"The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them"
“Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.” - Colin Powell
Just because a soldier is no longer serving does not mean his or her problems go away, of course. So, the question for you on this Veterans Day is, “What can I do today to best support those who served our country?”
The headline: 𝐏𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐬𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐡-𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐯𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐠𝐬 (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
The mission: to (𝐆)𝐫𝐨𝐰, (𝐏)𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 (𝐒)𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 success by pondering these 3 questions throughout your day:
💡 How often do you focus on gratitude before you focus on growth?
💡 What can you do TODAY to better protect yourself, your team, and your family from stress?
💡 How can you help service-oriented leaders unlock and sustain purposeful, productive, and rewarding careers?
Click here for more information on Life Changing Service Dogs for Veterans
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Hello and welcome to the energy detox a petroleum based blend of leadership conversations guaranteed to boost your professional and personal output by flushing away the hidden and often toxic barriers to peak performance. I'm your host, Joe Sinnott, a chemical engineer, executive coach and 16 year energy industry veteran helping you tap into the same resources, fueling today's most successful and sustainable leaders. And today, we're going to deviate a little bit from our normal pattern of taking an energy industry headline and weaving it into some leadership themes and questions that could help you as you lead your own teams in your organization and your family. And we're going to deviate today because it's a day that should call for us to deviate a little bit from our normal routine as we honor veterans here in the United States. And on this Veterans Day, we're going to take a headline that's focused on an organization here in Pittsburgh, that is helping to provide service dogs for veterans, that organization life changing service dogs for vets is one that is helping to fund the purchase of and the training of these dogs that can run up to $25,000. And think a year and a half or so of training to provide and match up with veterans who need the support of a service dog, who need the support of something to help them overcome some of the issues that have stemmed from their time in service. And, of course, as we know, unfortunately, so many veterans are suffering through problems long after their their time of service has come to an end. And so clearly having having an organization that provides some measure of service to these veterans who gave so much for us is something that is worthy of one sharing with you today on this podcast, of course, and to focusing on as a way to encourage you to help those who are suffering, whether they're veterans or not. And to help honestly prevent you from going down an unsustainable path that could lead to extra stress extra problems, much in the same way that our veterans are suffering through stress and problems that, quite frankly, are unimaginable to me and so many others who haven't served as they have. So again, turning to this article that you can find here in the show notes. This organization. Again, Pittsburgh based is doing a tremendous job of matching up veterans to these dogs. And as you know, if you've had a dog or you've seen the impact that a dog can have an individual's life, the results are tremendous, it has an undeniably positive impact on these veterans lives when they can be paired up with a dog who can help them in so many different ways. Whether it's alerting people to potential problems for veterans who might be suffering physical ailments, or seizures, for dogs who can help to provide emotional support for those who are suffering through PTSD and other again, you know, mental health issues that are stemming from service. And again, I don't need to rehash all of these details, you can read about them in the article, you can find any number of other organizations that are helping veterans, but it does lead to several questions that could help you help others as they navigate problems, whether or not they're veterans. And that first question that we're going to go through today to help Ghin you help others, especially those who are serving some bigger purpose as our veterans have done is how often do you focus on gratitude before growth? And what really led to this question is the fact that in this day and age, as fast paced as it is, we're so inclined to keep moving forward, right, we're gonna move past whatever obstacles we're just gonna keep moving on. And clearly, that approach doesn't work. When it comes to our veterans, you can't just move on, you can't just leave people who have given so much you have sacrificed so much for our country, and then let them fall by the wayside and, you know, move on to the next problem, the next issue facing us. And again, beyond the world of Military Affairs, it happens in people's daily lives, whether it's their personal lives or their professional lives, where they just want to move on, they just want to grow, they want to they want to keep building momentum. But while there's nothing wrong with continuing to move forward and move upward as if you will, the question is, are you at least starting with gratitude?
04:29
Are you starting by being thankful for what you have and what you've accomplished? And, you know, maybe taking a moment to reflect on that gratitude piece before focusing on the growth piece? And again, it can be cliche, right in the world of leadership development, there's no shortage of, of books and positive aphorisms that talk about you know, leading with gratitude and you know, giving thanks and you know, these, you know, gratitude meditations that you could do first thing in the morning, those are all positive things. But the question is, are you doing it? Are you taking the time to be thankful for what you have already accomplished and what your teams have already accomplished, before giving the appearance that you're simply ready to move on and move forward. And, you know, not necessarily build upon what you already have in place. And so if you're not doing that already, ask yourself, how you can introduce a little bit again, it doesn't have to be anything crazy, other than the next time you're, you know, starting to move on to a new task, ask yourself, if you've given appropriate thanks for what's already been accomplished. And again, coming back to our veterans today, are you doing what you can do to give gratitude for the men and women who have served our country? And if not, what can you do? What can you do today? Which brings us to the next question with with a little bit of urgency, which is, what can you do today to better protect yourself, your team and your family from the stresses of the world? Again, the stress is pale in comparison to many of the stresses that will continue, unfortunately, impacting so many of our veterans. But stress abounds. And we shouldn't necessarily just run away from stress, especially if it stresses that, quite frankly, are going to continue existing in our lives, we can't pretend like they don't exist. So what can you do today to mitigate some of those stresses? What can you do to protect yourself against some of those stresses so that they don't lead you down a path that is unsustainable and unhealthy. And again, I do not want to minimize the stresses that are on our veterans, if I don't want to call attention to it. In fact, this organization, this life changing service dogs for vets, at the outset, they wanted to match 22 veterans with 22 dogs. And the unfortunate reason that they chose the number 22 is because the statistics say that roughly 22 veterans commit suicide each and every day. That is not sustainable, that is not healthy. And obviously that is not a problem that is easily solved by any individual. Which brings us back to the question, though, what can you do today to help protect those around you? Whether or not they're veterans, regardless of what their jobs have been the role? What little things can you do today, by the end of the day, to help them navigate those stresses? Is it a simple conversation? Is it a phone call, text message? Is it maybe making a donation reaching out to an organization asking how you could help do XYZ? Whatever the stakeholder in mind is, and whatever the task is, there is something you can do today. I don't know what it is. But ask yourself, at least in honor of Veterans Today, who are suffering through again, unimaginable stresses, what can you do today, it might not be supplying a $25,000 service dog for a veteran. But again, there's something out there that you can do ask yourself what that is. And I encourage you to do it. And the final question today is, how can you help service oriented leaders unlock and sustain purposeful, productive and rewarding careers. And again, coming back to the theme here, we're talking about veterans, people who have served our country, and clearly after their time has done in the military, we want to continue allowing them to move forward and live a full rewarding purposeful life. And while the service dogs can help at least meet some of the basic needs from from a health standpoint, and from being standpoint, the question is, well, what can we do to help get them back into society, and ensure that they can keep moving forward and contributing in many ways that, quite frankly, many civilians, you know, don't have the skills to do, which is why again, coming back to the energy industry, the energy industry employs a higher percentage of its workforce than other industries in terms of, you know, employing veterans, you know, long story short, like the normal the veteran population and workforce is something on the order of 6%. The energy industry is more like 10%. And why? Well, because you have service oriented individuals, service oriented leaders, who have again, dealt with tremendous stresses and challenges and overcome them. You have people who have dealt with teamwork and environments that, you know, the, the most polished and motivating executive coach and speaker in the world couldn't dream, couldn't dream of addressing.
09:29
So that's some of the very many reasons that our veterans make such great contributors to the energy industry. So again, the question comes back to you though, how can you help those service oriented leaders get into a position where not only are they're contributing, but they're doing it in a sustainable manner that doesn't over rely upon their get it done attitude, and all the things that made them the proud soldiers that they are so All that being said, I appreciate your time. As always, I certainly welcome your comments and your feedback and criticisms about today's message. But hopefully, if nothing else, it certainly shed a light on an organization that you might not be familiar with. And even if you're not in the Pittsburgh area, I encourage you to read the article because it speaks to some of the challenges and some of the opportunities regarding veterans, and some of the needs that they have not just financial. But obviously, from a support standpoint, again, we're dealing with people who served our country. And the big question is, how can we best now serve them? And so whether it's through opportunities like this, whether it's through some of the smaller things that you can do to support veterans? The question is, how are you going to help? How can you help? How will you help? And with all that being said, again, I thank you for your time, I thank you for your energy, your attention, your maybe not devotion to the energy detox, but if you happen to be devoted listener or watcher as well, then that's great. But either way, thanks to you, and most importantly, thanks to our veterans, for serving our country, and for all that they've done to ensure our freedom and our protection. And so with that, have an excellent rest of the day and excellent rest of the week. And thank you Again,