an interview I would think about these people and the things they told me and they really were helping to guide me along the way with what questions to ask and what things to to consider about well would this be the right job the right fit the right match for me for them and that there was a lot of things that helped me to make a lot of critical decisions over that period of time you know I mean it could be things like you know for that kind of job what would the pay be or what kinds of things would I be responsible for or you know what is it like to work you know for a CEO or and you know all of these different things that I hadn’t been accustomed to you know working for the government and so certainly people who had worked for the government and left and then went on out into the private sector you know they had a lot of things feeling and things they had experienced in that process and you know I I can’t recommend it enough for people whether you’re in a career and thinking about a change or retirement or you’re looking for a job or whatever is it you know people love to help you as long as you have a very humble and receptive attitude you know when you go and talk to them.”

Robin: “Well I think that’s terrific advice I think those are great ideas and thoughts George and I think that those will resonate certainly with our audience and I want to get to kind of our top three takeaways, talk about these for a moment George.”

George: “Yeah well you know as I said you know love in the end you know you can do all kinds of things humanly I mean and if you’re good at your job there’s no end of you know the experience you have and the different ways that you can accomplish things but often the only way is really to add more love into that situation to the people you’re dealing with to the challenge to your opposition to whatever it is that you’re dealing with you know just add more love to that situation and and that’s what’s going to really enable you to overcome it [Start][End 28:41]

Robin: “I like it and and and have that humility that you talked about earlier you know it’s okay if you don’t know the answers it’s okay if you don’t even know some of the questions but if you just start the conversation that’s where that humility comes in and that other person will see that and you know you just move right along.”

: Yeah humility is it’s really important it for for job success and I have found that if you’re willing to humble yourself and ask questions and to show that you don’t know everything people bend over backwards to help you and all throughout my career everything that I have ever done I have found that when I humbled myself to others to go to them for ideas or counsel or or helping what you’re doing I mean I just found that they’re always they’re always willing to lend you a hand.” [Start 29:04][End 29:48]

Robin: “You know the idea that that fear you know removing that fear of a challenge something that’s kind of outside your comfort zone or maybe outside your box but you say it’s the path to growth and promotion”

George: “Yeah you know looking back at my career every major promotion i got with my job was when I was willing to stand up put my hand up and say hey I”ll take that on when everyone you know is kind of backing away and everyone’s quiet and you can hear crickets you know that person that steps upland says yeah I’ll take it I’ll do it.”

Robin: “Well I bet there were plenty of crickets whenever you were volunteering to go into the missile zone for crying out loud.”

George: “but that you know out of that came a promotion every every one of those challenges whenever I took it on every one of those a promotion came out of it and of course a lot of personal growth and development and character you know all of those things that are really are the things that we all want you know that we we you know money’s great right and things are great but really we we want growth we want development we want opportunities and those come when we are willing to stand up and raise our hand and say yeah I’ll take it on I’ll do it and and I can’t recommend that enough.” [Start 30:37][End 31:24]

Robin: “You know our buddy Chris Helms says you know ‘hey George, but doesn’t our world today embrace leaders that are not particularly humble? Why do you think this would be how come why are people embracing these leaders that you know don’t seem very humble?”

George: “Well you know I I think if you look throughout history there are a lot of leaders that get into high positions but if you look at the people who have really made a difference and change the world those are people who are really they’re willing to out their neck on the line they are willing to give up everything for doing what’s right and those are the people that are remembered in history and I mean two people come to mind from American history are Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King you know those are two people that really changed the world and they were willing to put it all out there you know you know that as far as I can tell and I’m sure maybe somebody will correct me but the only president that I know of who ever went out onto the battlefield and had bullets whizzing by his head was Abraham Lincoln and that’s the kind of leadership that really makes people dig deep and say hey if he’s willing to do that I’m willing to do whatever it takes and of course Martin Luther King you know willing to put his life on the line every single day for what he believed in I mean that’s leadership that’s what people remember and if you’re in the military or you’re in any kind of law enforcement job you’ll you’ll hear people say that the leaders they’ll follow anywhere are the ones that get in front and lead the way they go into harm’s way they don’t stand in the back and watch to see what’s going on they take the lead and so not everyone is going to go into battle or war but those same principles really are what changed the world and if we’re talking about really having an impact on the world or our country that’s what you gotta do.”

Robin: “Well I appreciate that so very much and so I I love the things you’re saying George I think it’s really great a few final questions if anybody has any questions for George please put them in the Q&A how do you discern so one of the questionsI thought was an interesting question how can you discern the character of a prospective business contact just from the internet did you when you were reaching out trying to make new contacts did any of that ever cross your mind or do you ever have to face that or wonder I’m not sure if I want to talk to this person or not.”

George: “Well certainly you know if they’re respectful if they’re expressing that humility like like I talked about you know I would say respect and humility are things that you can recognize and I I definitely can I Mean I can feel that whether even if it’s you know an electronic message it’s just something you can feel from their words in the way that they’re addressing you or approaching you and I think that that’s a good sign of sincerity.”

Robin: “I had a really so this question is a little long but let me just see if i can paraphrase it a little bit. So I have an independent artist who works with individuals from other countries and you know working with all of the different countries that you have maybe you have some ideas here but they’re not allied so they have different values and they do business differently but they still how do you still remain faithful to the things that are important to you when you have all of these different ideas I mean you mentioned a little bit about working in the prison with all of the different faiths and different values, this person is asking how do you stay true to yourself even though the places the people may have a different set of values?”

George: “Well you know that would come up because in my job people wanted opportunities to come to the U.S. they wanted to do me favors so they could get visas and trips and just all kinds of things when you work for the embassy you find there’s a whole lot of people out there that want to become your friend and I I just always stuck to what the rules and the l was and my personal standard of principles and ethics and and I’m always looking to help people but I had to help them within those you know within those lanes and I would find ways to help people maybe it wasn’t the way they were looking for help but I would still find a way to help them and and I think and I would still be respected in the process and sometimes I would I would just simply say you know I can’t do that that’s just not right and and and if I was being respectful to them they would accept that they would understand that.” [Start 36:32][End 37:19]

Robin: “Well when you were making career changes here’s another question when you were making a career change, how did you go about timing. Why all of the sudden make this career change or why why volunteer for that what advice do you give for someone looking to change careers right now?”

George: “Well I mean there were different things that I was thinking about but a big part of it was family and you know because I had spent a lot of years overseas and my last overseas assignment was Baghdad Iraq and I certainly did a whole ot of self reflecting during that time while I was there and it really caused me to think about what is most important to me and the two things that i thought about were my family and service to god how do I serve God better? And in the end during that because I spent like three years networking talking to people I was really preparing to set myself up for a nice big private sector job after the government because a lot of people in government do that they have those opportunities and in the end I came to this conclusion that well the only way I can focus on family and try to serve God was basically I was going to retire and I decided to do the chaplain work now of course you don’t get paid for chaplain work.”

Robin: “I remember George I mean it seemed like you were being offered jobs with some pretty high profile organizations and you were the one saying okay this is how much I want to make and this is the kind of work I would like and you know and then you’re saying you ended up choosing a job that you’re volunteering?”

George: “Yeah I had I had offers from a professional sports franchise and from oil companies to advise them on security issues and in the end I realized that really I needed to be a to be as a lot of people say I wanted to feed my soul, that’s what I really wanted I wanted to feel good knowing that while I had served Uncle SamI was very proud and grateful to do that but I was looking for a new kind of service and so that’s what led me in to the prison ministry and also you know spending a lot of time with the family and I’d be able to coach you know little league baseball and go to ballet class and you know all that kind of stuff so those were the kinds of things that drove that decision.”

Robin: “Well I think those are wonderful comments and I just appreciate so very much all of the wonderful inspiration and ideas I’m going to launch our poll I would appreciate if everyone could take a few moments and complete this poll it’s only 4 questions it will take you a couple of minutes at the most and tell us if you enjoyed our program and um you know and if it just give us your feedback we really appreciate it just so you know…” *gives more information about how to stay connected with ABF and George, job opportunities, and ABF updates*
“… and George we thank you so very much today for helping us think about this environment with an inspired perspective bible-based real quality good thinking it’s so so needed today and we just so appreciate you’re willing to be a career ally George has been with us from the very beginning just appreciate your support and we thank everyone so much for everything for being here I’m gonna shut down the poll and I’m gonna close out this wonderful episode for with our good buddy George and say good day goodnight and thank you all for being here.”

George: “Thank you Robin for everything you do”

Robin: “Thank you George we love you man have a great day.”

George: “Take care see you brother”

Edited version:
Robin: *introduces george and personal background, introduce george’s job and adk about his thoughts today*

George: “Well I think everyone has been affected by what’s been happening the past month or so two months and the thing that I’ve noticed the most is that there is a lot of fear out there, you know there’s fear on both sides of the political spectrum. Either people are afraid of disease of economic turmoil there’s there’s a fear of of taking a step to far or not far enough you know no matter where you turn there’s just a lot of fear and um I feel that when it comes to fear there is really no debate there’s no argument, there’s nothing that you can do to convince someone that they shouldn’t be fearful and the only way that have ever overcome fear myself or helped anyone else to overcome it was really just bringing a higher sense of love into the situation. In my job it was all about diplomacy and peacemaking and my job was to protect the peacemakers to enable them to make peace and so I am very sensitive to trying to bring two sides together, trying to get people to find agreement and that’s really what I’ve tried to do all my life and in my career even though I was on the security side, I was still trying to work things out whether it be a foreign government or different US government agencies or just trying to get people to come together for a common solution overcoming their fears that it couldn’t be done that the two sides uh you know have there you know that it’s a stalemate of some kind and I would always fall back on my faith my faith my Christian Science background which is just to love people. Of course it’s not a Christian Science thing it’s a Christian thing it was Jesus you know giving us the golden rule and all through my career I really that that really is the best form of leadership it’s operating according to the golden rule whether you’re dealing with people that are below you or people that are above you that that idea that principle is what ends up making things work that brings a sense of peace to the situation.” [Start 8:28] [end 9:42]
Robin: * asks how to bridge the gap between opposing sides in an argument and help people go “well here’s a way to think about this”*

George: “well of course you’ve always got to to think about others you know how do they perceive things? You can’t you can’t operate based on what you what you think about it you’ve really got to include others in that process and when you take that step to think okay well how do they feel or what is their fear or what is their concern well then you’re more apt to be able to act in a way or to say something which is helpful that is calming I found that and really all through my career I was in environments where there was a lot of fear uh there was a lot of fear about uh people’s lives and so I always leaned on just the simple ideas that you know we’re all the image of God and it doesn’t matter what they believe or what they’re afraid of they’re the image of god too and I’ve had to deal with people that thought very different than I do and I really just got used to the fact that people think differently but that doesn’t make them any less of the image of god and as I approach them in that way I have found so many situations that seem very difficult and hostile just melt away, even though we were coming from two different directions.” [Start 10:42] [End 12:02]

Robin: “It seems so simple George.”

George: “yeah well you know my experience is that it is simple it is simple and and of course what happens I think is people tend to complicate things they get caught up in you know they get caught up in you know whatever they have come to believe over a period of time of what they think is the right way of doing things something and as a result they forget that you know the most simple thing you know what Jesus was asked you know what’s the most important commandment and he said to love god and to love our neighbor as yourself he said everything in the bible hangs on that and you know what when I was in the prison ministry you know I was dealing with people of all different kinds of christian faiths I dealt with muslims I dealt with Jews I dealt with atheists I dealt with Satanists and I found out the only thing that would bring unity to the conversation was the idea of love. That was the only thing because of all of those other theological dogmatic discussions and debates was all they ended up was disagreements arguments anger nut whatever I brought the conversation back to love it just everything just became peaceful and quiet because no one disagrees with the idea of love.”

Robin: *asks what the future looks like, how do we move forward, how have you gotten through some of the challenges in his past are relatable to today with respect to his career and facing different obstacles in his way*

George: “Well I’ll share a couple of instances most of my career was in an environment where there was a lot of fear but there’s two things that come to mind one I was in a new newly independent Soviet republic in Central Asia and the crime there was just unbelievable really people were afraid to go out after dark they were even afraid in their own houses we had a we just I mean within two weeks of me arriving there we ad armed assaults on Americans and other westerners, we had home invasions, we had beatings, robberies, rapes on the street, we had a murder of an American it was it was probably thhe scariest environment that I had ever experienced and there wasn’t really seeming any answer to it but I was doing all of the things according to my job, I was meeting with the police I was contributing where I could, I was bringing in experts from thew US, I was sending local authorities doctors you know how to deal with the cr5ime and you know all of the different aspects of crime. I was briefing the Americans on how to be safe, I would go out at night time, we had patrols, I mean we were doing everything humanly possible to try to create as safe of an environment as we could but there’s always a certain point where humanly there is just nothing left you can do and there was one gang in particular that was committing a number of the crimes against foreigners and Americans and you know the police force was developing there was a lot of corruption and there was a lot of inexperience as to how to deal with such things and so I it’s something I would always bring prayer into the situation you know I would do everything humanly I could, but still i had a daily practice of prayer and one day as I’m about to leave my apartment to go the embassy and I lived in an apartment building where I was the only American and I had my chevy s-10 blazer parked outside and everyone knew there was an American living in that building. I remembered that I promised to pray for someone in the family who had a job interview and so I went back to my living room and I sat down and I spent about a half hour praying for that person and praying that they would reflect the mind of God and that they would know what to say and what to do and you know that god would lead the way and certainly knowing that one mind was in control of everything and and so that was about an additional 30 minutes and I went down and I got my SUV and I went off to work. Later that day the local police came to the embassy and said we have a report to share with you that’s very important and the report was that this gang that everyone had been looking for had targeted an American and they were waiting outside his apartment building and they had weapons, they had rope, there was five or six of them, they were prepared to kidnap this American and so at the bottom it said what the address was well it was my address, they were preparing to kidnap me that day, but during that 30 minutes because they had showed up to be there right as I would normally come out during that 30 minutes I was praying, one of the neighbors looked out, saw these guys sort of you know hanging around and called the police and in this country that’s really an unusual thing, first that a neighbor actually would get involved in looking after their community that way and second that they’d call the police and third that the police would actually show up.”

George: “The police showed up, they detained them, took them to the police station, and they admitted to all of the robberies and the assaults on Americans and Westerners and they were put away for a long time. So it’s a good example where, you know, I tried a lot of things humanely to help those guys get wrapped up. But the thing that did it was me sitting down and praying for my family member for 30 minutes, and that that was an incredible example.” [Start 19:45] [End 20:20]

George: “The other one was in Baghdad at the end of my career. I volunteered to go to Baghdad to be in charge of security at the US embassy. “Volunteered, yeah, and so while I was there, there were about 50 rocket attacks on the embassy and that had been going on for a number of years. And it` just seemed that there was nothing that could be done about it. We had the US military, we had the friendly Iraqi forces, we had everyone that you could possibly have to try and resolve the situation, and yet it continued to go on. And so while I was there I prayed every day about it and I was protected. I had a month where I had several really close calls myself, and some people who work closely with me had very close calls, but everyone was safe. But there were other people that did lose their lives and were injured and I kept thinking to myself you know, what more can I do in my prayers to do something about this, to put an end to it. And one day as I opened up the Bible and I’m reading in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says to pray for your enemies. And I realized, well you know, I have been praying for myself, I have been praying for the people I work with, I pray for family and friends, but I’ve never prayed for my enemies before, and right now I’ve got some pretty serious enemies.”

Robin: “I would say yeah”

George: “And so I just started doing that I made that a part of my daily prayerful work. I was praying for the guys that were firing the rockets and that’s just as simple as knowing that they, too, are the children of God and that God speaks to them just as God speaks to me. And within a couple of weeks, the rocket attacks stopped and that didn’t happen anymore while I was there. In fact there hadn’t been any rocket attacks in the past ten years, and there were just a couple in this past December and January, when you know, there was a bit of a flare-up, but those rockets didn’t hurt anybody, and I think most of them just went over the compound. So I learned there that, you know, we have to pray for everybody. We’ve got to pray for the people that are opposed to us, the most against us, or what we believe, or what we think, or what we’re doing, and only then do we gain the peace that we’re looking for.” [Start 22:15][End 23:16]

Robin: *asks, in the environment we’re in today, should one be having conversations with different professionals they know, people who aren’t necessarily where you are in your career path, or maybe even not even in your career*

George: “Well you know, since I was in that career for 27 years, it had been a while since I was in a situation where I really needed to start reaching out to different people to find out what next steps to take. I would certainly talk to mentors and people within my agency, but when I decided to retire, I realized well, okay, what am I going to do after this? And you know these are big steps. I started doing job interviews, and networking, and working on my resume and doing all that kind of stuff. And I realized, you know, I really don’t know too much about this stuff. And so I just started calling up people, or contacting people who had made that transition into retirement. And I would go and have lunch with people, I would talk to them on the phone, I would do it via email or messaging, and I would just say, look, would you mind if I could bend your ear for a while, and just find out, you know, how did you make that transition from working, to a new career. Or maybe it’s a similar career, but it’s something different. And I found that people were very happy to sit down with me, or have lunch with me, or whatever it was, and talk about their experiences. And I would just listen. And I certainly had questions, but I found in that process, where I was starting to interview, and I was starting to have to make those kinds of decisions, that whether I was in an interview, I would think about these people and the things they told me, and they really were helping to guide me along the way with what questions to ask and what things to consider. Would this be the right job, right fit, the right match for me, and there were a lot of things that helped me to make a lot of critical decisions over that period of time…I can’t recommend it enough for people, whether you’re in a career and thinking about a change, or retirement, or you’re looking for a job–whatever it is. You know, people love to help you as long as you have a very humble and receptive attitude when you go and talk to them.”

Robin: *asks George to talk about the top three takeaways*

George: “Yeah well you know as I said you know, love. In the end, you know, you can do all kinds of things, humanly, And if you’re good at your job there’s no end …[to] the different ways that you can accomplish things. But often the only way is really to add more love into that situation, to the people you’re dealing with, to the challenge ,to your opposition, to whatever it is that you’re dealing with, you know, just add more love to that situation and that’s what’s going to really enable you to overcome it.” [Start][End 28:41]

George: Yeah, humility is really important for job success. I have found that if you’re willing to humble yourself, and ask questions, and to show that you don’t know everything, people bend over backwards to help you. All throughout my career, everything that I have ever done, I have found that when I humbled myself to others, to go to them for ideas or counsel or helping, I found that they’re always willing to lend you a hand.” [Start 29:04][End 29:48]

Robin: “I like it. Have that humility that you talked about earlier. You know, it’s okay if you don’t know the answers. It’s okay if you don’t even know some of the questions. But if you just start the conversation, that’s where that humility comes in, and that other person will see that and, you know, you just move right along.”

Robin: *asks if he thinks the idea of removing that fear of a challenge, something that’s kind of outside your comfort zone is the path to growth and promotion*

George: “Yeah you know looking back at my career every major promotion i got with my job was when I was willing to stand up put my hand up and say, hey I”ll take that on, when everyone is kind of backing away, and everyone’s quiet. And you can hear crickets when that person steps up and says, yeah I’ll take it .I’ll do it.”

Robin: “Well I bet there were plenty of crickets whenever you were volunteering to go into the missile zone.”

George: “But, you know, out of that came a promotion. Every one of those challenges, whenever I took it on, a promotion came out of it, and of course, a lot of personal growth and development and character. You know, all of those things that are really the things that we all want. You know, money’s great, right, and things are great, but really we want growth, we want development, and we want opportunities. And those come when we are willing to stand up and raise our hand and say, yeah, I’ll take it on, I’ll do it. I can’t recommend that enough.” [Start 30:37][End 31:24]

Robin: *asks why he thinks the world is embracing leaders that are not particularly humble*

George: “Well, you know, I think if you look throughout history there are a lot of leaders that get into high positions. But if you look at the people who have really made a difference and change the world, those are people who are willing to put their neck on the line. They are willing to give up everything for doing what’s right. Those are the people that are remembered in history. Two people come to mind from American history: Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. Those are two people who really changed the world, and they were willing to put it all out there. I’m sure maybe somebody will correct me, but the only president I know of who ever went out onto the battlefield and had bullets whizzing by his head was Abraham Lincoln. And that’s the kind of leadership that really makes people dig deep and say, hey, if he’s willing to do that, I’m willing to do whatever it takes. And of course, Martin Luther King, you know, willing to put his life on the line every single day for what he believed. That’s leadership, that’s what people remember, and if you’re in the military or you’re in any kind of law enforcement job, you’ll hear people say that the leaders they’ll follow anywhere are the ones that get in front and lead the way. They go into harm’s way. They don’t stand in the back and watch to see what’s going on. They take the lead. And so not everyone is going to go into battle, or war, but those same principles are what changed the world, and if we’re talking about really having an impact on the world, or our country, that’s what you gotta do.”

Robin: *asks how you can discern the character of a prospective business contact just from the internet when you were reaching out trying to make new contacts or wonder “I’m not sure if I want to talk to this person or not”*

George: “Well, certainly, you know, if they’re respectful, if they’re expressing that humility, I would say respect and humility are things that you can recognize…I can feel that, whether it’s an electronic message, it’s just something you can feel from their words in the way that they’re addressing you or approaching you. I think that’s a good sign of sincerity.”

Robin: *asks how to stay true to yourself even though the places or the people may have a different set of values*

George: “Well you know that would come up because, in my job, people wanted opportunities to come to the U.S. They wanted to do me favors so they could get visas and trips and just all kinds of things. When you work for the embassy, you find there’s a whole lot of people out there that want to become your friend. I just always stuck to the rules and my personal standard of principles and ethics. I’m always looking to help people, but I had to help them within those lanes. I would find ways to help people. Maybe it wasn’t the way they were looking for help, but I would still find a way to help them, and I think I would still be respected in the process. Sometimes I would just simply say, you know, I can’t do that. That’s just not right, and if I was being respectful to them, they would accept that, they would understand that.” [Start 36:32][End 37:19]

Robin: *asks when he was making a career change, how did he go about timing/ advice for switching careers*

George: “Well I mean there were different things that I was thinking about, but a big part of it was family. I had spent a lot of years overseas, and my last overseas assignment was Baghdad Iraq, and I certainly did a whole lot of self-reflecting during that time, and it really caused me to think about what is most important to me. And the two things that i thought about were my family and service to God, how do I serve God better? And … I was really preparing to set myself up for a nice big private sector job after the government. A lot of people in government do that. They have those opportunities. And in the end, I came to the conclusion that the only way I can focus on family, and try to serve God, was basically I was going to retire. And I decided to do the chaplain work. Now of course you don’t get paid for chaplain work.”

George: “Yeah I had offers from a professional sports franchise, and from oil companies, to advise them on security issues. And in the end, I realized that really I needed to … feed my soul, that’s what I really wanted. I wanted to feel good, knowing that while I had served Uncle Sam and I was very proud and grateful to do that, but I was looking for a new kind of service. And so that’s what led me in to the prison ministry. And also, you know, spending a lot of time with the family, and I’d be able to coach little league baseball, and go to ballet class. And you know, those were the kinds of things that drove that decision.”

Robin: “Well I think those are wonderful comments and I just appreciate so very much all of the wonderful inspiration and ideas…and George we thank you so very much today for helping us think about this environment with an inspired perspective, with Bible-based good thinking.

END

Robin: “What are some important issues that you’ve been addressing today?”

Alan: “Well Robin it is a little disconcerting when you show up at the airport now and the airline employees outnumber the passengers in the terminal and where we used to only have four or five seats open on a flight now many times that’s the total number of passengers on board and so that’s kind of the normal now and we’re all considering what’s going to be the next normal and that’s as from career and I know many other careers have had a similar impact a sort of turbulence so to speak and that was where I was thinking about the Bible verse from Romans where it talks about that, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access, by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” (Romans 3: 1-5)

And so I when I was reading this and thinking about the current turbulence tribulation kind of going on both in my world and throughout the world I was thinking of that patience as we go forward, and also how that leads to reflecting on the experiences that I’ve had throughout my career. And this isn’t the first time we’ve hit some turbulence, and I imagine that it won’t be the last time that I do get hope and faith from looking at the past and seeing how I was protected and cared for there. And not that I always knew how the outcome was going to be, and that’s not always ours to know at the time, but it is to have that faith, and look around and see the blessings we have today, and to kind of see how day by day the manna falls” [Start 8:09][End 9:49]

Robin: *says he’s trying to apply some of the inspiration to the things he sees and feels while walking through the terminals now*

Alan: “Yeah and that’s what we’re doing and something else that we have to counter. And this is a verse in Science and Health that was in a recent Sunday lesson… where Mrs. Eddy talks about “Human sense may well marvel at discord, while to a diviner sense, harmony is the real and discord the unreal. We may well be astonished at sin sickness and death. We may well be perplexed at human fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts its hydra head, showing its horns and the many intentions of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness? The great red dragon symbolizes a lie,–the belief that substance, life, and intelligence can be material.” (Science and Health 563:1-9) So that’s where I think back to what is my true employment, what is my true source of supply, and try to see the spiritual side of that and be grateful for the mana that has fallen today and trust that there will be more tomorrow.” [Start 10:25][End 11:21]

Robin: *says you’re a poster child of challenges*

Alan: “Well it could look that way. I really didn’t realize that. So Robin, you and I started talking about putting this webinar together and so I thought well let’s look back and see when the last recession hit and…what I was doing at that point, and pretty much, yep, I had a fork in the road career-wise every time we seemed to have some challenges within our economy…first off was when I came out of high school in ‘82 we were in the middle of the recession. You can see pretty high unemployment and that’s where I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to the US Air Force Academy, and that was a great demonstration and story I can tell another time how that all worked out. Then, my first opportunity to get out of the service was in ’92, and once again to some it appeared to be kind of bleak. And at that crossroads, the Air Force provided me an incentive to stay in. And that was when I was able to get that U2 assignment and do some very interesting things that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do otherwise.

I got out of the Air Force in 2000…and then about 18 months later I’m getting ready to push off the gate in Seattle and we get a call that there’s a nationwide ground stop. So I’m the at the bottom of the seniority list, just separated from the Air Force–and talk about kind of some uncharted territory! Yeah that was definitely, for the airline industry, something that we’d never experienced.

But the same thing–I was protected and guided through that situation. And then in 2008…that was when they changed the retirement age in the airline industry; so that deferred some retirements and could have put a damper on my career. But fortunately, I was in a situation where even though that…was followed by an economic downturn, I was at a company that was well prepared to handle that, and we pressed on, and once again that didn’t affect my career.

And now here we are, seemingly in a situation that in some ways can feel a little out of control, and helpless, and decisions being made by others that can dramatically impact us and our careers our lives. And that’s where I think of the story of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego. Those were three individuals who had some rules made that didn’t go along with their beliefs. And by sticking to their guns, and living up to their highest sense of right, they were protected. And it’s easy for us, when we’re reading that story… to go well, you know, I know how it ends, so it was easy for them at the time. They didn’t know how it ended! And they were able to walk through that fire and come out the other side without even the smell of smoke. And I know the same can be for us in this situation.” [Start 14:10][End 15:16]

Robin: *asks if he thinks it is important to have conversations with people outside of your lane*

Alan: “Look yeah, I think times like this it’s easy to kind of withdraw and go on the defense. But I think this is a good time to reach out, if you’re in a situation where you’re not working as much. We’ve cut our flying schedule by over 50% at this point, so I’m definitely not working as much but it is a time for me to… reach out to folks, connect with people I haven’t talked to in a while, rekindle those relationships. And also take a step back and evaluate where I am…this is a good time to express gratitude for the experiences we’ve had to get ourselves to this point and to draw faith from that, and see where we want to go. And look at how our next normal can start to shape up, without getting too specific because we don’t want to restrict ourselves, but to see what opportunities present themselves, and be prepared to accept those challenges.” [Start 16:02][End 16:58]

Robin: *asks how much time he spends/ recommends reaching out to people*

Alan: “Well I don’t have a specific amount of time that I set aside. My schedule is a little more fluid than some, but I know some people [will] set aside a specific time…maybe a couple days a week when they’ll push their normal business aside…send some emails or texts or give somebody a phone call… And as we’re seeing now, we’ve got some valuable tools with Zoom and Facetime and … you may not be there physically, but connect with them … and see what everybody’s up to, what their plan is for working through this situation, and how you can be part of that solution.”

Robin: *asks about the hiring process and criteria to become a pilot today*

Alan: “Well prior to recent events…we were in the middle of a pilot shortage and my personal feeling is that we’ll probably see…the hiring will pick back up once we get to the next normal. But currently our training center is shut down and we have put that on hold due to the uncertainty in the future. But…if that’s something you are considering this is one of those times to start putting those feelers out, figure out what you need to do…to do some of that learning remotely, and start working on those things. Also do some research and figure out what part of the aviation industry interests you, and there’s parallels with whatever your industry is; it isn’t just specific to flying airplanes”

Robin: *asks if there’s an age requirement or transferable skills/what someone who is interested [in the airline industry] should be thinking about*

Alan: “Well of course there’s the flying side of it, which is obvious, and there are certain things, if your goal is to fly in a scheduled commercial carrier, you’re going to need to be 23 years old and have 1500 hours of flying time … just to get the minimum certifications. But there are other opportunities within aviation that don’t require that. You can start flying airplanes when you’re 16 … and you can sit for your check ride when you’re 17. And then … once you have your commercial tickets you can get your instructor license and start instructing. There’s also charters. You can be doing those kind of things… there is a mandatory retirement age within the commercial airline industry, but that doesn’t apply to instructing and charters and private aviation”

Robin: *asks if he has a metaphysical pre-flight that he follows*

Alan: “Yeah I do, and it’s not always the exact same one. I mean it’s the same way with airplanes, depending on the phase of flight we have different checklists, and also if things are going abnormally we have a different checklist that we run. But what I go to just starts with being still, because many times when things present themselves, or when I begin my day or I’m beginning a flight, I need to just take a step back and get quiet and centered and feel the presence of Mind and listen. And then sometimes that then leads to action. Other times it just leads to reflection and where do we take it from there. And then also checking my motives, and when I’m in a situation that could be confrontational, or something uncomfortable, or those kind of things it’s, what are my motives here?…and then understanding that there can be a harmonious solution for everyone, and everything involved, and then just seeing how I can put that into practice and what I can do to bring harmony to that situation. Or what I can do to help out and see a peaceful solution” [Start 22:19][End 23:39]

Robin: *transition to final Q&A, asks to talk about the impact of losing the middle seats and the revenue they bring*

Alan: “…I haven’t heard any specific companies talking about this yet but that is one of the things that some of the groups within the industry are proposing, to have social-distancing on the airplane, to block off that middle seat. The first thing that comes to mind [is] wow, we just lost a third of our revenue…fortunately, now the price of fuel is low so that’s going to offset some of those costs … there’s the opportunity to carry more cargo because many times we are weight restricted when we’re flying, and right now the passengers are the priority so we would fill up with passengers and not always carry cargo… so there may be some opportunities there as the next normal presents itself. And there may be more people shopping at home…so there may be more of a demand for that cargo. As a pilot I can look at it and say, well, if the demand comes back up we’ve got the seats blocked off, but we still need the same number of seats. Well then there’s an opportunity for more flights. So that’s where we’ve just got to be willing to step back and see what the next challenge is that’s presented to us…it’s how do you fly a four airplane schedule with three airplanes, and it’s you turn them quicker. And that was what happened …when we were starting up the company. Long before I was there, they were trying to get things going and they built their schedule, and lo and behold, we’re only able to secure three airplanes when they planned on four. So they put their heads together and adapted to that challenge and that’s what we’re going to have to do going forward–see what’s presented and turn those challenges into opportunities.” [Start 27:14][End 27:57]

Robin: *asks what he would say to someone about how to find a career and go forward*

Alan: “Well, I think first off, don’t accept any limits or any boundaries, because for me, a Kansas farm boy sitting on my tractor out in the middle of nowhere it seemed like a pretty big stretch for me to be flying around over 35 years later in a commercial airliner. I’d been thinking I was going to be a farmer. I used to watch the F4’s come out of a nearby Air Force Base and fly over me and buzz my tractor. And I thought that looked pretty cool. As it turned out a couple of guys in my high school set up an Aviation Explorers post which was an offshoot of Boy Scouts. The club only stayed together for six months but during that six months the National fly-in was at the Air Force Academy, so we organized a motorcycle poker run to raise enough money so we could all pile in a station wagon and go out there. And that planted the seeds that it was possible for me to get into the Academy. So I started pursuing that, and had I limited myself and said, you know, I’m here and I’m gonna stay here because I didn’t even think that was an opportunity… I thought it was pretty cool. So…don’t outline where you think you have to be or need to be!” [Start 29:48][End 30:17]

Robin: *asks how to show you’re ready for more advanced work and leadership opportunities in an entry-level position without overstepping*

Alan: “Well I think the key there is, when you’re approaching your work, check your motives, and as long as your motives are to support that job and to take good care of your customers and do what your supervisor would like you to do, and as long as you’re approaching that from the highest sense of right, you’ll be doing the right thing. And I’d say, don’t be afraid to swerve a little out of your lane because that’s how we grow, and that’s how we get new opportunities. So when they present themselves, be ready to step up and do them. And until then, we run with patience the race that’s set before us…I always used to ponder that and think well, but if I’m running, am I really being patient? But the more I’ve thought about it, is that we can be putting a lot of energy into something… have that quiet calm, patience in the background to just be ready and receptive to when that next opportunity presents itself.” [Start 30:41][End 31:50]

Robin: *asks him to talk about the top 3 takeaways*

Alan: “Yeah, I think being patient. And that’s where, right now, it can be frustrating at times. We can feel kind of hemmed in, given the current restrictions placed upon us while we wait out this situation… that’s where we can reflect on what we’ve done in the past that’s got us to where we are, and be grateful for our successes, and see what we can do to build on those, and how we can be ready when that next normal presents itself, to move forward and seize the opportunities that are coming out of the situation. And also to use that time to stay connected and maybe get connected to people that you know, and haven’t talked to you for a while…and also maybe reach out to some folks that you haven’t talked to before. I know…there’s a lot of folks out there that are interested in a career in aviation, and you know, I’ll tell them, hey, just give me a call, we can talk, I’m happy to mentor you. But very few ever really return that call and take me up on that…most of us would love to share our experiences and what worked, what didn’t, and how we can help you out and get you headed down the path to have a successful career… and…looking at situations that are presented, not as problems that are unsolvable and we can’t get there from here? {But] how can we take this situation and turn it into an opportunity, and what can we do to come out of this wiser and stronger?” [Start 32:05][End 34:06]