Chasing Chad Sowash

Jasper (00:14.613)
Hello and welcome to Talent Chasing, the podcast that brings you real world stories from the various pitches and fields of offices and corporate talent. I'm fluffed it up immediately. Okay, start again.

Brian Johnson (00:26.606)
Well, so hold on. Wait, let me look.

Chad (00:29.084)
Are you a fluffer? Is that what I just heard?

Jasper (00:31.125)
Yeah, it could be.

Jasper (00:35.349)
What's that, Brian?

Chad (00:35.42)
Good, Brian.

Brian Johnson (00:35.694)
So, like everything changed all of a sudden.

Jasper (00:40.437)
We're changed.

Chad (00:41.724)
Ahem.

Brian Johnson (00:41.902)
There's like a big media board in the middle.

Chad (00:45.02)
Oh yeah, you should be able to get rid of that.

Jasper (00:47.925)
Are you on your phone? Oh, you're on your phone, of course, yeah.

Brian Johnson (00:51.118)
How do I get rid of that? Let me see. So I see you guys here on the left.

Hmm.

Jasper (01:00.725)
I'm glad I fluffed it for you, Brian, so we can get this fixed.

Brian Johnson (01:03.982)
Yeah, and I also don't have my, um...

When do I come in and say I'm Brian Johnson?

Jasper (01:10.975)
After I say my name. After I say I'm ChatSowash, you'll go, I'm JasperSpencer.

Brian Johnson (01:13.39)
Okay, cool.

Chad (01:16.316)
If you just, very funny. Yeah. I've just, my name is Jasper Spanjart and then you come in with I'm still Brian Johnson. Hasn't changed.

Brian Johnson (01:17.486)
Yeah, so.

Jasper (01:23.573)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (01:27.534)
Well, if it doesn't look any different on your side, I'll just stay with where I'm at, I guess.

Chad (01:32.54)
Okay, can you see us?

Brian Johnson (01:34.158)
Yeah, you're like little tiny people on the left side and there's... Right.

Chad (01:37.084)
Probably not a bad thing.

Jasper (01:41.237)
That's as big as we should be. We can't get too big at it, no?

Brian Johnson (01:43.47)
You

Chad (01:43.534)
Exactly. All right. All right. Let me know when we do this again. We just, we'll just chop this up. Okay. Here we go.

Jasper (01:47.271)
Yep, yep, I'm ready.

Jasper (02:06.335)
Hello and welcome to talent chasing, the podcast that brings you real world storage from the various pitches, fields and offices of corporate talent around the world. We've dubbed it sort of office space meets moneyball, but it's less funny than the former and definitely funnier than the latter moneyball. We'll search for the hidden stories in identifying, retaining and motivating the best talent in the world. My name is Chasper Spangard.

Brian Johnson (02:30.99)
I am still Brian Johnson.

Chad (02:33.724)
and I'm Chad Sahuas.

Jasper (02:35.285)
Yes, and this will be the last introductory episode that we'll do unless any of us gets fired. We've already delved into Brian's awesome story, the two way star, California's biggest talent since I don't know, Joe DiMaggio. Is that, does that ring a bell guys? But today we'll delve into someone's different story. The final co -host, a podcasting legend and former military drill sergeant, Mr. Chad Sos. But before we delve into that guys, how are we doing?

Chad (03:02.652)
Cheers.

Chad (03:06.428)
Awesome, man. Awesome. Another day in paradise. Coming up on a holiday weekend. You guys got anything going on?

Brian Johnson (03:14.702)
I'm hanging out with grandma. So always a good time.

Chad (03:17.212)
Oh, oh yeah.

Jasper (03:19.765)
Hanging out with grandma, that's nice. Yeah, that's that while you're on your phone, Brian.

Chad (03:22.72)
Jasper lives with grandma, so that's kind of like, it's almost like this.

Jasper (03:25.109)
I don't know.

Brian Johnson (03:25.262)
What's wrong with that, Jasper? What's wrong with that?

Chad (03:30.812)
I didn't say there was anything wrong with it, I just say you know.

Jasper (03:33.397)
What just happened? Like, like two minutes in and I get bashed for no reason at all. Why?

Brian Johnson (03:36.91)
Yeah. How's it, nothing wrong with having eight generations of your family all on one roof. It's okay.

Chad (03:39.132)
We have to. You're the only European. We got to hit you up quick. Everybody loves that.

Brian Johnson (03:45.742)
That's right. That's right.

Jasper (03:46.357)
Why do you Americans always need to be Americans? Like, territorial drifts just... Ah, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, well, yeah. No, well, yeah, well, it's Easter weekend, so as we record this, so we'll record... When you're listening to this, it'll be two weeks ago, probably. So there's no point of us bringing up Easter, but yeah, good, though. Happy Easter, guys.

Brian Johnson (03:49.198)
Hahaha!

Chad (03:49.276)
It's just, it's just who we are. It's who we are. Yeah.

Brian Johnson (04:09.966)
Yes indeed, yes indeed. Let's get to it.

Chad (04:13.916)
Time away. Time away.

Jasper (04:15.829)
All right, so Chad, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you've been in the military because every bio that I can get on you mentions the military in some shape or form, but give me a rundown. So you train soldiers.

Brian Johnson (04:27.086)
Yeah.

Chad (04:28.156)
It's a thing. Yeah, it's a thing.

Chad (04:34.108)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Jasper (04:35.093)
and how many of them quit because of you.

Chad (04:37.82)
Well, a beautiful thing is that, you know, when you're in basic training, you always see the movies where they're trying to make you quit, right? Well, I mean, that's kind of like when you get to, you know, special forces and SEALs and that kind of stuff. But in basic training, I mean, it's not worthwhile to try to make somebody quit. It's to try to push them to find out the person that they could be, right?

Brian Johnson (04:38.606)
Hahaha!

Jasper (04:47.571)
Yeah, yeah.

Chad (05:05.372)
And I think, you know, the military in itself is probably one of the best public programs in the world because we take a lot of individuals, a lot of kids like myself, who didn't want to go straight into college or maybe wanted to get money for college. And some of those, you know, would not be great assets. They'd be more liabilities to society. And the military makes them into, in most cases, I'd say into assets. So when, when somebody would say they wanted to leave, that was triggering me to say no.

Jasper (05:05.429)
Okay.

Jasper (05:24.213)
Okay.

Chad (05:34.972)
I need to push harder to try to figure out and help you figure out what you can actually be. And most of those kids, you know, young men, they've, they never had that before, which I thought was, was odd. Not all of them, all, some of them came in, you know, ready, you know, sports, all that other fun stuff, but there were, there was a nice big chunk that just literally had never been pushed before.

Jasper (05:59.349)
So these aren't these sort of Mount Karahi scenes of Band of Brothers that I have in mind when I think of a sort of drill sergeant. Well, or is it? Tell me.

Chad (06:03.484)
Ha ha!

Brian Johnson (06:04.334)
Yeah.

Chad (06:09.34)
Yeah, I mean, so you have to get into what I like to call God mode. You have to get into God mode in your brain because nobody's bigger, stronger, faster, anything. They just can't be. You have to be that way because that's the way that you want the trainees to see you and they want to aspire to be something more. So yeah, no, we pushed them incredibly hard, but there is some empathy that happens there too. You have to understand the balance, the psychology.

of just a human being and how we're all different and how you have to treat people different, but also as a group, as a unit, focus on objectives, missions, those types of things. It is harsh. And I can say that I've been through basic training myself more than 10 times. And during that time, when you think about when we called the trainees Joe, G .I. Joe,

When Joe goes to bed, right, I'm still there. I'm still awake because I have to prep for the next day, right? When Joe wakes up, I'm there waking his ass up, right? So it's like you think about how hard basic training is. I did get a chance to go home and sleep in my own bed. That was good. But still, it's hard work. I loved it, but definitely wouldn't choose to do it again.

Brian Johnson (07:26.99)
I've always been fascinated by the military. Every arm of it, any country, it doesn't matter. I've always been kind of intrigued by uniforms, by the discipline, by being able to learn like any skill imaginable, the camaraderie, the teamwork. I love all that stuff and I'm attracted to that. However, when I was growing up, there were, I'd say there's two different dichotomies of people's experience with the military.

Jasper (07:37.237)
Yeah.

Jasper (07:56.853)
Okay.

Brian Johnson (07:56.878)
One is like you talk about, amazing, positive, reinforced my spine, reinforced my identity and who I thought I was and who I thought I could be. But then there's also the other part where people were almost broken and almost went through it and it was like a really bad experience. And so my curiosity is, hmm, is that because disciplines finally been introduced to this person's life perhaps for the first time?

Do you have a feel for, you've been through so many different people under your purview and others, do you get kind of an idea as to who really works well in that environment, who doesn't?

Chad (08:37.564)
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And as I said before, some of these young men, some of these kids come in and they've never been pushed before in their life. I remember a kid came from Utah and he literally, I don't know that his heartbeat had ever gotten into training range ever. And I'm not kidding. He went into kidney failure on day two because his body rejected everything that was happening because it wasn't used to it, right? So you have that side of the equation. Plus you have...

Brian Johnson (08:51.47)
Hmm. Sure.

Jasper (08:56.285)
Ooooo

Chad (09:05.18)
You know, you have the other side of the equation where, you you've got the football star who's coming in. They want to be a Ranger. They want to be special forces. You know, they want to be X -ray. They want to do all these things. So yeah, I mean, there's definitely a huge difference. And then there's all those in between, right? So that's where, you know, you really had to. And when I, when I was activated, um, back to my job as a, you know, infantry drill sergeant in Fort Benning, Georgia, um, I was pulled out of my VP position.

at the time, right? So that actually helped me because dealing with people in the civilian sector and understanding and being diplomatic and those types of things, it's a different type of diplomacy in the military, no question, but it's not hard, fast and iron fist like you would see in the movies.

Jasper (09:39.379)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Johnson (09:52.27)
Okay. I mean, no, I'm sorry, quick follow up question. So it sounds like there's a marriage between the physical and the mental that is done in the military, which makes complete sense. Is that accurate?

Jasper (09:52.885)
But now we've sort of, yeah, go on Brian.

Chad (10:05.444)
95 % of it is all in your brain. You can take, I can take the strongest guy that's out there and break him. And you don't break them down physically, you break them down mentally, right? So if you can get, and that's one of the things in the military, this is one of the things I don't understand about the corporate side, is that we talk about training and we talk about education and that's all bullshit, man. Because in the military, you are training all the time. You're going to schools all the time. I mean, it's...

Jasper (10:33.109)
Right.

Chad (10:34.364)
It is crazy. I went through four leadership schools. How many CEOs out there can say that they went through one, right? How many manager, you know, how many managers? So whenever you get promoted, you have to go to a leadership school or you get demoted, right? You have to pass that school. And then obviously there's so many other schools more than just the leadership schools, but it's, we're constantly, constantly, constantly training. So again, back to the mental state.

Jasper (10:50.741)
Alright, okay.

Chad (11:04.092)
You get into that mental state and you prepare and you're always thinking about being prepared.

Jasper (11:11.733)
And you say though that the military sort of creates leaders then through that, through training. But one of the big things I think then is corporate wise, that doesn't really happen, does it? Like you get to a place and that's essentially who you are. You get profiled, you get put in a box. That's the person you are. You can do, you can, you know, all these like assessments and tests, but that is the person you're going to be. But in the military, to me at least from the outside looking at it, it feels more wide open. You could be anyone you want to be.

if you're willing to work for it. Is that sort of accurate as what you went through in your life?

Chad (11:45.18)
I would say, yeah, I would say that let's, let's call it discrimination and bias. There, there's still some in the military. Don't get me wrong. Um, but it's much less because you've got big, big army who makes a lot of those decisions. Um, you do have obviously, you know, your first sergeant and you have your chin command, those types of things. But yeah, I mean, being, being in the military and just going to basic training when I was 18 years old, I was like six days after I graduated high school, I was off. I want to get the hell out of Mansfield, Ohio.

Jasper (11:56.787)
Hmm.

Chad (12:14.684)
Um, at, at, at that point, at that point I was, I was surrounded by people that were not like me. I mean, not just skin color. I'm talking about guys from Joy -Z, you know, and I mean, just all, all of it, man. And it, it did so much to me in such a short amount of time. Um, and it doesn't have to be the military, but you know, I really wish that every

Jasper (12:15.989)
We need to delve into that a little bit.

Jasper (12:25.813)
Okay.

Chad (12:41.308)
Every kid that came out of high school had a couple years gap years and they could do green piece. They could do military. They could do these types of things to really get out of that bubble. And because when you are uncomfortable, that's the only time you're really progressing.

Jasper (12:56.533)
Absolutely. And I think you've absolutely nailed it in terms of that something like it's about you that this episode is about you. But in terms of I did a gap year to between finishing my finishing college and starting up. And but it's that year did so much for me just in terms of my own development. And you get to an age where you can just sort of because you're pushed at an early age, right? 1817 years old. Okay, now pick a degree, pick where you want to go in life. You're far too young to do that. Right? You everyone is.

Chad (13:07.26)
So smart.

Jasper (13:24.629)
far too young at that point to make that, take that decision. So to have a bit of time just to learn stuff about yourself also and to put yourself in into uncomfortable situations is well, my sort of training was reading a lot of books and doing a lot of exercise. It wasn't your training, but that just that time in your life is so valuable.

Chad (13:45.82)
Yeah, well, in Brian's, when he got that hit playing quarterback and he looked up at the sky and thought, oh shit, my baseball career's over, right? So I mean, it was like, that was almost like his gap, you know, his training for where he wanted to go. Yeah.

Jasper (13:50.483)
Mmm.

Jasper (13:59.125)
True. We've all taken gap years, yeah?

Brian Johnson (14:03.694)
Yeah, mine was a little more painful, but yeah, I get it. I get it.

Jasper (14:05.909)
Okay, you win that contest, yeah But um, but Chad you say you couldn't wait to get out of where you were living at that time So take me back to what's the place again? Mansfield, Ohio. Okay small it sounds small -time America How small -town America was it?

Brian Johnson (14:09.376)
Hehehehehe

Chad (14:21.308)
Mansfield, Mansfield, Ohio. Yep. Yep.

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, at the time it was probably like around 60, 70 ,000 people. You know, a couple of high schools, 90%, if not more, of the population was blue collar, very manufacturing heavy. And that in itself just has an entirely different weight to a community when it's a blue collar community, especially when manufacturing is leaving, right?

Jasper (14:33.715)
Okay.

Jasper (14:50.677)
Mm -hmm.

Chad (14:56.188)
So not only was I part of a manufacturing, very testosterone -driven type of community, but while I was growing up, manufacturing was leaving, right? So it was, I don't wanna say destitute, but it was not a flourishing environment. Not to mention I was, my mom and dad, they divorced when I was eight. I had a little sister.

Jasper (15:23.155)
Okay.

Chad (15:24.316)
And you know, we, we, we, we again had to focus on being a Gen Xer latch key kid. I mean, it was, it was, again, that was a lot of training and my mom, oh my God, bless her heart. She worked her ass off and, and here we are today. Everything worked out.

Brian Johnson (15:41.326)
You said that, you have said that after high school, you went right into the military, that you didn't think about university or college. Why? Well, take us back to that point. What were your thoughts? Was it financial? Was it just general interest? Was it how, what you saw you wanting to be, or you didn't know anything about where you want to be? Where were you on that scale?

Chad (16:04.348)
Yeah. I mean, we grew up poor. So, I mean, it was going to have to be, you know, I was going to have to pay. Number one, number two, I didn't really like school other than girls and sports in the first place. That was the reason why. I mean, I really showed up every day. Um, I mean, just that, that was, that was it. So it was the money. Yeah. And it was, it, depending on the day, right? If it, if it was a Friday, it was all sports because it was Friday night and that's football.

Jasper (16:13.717)
Heheheheh

Brian Johnson (16:18.286)
Yeah.

Jasper (16:22.069)
So what was it? 50 % sports, 50 % girls or slightly different?

Brian Johnson (16:27.886)
Right.

Chad (16:33.116)
Um, especially in Ohio, but, uh, but, but yeah, if you think about it and, and I mean, I talked to my dad about it. My dad was, was in the military. He was in the army during Vietnam. And, uh, it was, it was an interesting opportunity just from the standpoint of, look, if you're going to go screw off in college, which I know you're going to, how are you going to pay that screw off money? Right? I mean, the, the, the, the money that it takes to go to college here in the United States. Uh, and I was like, yeah, no, I'm not doing that.

Jasper (16:43.765)
Okay.

Chad (17:03.004)
I'm not doing that. I'm going to go, I'm going to go in the military. I didn't even give the air force, Navy or Marines even a look. Cause my dad was in the army. Um, uh, I probably should have went into the air force though, because, uh, they had more girls.

Jasper (17:12.245)
Hmm.

Brian Johnson (17:21.39)
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I didn't get that joke. I have no idea what the difference is between the between the different. Yeah. Well, what's the what's wrong with the Army girls? What's wrong with the Army girls and the Navy girls?

Jasper (17:25.397)
I was like, sorry mate, clutching at straws here.

Chad (17:28.06)
Yeah. It's, it's literally like the more civilian version. What's the, the, the army girls. I mean, there aren't many of them first and foremost. Um, plus the, the, the, the air forces, it's almost like the civilian version of the military. I mean, seriously, I mean, they're, they're the, and I'm not saying they're not disciplined, but they're not even close to as disciplined as, you know, army.

Brian Johnson (17:37.038)
Oh, okay.

Jasper (17:37.621)
Hmm, okay.

Brian Johnson (17:46.03)
Oh, okay.

Chad (17:52.124)
Army infantry or Marines or anything like that. So as much it is a much much more laid back culture.

Brian Johnson (17:59.694)
How can that be if they're flying stuff? Don't they have to be like locked in?

Chad (18:02.62)
That's a very small percentage of people in the Air Force. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Johnson (18:06.094)
Oh, okay. Okay.

Jasper (18:06.805)
We're so oblivious to this, right?

Brian Johnson (18:11.246)
Yeah, that's fascinating. I love it, I love it.

Jasper (18:14.837)
But you played sports in your childhood, didn't you? What was your first love?

Chad (18:24.316)
football. I mean, in Ohio, I mean, you know, you got the, uh, I started when I was young, younger, cause I was, I was actually bigger at the time, um, as, as a right guard. Um, but I ended up, I ended up in my favorite position of all time. Well, one of my favorite positions of all time is outside linebacker and then safety. Um, I, yeah. And I was, I was, I was a little Neanderthal.

Brian Johnson (18:27.118)
Opposition.

Brian Johnson (18:37.614)
Yeah.

Jasper (18:38.133)
Yeah, that's...

Brian Johnson (18:45.74)
Yeah. Yeah. You like to hit people.

Jasper (18:47.637)
No.

Yeah.

Chad (18:53.468)
I would wake up on the sideline because I had blacked out, didn't even know it. I mean, I walked over there, but I'd hit somebody so hard, I'd knock myself out. I mean, yeah. So that's probably a little CTE. I mean, come on, were you dumb kid, you know, testosterone from a blue collar background. I mean, it was just, it was going to happen. So.

Jasper (18:54.037)
Hehehehehe

Brian Johnson (18:54.19)
you

Jasper (19:07.197)
Not sure that's something to be proud of though.

Brian Johnson (19:10.67)
Hahaha!

Chad (19:21.2)
Luckily, I didn't go any further. I wasn't good enough to go any further because I would have been Chuck Cecil.

Brian Johnson (19:28.014)
Hey, Chuck Cecil, I know he picked me off three times in the game against University of Arizona. I was not, I don't like that guy because he was, because he was really good. He was really good and I couldn't figure out how he was, he kept picking me off. I couldn't figure it out, but anyway.

Chad (19:33.116)
Oh yeah?

Jasper (19:35.317)
Hahaha

Chad (19:38.428)
Yeah. Oh, dude.

Jasper (19:43.829)
Stop trying to steal bases, Brian. Stop trying to steal bases.

Chad (19:45.916)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Either that or work on your speed. One of the two. I mean, I don't know.

Brian Johnson (19:47.086)
Right, right.

Jasper (19:49.813)
Yeah man, yeah, that's on you Brian, that's not on Chuck.

Brian Johnson (19:51.086)
Yeah, all together.

Chad (19:56.38)
But again, football. Football was it. You live, you breathe football in Ohio, but also track soccer, tennis. And again, it was all about sports and girls in high school. So.

Jasper (20:06.357)
Yeah, alright.

Jasper (20:11.637)
Did you come to get to a point where you were good enough to be recruited? Or...

Chad (20:16.572)
No, and I was from a really small school. I mean, not many were recruited. I mean, the program wasn't, um, wasn't amazing. There was a much larger school in the same town where they, I mean, it was, it was talent and coaching. Uh, we had shit for coaches to be quite frank. Um, but you know, at, at, at the end of the day, I knew that wasn't going to be my end state. I would I dream about it, of course, but I knew better.

Jasper (20:19.221)
Okay.

Jasper (20:39.317)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (20:41.614)
So let's fast forward, let's do a combination of your skills. So you got into hiring, you developed leaders and trained people in the military. With all those skills wrapped together, what is it that you notice about the human beings you come across and what sticks out to you when you say that that woman has leadership skills or that guy has it or that either one of those fools over there don't have nothing. What?

what sticks out to you when you see somebody that has special leadership skills and why?

Chad (21:16.188)
Yeah, I'll use myself as an example. When I was in my twenties, I was actually, I had teams under me. I was actually building sales teams at the time. I was a shit leader because it was more iron fist, testosterone, so on and so forth. But as I matured, I understood that not everybody could do the job like I did, right? Which is good because that's not every account.

Jasper (21:40.211)
Mm -hmm.

Chad (21:45.084)
wants a Chad on that account, right? So you need to have that diversity in skill sets. I didn't understand that. So I was trying to turn everybody into a little me, right? So I see a lot of bad leaders micromanaging the shit out of people, trying to turn them into themselves because they were an outstanding performer, right? Individual performer. I started to, and I started to learn through military schools, because I went into the reserve, so I was still in the military, still going to military schools.

Brian Johnson (21:54.56)
UGH

Brian Johnson (22:03.31)
Right. Right.

Chad (22:14.716)
and still learning from some amazing leaders that, hey, dumbass, these people do things different than you. It doesn't make it better, doesn't make it worse, but they do it differently. So therefore you have to learn how to be more diplomatic in leading people, right? You can't just point your finger and say, go do it, right? Not to mention you can't just micromanage the hell out of it. So one of the things that we learned,

Jasper (22:23.893)
Okay.

Chad (22:42.14)
In the military and again, it's one of those misconceptions from the military is like everything is is is standard operating procedure. That's how you do it. Well, standard operating procedure is pretty much gray, right? They give you an opportunity to train on different scenarios. But when you're in the moment, you make the decision right? It's on you and there's no, you know, there might be a wrong and after action review that you have to have and train on, which we were always doing, but.

Brian Johnson (22:50.638)
Mm.

Jasper (23:00.885)
Right. Yeah.

Chad (23:11.708)
But yeah.

Jasper (23:13.205)
But you've encountered like all kinds of leaders. You said you experienced some pretty great leaders in that during that time. But what's your definition of a good leader?

Chad (23:17.436)
Yes.

Chad (23:22.076)
definition of a good leader is to be able to motivate those individuals, even the ones who don't want to be motivated, right? The ones who are having shitty days. And another thing in the military that we don't see in corporate America is that, you know, I knew the families, I knew the kids of, you know, everybody who was under me and in my platoon and my squad and my team. And that was incredibly important because you had to know,

Jasper (23:30.197)
Okay.

Chad (23:52.384)
Everybody and you had to have a tight knit right because you weren't just going into the office from nine to five you were going on to the battlefield and you put your life in that person's hands right and if something was happening happening at home I could say hey Brenda how's Brenda doing how she you know because their their state of mind means something it just doesn't mean that they're not good they're gonna blow a sail.

they could blow something on the battlefield. And that is not just bad for them and their family, but everybody else who's with them.

Jasper (24:26.389)
How many of those skills are, do you feel like transferable to the corporate world where of course, I mean, you have to like, I've seen so much films about, well, wars and stuff happening. You can see the platoon sort of rising up together and that is what makes a successful platoon and a successful leader is able to do that. But how can you transfer that sort of knowledge to a corporate environment, just any office?

Chad (24:50.236)
Yeah, again, it's diplomacy, it's dealing with people. So that's not different. It's, you know, it's, it's flanking, you know, flanking a bunker versus making sure that you're hitting your sales goals, right? It's still the people, it's still the psychology, it's still, it's still understanding that they're people too. Not every day is going to be their best day. Not every day is going to be their worst day, right? But to understand that they are human, they're going to make mistakes, help them through those mistakes, train them through their mistakes and hopefully,

Jasper (24:53.621)
Yeah. Okay.

Jasper (25:05.845)
Hmm.

Chad (25:18.236)
you can get good enough where your team is actually training you as well.

Brian Johnson (25:24.59)
Yeah, that's so good. So many things I wanna ask. So in my work, well, let me just put this, so I was speaking in front of a group of young men and there was four other leaders that went before me and they kept talking about being a leader, being a leader, being a leader, being a leader, being a leader, work hard, work hard, work hard, work hard. And so I was like, okay, I need to change this up a little bit because what I talked about was being number two or being...

Jasper (25:39.637)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Johnson (25:51.982)
number 52 or being 152 or 1 ,052. I think it's so important for leaders to be good support staff first. Would you agree? And did you teach that as you were growing leaders? Did you also teach the other roles that are important?

Jasper (25:56.501)
Mm -hmm.

Chad (26:02.364)
Yes. Yes.

Chad (26:15.196)
Yeah, I mean, that's the natural progression. Everybody starts out at the bottom in the military. So therefore, you have to learn how to be a great follower and teammate. You have to. And then you go through the schooling and you go through, hopefully you've got great leaders and mentors to be able to help you through that. So yes, everybody has to go through that, whether you're a non -commissioned officer or you are an officer.

Jasper (26:19.965)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Johnson (26:38.99)
Yeah, I love that. And just quick follow up, because when you are a leader, you want the followers to be good at their jobs too. And you have to know what their role is intimately in order to be a good leader. And I love how you talk about there's so many bad leaders today. And it's true. And it's not a knock on the human race. It's a knock on taking for granted what the skills that are needed in order to lead other human beings well. You talked about

Empathy, you talked about humility, realizing that there's six billion people on this planet and not everybody does the same thing, does everything the way that I do it. I mean, that's a big step, whether you're a leader, whether you're not a leader. Any other guidance that you would give for leaders that are already in place, are already running their companies, that may be looking for that extra piece of their life. I need to get better at what I do. What in general would you give to them if you could?

Jasper (27:16.435)
Yeah.

Chad (27:37.308)
Yeah, I mean, just because something's uncomfortable doesn't mean that's bad. And if you set an environment and a culture that, hey, look, we're going to work on the fringes of comfort, okay? There's going to be where you can kind of have days where you can be a little bit more comfortable, but we're going to push for the uncomfortable. And that means we're progressing and we're learning and we're evolving. That's the only way, right? And I even teach my kids that, look, once you sit back and you stop learning,

everything dies. Brain, I mean, just the entire soul dies at that point. That's why you have to continue to be uncomfortable, right? You can have your comfortable days. Don't get me wrong. Take your Sundays, enjoy it. Take your Saturdays, enjoy it. But you have to be uncomfortable and you have to push yourself. And if the team around you understands that is, I mean, that's the standard, right? They will start to push themselves. They'll start to push you. And that's what you want. Not to mention you talked about,

if you train them the right way, you're going to have a lot less stress on you because they're going to be taking some of the weight, which is exactly what a team should be doing. And instead of saying, well, the leader needs to take it all or the team needs to take it all. No, the team is all, even the leader should be doing their fair share of the work.

Jasper (28:43.701)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Johnson (28:43.758)
Yeah, great point.

Brian Johnson (28:49.23)
That's right.

Brian Johnson (29:00.462)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Great leaders need to teach themselves out of a job. It should be their goal.

Chad (29:05.532)
Yes.

Jasper (29:06.933)
That's a yeah, that's we can put that on a like a put that in the background. That's a that's the quote of the day. Ladies and gentlemen, a chat I'd be curious to know because you've you've you've talked a bit about your military career. And then what right so you you were in the military for how many years?

Chad (29:10.428)
You

Brian Johnson (29:10.83)
the the the the the the the the

Chad (29:27.42)
I was active for four years, came out, got into corporate America, and I got the itch about a month being out of the military and said, I can't not do this. So I went into the reserves almost immediately after I got out. So I at least had a taste of it before I was activated.

Jasper (29:30.451)
Okay.

Jasper (29:40.723)
Okay.

Jasper (29:47.477)
So you only needed a month to figure out, okay, this is not for me.

Chad (29:52.252)
Well, it was just that I was missing something. Yeah. Yeah, I was missing something. There was something that the military was giving me, that team mentality. It was just something that I was missing that I needed and so I had to go back and get it.

Brian Johnson (29:52.43)
I need more, right? Was I need more? Yeah.

Jasper (29:55.061)
I need more.

Brian Johnson (30:08.014)
Yeah, love that.

Jasper (30:08.117)
Do you still miss it today?

Chad (30:11.196)
Not as much today. I mean, after 20 years, I mean, Uncle Sam got all the skin off of me that he's going to get blood, sweat and tears. But being able to make those friends over, you know, that timeframe. I mean, I have friends from way back when I was, you know, in Panama when I was 18, for goodness sakes, all the way up to today. So, you know, I still have those friends. We still have that camaraderie. So I don't miss it as much.

Jasper (30:21.619)
Mm -hmm.

Jasper (30:37.333)
And you during your, because you were stationed at Fort Benning, right? At some point in your, what was that?

Chad (30:43.388)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I had a couple of nations there as a infantry drill sergeant.

Jasper (30:47.605)
So I know about you, so of course I've got a bit of background on you that some of the listeners may not have. You are a mixed martial arts instructor, weren't you?

Chad (30:56.188)
Yeah, it's called Modern Army Combatives, but it was our version of Mixed Martial Arts, yes.

Jasper (31:04.437)
So why are you not in the UFC, Chad?

Chad (31:07.1)
because that's some hard work. I actually trained with some UFC fighters down in Benning and they helped me realize how bad I was. It's one of those things where there are so many levels and Brian knows this. He made it to professional sports for God's sakes. You can be amazing. You can just be flat out the best in your town and maybe a hundred square miles.

Brian Johnson (31:08.046)
Hehehehe. Hehehehe.

Jasper (31:08.693)
Hahaha!

Jasper (31:14.387)
Okay.

Jasper (31:18.933)
Heheheheh

Jasper (31:35.861)
Yeah.

Chad (31:36.028)
There's no way in hell you're going to be able to waylay in a cage in the octagon, right? So I enjoyed it. It was great from a discipline standpoint. One awesome fact is that after I learned and I got incredibly proficient, not just with ground fighting, but also I was a kickboxing instructor and whatnot. But when I got more confident in my fighting craft,

My, my, the number of fights that I had pretty much went to zero.

pretty much went to zero before when I had no fucking clue when I was doing right in fights right and then I knew I was him like them you know I just just didn't happen.

Jasper (32:12.341)
Hahaha

Jasper (32:21.013)
Good. No, that's great. No, I can imagine like this. There's a what's it's so true what you say. You could feel like you're the best person in your age group and you can just feel like you're top of the world. And then you, you see, I had this moment when I was playing football and I was younger. I thought best player of the team. I'm doing great. Like I can probably get a few years out of this. And then you play a team on any given Sunday, basically. And you go, hold on a minute. Every single one of these guys is probably better than I am. And you have that.

Brian Johnson (32:45.88)
hahahaha

Jasper (32:50.329)
Surely you've had that moment too where you went, ah right, so I'm nowhere close.

Chad (32:52.572)
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah. So Kevin Jordan, Kevin Jordan, he was actually a heavyweight, but he was training at Fort Benning. He lived in Georgia. He was training at Fort Benning and, uh, and I got, I got a chance to roll with him because I mean, he's too damn big. I wasn't going to let him throw, throw hands with me. So we got, we got on the ground. We started, you know, Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu and grappling and, uh, in, in my class. And I mean, we were fighting eight hours a day. Um, you know, five days a week. I mean, it was, it was our job.

Jasper (33:03.445)
Okay.

Chad (33:25.02)
So got pretty really proficient at it. Got on the mat with Kevin and he just wiped the mat with me. So yeah, I mean, again, that's the, but I'm gonna tell you right now though, and this is something that I also take forward and try to help people understand is that I learned more from my losses than any of my wins. Any of my wins. And that's exactly what we should be thinking about in the corporate space too, right? When you fail,

You don't sit there and okay, you take the time, you ball up in the corner and you cry for a minute. Totally get that, right? But then you come back, you assess, do an after action review, you learn, learn, learn, and then you hit it again, right? You hit that whiteboard again.

Jasper (33:58.901)
Hmm?

Jasper (34:07.861)
Yeah, just any idea. Absolutely. I think it's the same with some of these managers that you see in sports. The ones that are really successful will be like, okay, today was a bad day for us. Tomorrow is a new day. Let's go get it again. And you can see the ones that sulk even during a press conference after the game. I always go, you may not be there for many long because you just, I don't know, you just get a sort of tendency to...

pick out these guys that go, they start sulking immediately after a game, or they start blaming the referee and you start, no, no, no, no, no, like accountability, be accountable, you've lost, it's happened, try again tomorrow and just continue playing, right?

Chad (34:38.684)
Yes.

Chad (34:45.052)
Right. Yeah. And that one call did not cost the entire map.

Brian Johnson (34:50.284)
Yes, sir.

Jasper (34:50.517)
No, it's absolutely like that is pivotal, I think, in that sort of thinking.

Chad (34:54.81)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Johnson (34:55.534)
Yeah, and it's a marathon, right? Whether it's the season you're in or just life in general, it's a marathon. If you freak out over one incident, you're gonna be toast mentally in a short amount of time. But for me, one of my favorite stories in researching you was the moment you realize, what was it? As a military person, being in rough plane flights didn't bother you. But then when you got into civilian life,

Chad (35:07.996)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Johnson (35:25.454)
You had a plane flight, once the door closed, you were freaking out, not because of the plane, but because something else changed in your life. What was that and how did that make you a better leader, a better person, better human being?

Chad (35:39.324)
Yeah, so my daughter, I mean, you start to understand that you're living for something other than yourself. And yeah, I mean, and we were all there, I'm sure, at one time. I was indestructible. I mean, I was not gonna die, it was not gonna happen, didn't matter. But when I had that little girl and there was responsibility there and the what if hit my brain, yeah, I mean, that was something that was incredibly foreign to me.

Jasper (35:47.413)
Hmm.

Chad (36:08.476)
that I had to work through. And one of the things that has helped me over the years, that there's a stigma behind, is actually talking to people, going to therapy, doing those types of things. Doesn't make you weaker. It makes you stronger. It makes you stronger to be able to get those things out, to be able to learn from them, and to be able to evolve and move on.

Brian Johnson (36:19.31)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jasper (36:20.403)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Johnson (36:35.086)
Yeah, I love that. When I was in college, I was involved in some serious things and I went to get some help. I changed the trajectory and really changed the way I view things. I mean, if I break my ankle, I got no problem going to see an ankle specialist. But for some reason, especially us as dudes, our ego gets in the way. We're like, oh, we can't go and ask for help. We can't with a shrink. But it's a fascinating experience. My wife and I have been together what?

Jasper (36:54.515)
Hmm, absolutely. Yeah, we got this. Yeah

Brian Johnson (37:04.558)
37 years and we've been to counseling three different times where we needed a referee. We had a log jam. We needed to just, and once we pried that apart, it was golden. And so I loved it. I love that you said that. I think it's really a fascinating experience and conversation to really have the mirror turned on you and say, hmm, okay, how can I adjust here?

Jasper (37:27.893)
You have to adjust. It's that simple, really. Chad, many people that will listen to this will know you. They've heard a lot of you in their headphones, whether they're traveling or they're commuting somewhere because the Chad and Cheese show, which is... Well, I mean, don't do it for me, but for all those millions of listeners out there in the world who listen to your...

Chad (37:46.844)
Are you wanting me to apologize? Is that what I'm hearing?

Brian Johnson (37:48.974)
Hahaha!

Jasper (37:57.621)
French, chanon cheese podcasts and your Portuguese version and no, but like you, you, you've made podcasting your day job, right? You've, you've gone and absolutely made it your, I think you've done what a lot of us, well, aspire to do. You get to talk for a living all the time, every day. How did you end up, because you were in podcasting before everyone was in podcasting, basically, put it just to frame it bluntly. What.

Brian Johnson (38:01.774)
Yeah.

Chad (38:14.876)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jasper (38:26.325)
Drew YouTube Podcasting.

Chad (38:28.988)
So first off, there are a lot of people and I actually have what people call office hours where, you know, people will call that they'll actually have open time on my calendar on Mondays and Fridays where just anybody can access and take 15 to 30 minutes with me to talk about business models, you know, whether it's their startups or whether it's podcasting. And a lot of people don't understand. I mean, I've been in this space for nearly 25 years now and so has my, my cohost Joel Cheeseman.

Jasper (38:41.053)
Mm -hmm.

Jasper (38:50.621)
Mm -hmm.

Chad (38:58.684)
And so there is a lot of amassing of experience, not to mention connections. So we see the dots more than most and we can connect them more than most. So that in itself, you know, made us, I guess you could say, you know, pretty much instant experts on the mic because we actually knew the people, we knew the tech, we've lived it, we've grown it, we've failed, we've succeeded, all those things. So I think, you know, that's an important part of the recipe.

Um, we didn't get into podcasting, uh, in 2017 because we thought this was going to be our business. Uh, I actually had a consulting firm, have a consulting firm, uh, and I had just left, you know, the biggest staffing company in the world, biggest RPO company in the world, Ronstadt, where I was there for a couple of years, head down, building a veteran talent pipeline programs for huge organizations like the Ford Motor Company. And, uh, I was done. I was burnt.

Jasper (39:40.373)
Mm -hmm.

Chad (39:57.18)
So I came out, went back in, revived the consulting practice, and Joel Cheeseman, very good friend of mine, he had just started a company called Ratedly. He's a serial entrepreneur. I said, look, we both have to get our voices back out there. This should be a branding exercise, right? Get our voices out there. Then people are gonna wanna know who we are. Then they're gonna find our products, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth. Well, it...

We, Joel and I both are very similarly minded and with one respect, I think, and that's everything first as a business. So we focused on the podcast as a business revenue model, everything, right? Format, all that stuff. I have a radio career as well before all of this. So I had a little bit, yeah, a little bit, a little bit of understanding. And then after about six months, it exploded and I attribute that.

Jasper (40:41.941)
That helps.

Chad (40:52.412)
to our voices being in HR, which is always known as no risk, right? It's totally no risk in HR where we would drop an F -bomb, you know, every few minutes or what have you. And we would tell it like it is as opposed to all this warm and fuzzy crap we've been hearing for all these years and on some of the other podcasts that I would listen to. I just got sick of listening to, you know, boredom, right?

So we did it and that helped us dramatically. Now, we actually started a podcast and this is a little known fact, around 2008, before you could get podcasts on your phone, this little mobile device here, so it just didn't work because you had to have speakers with your computer and you played it through your computer and it just wasn't practical. I saw when...

Jasper (41:30.643)
Okay.

Chad (41:46.364)
the when it started to hockey stick with with mobile phones and I was like I told Cheeseman in 2016 I'm like look we need to do this. It took him took me a year to get his ass off the couch and then and then we did it. Luckily was with help help from his wife and my wife they're like come on you got to do this why not try it out. So we did and here we are seven years later.

Jasper (41:50.675)
Mm -hmm.

Jasper (42:11.957)
Well, just exactly how big is it? Because I think most people listening to this will probably know it or they've heard of it at some point. Because if you're familiar with HR and recruitment and all of that, you'll at least have heard of the Chab and Cheese podcast. But can you just talk about the sort of scope where it's gotten to?

Chad (42:19.484)
Uh -huh.

Chad (42:31.804)
Yeah, I mean, our focus is the industry itself. So we are niche. We do focus heavily on tech, on HR tech. I mean, obviously all the AIs, LLMs, all the fun stuff that's coming our way. But we are in, I mean, we're obviously global, which was always nice. Radio was never global. It was always local, right? And I early on, probably in the first couple of years, manifested.

Jasper (42:55.411)
Mm -hmm.

Chad (43:00.732)
uh, a European listenership, right? And we started making, uh, partnerships with conferences in Europe because we started to see people pick up and start starting to listen to us. And we started getting, uh, you know, feedback from them. Uh, and we had started to be on stage here in the U S and that was incredibly popular. We were the very first podcasts in our space on stage recording things, blah, blah, blah. So we pitched that to.

Europe because we knew from a business standpoint that would be great. And I wanted to go to Europe anyway. I mean, come on, who doesn't want to travel to Europe? So it was great from a business standpoint because you get better penetration into that market. Once you're in front of those people, they want to know who you are. If they like what you said, they didn't like what you said. It doesn't matter, right? So it was great from a business standpoint and our expansion just exploded from there. So, uh, yeah, I mean, we're, we're listened to all over the world.

Jasper (43:35.701)
I'm gonna go to bed.

Chad (43:59.492)
Down Austria I get pinged from Australia and New Zealand all the time So it's it is it is very very humbling that all these people listen to Joel and my dumbasses

Jasper (44:13.469)
What would you say is the because you you you sort of produce what is it three to four episodes every week? That's that's a lot. That's a lot of talking. That's a lot of research. I guess people think right. Okay, you recorded podcasts and now it's work, right? That's fine. No, there's a lot of preparation that goes into it as we as we all three of us know. But what's the hardest part of doing that?

Chad (44:27.42)
Yeah.

Chad (44:38.14)
I think the hardest part right now, and this is kind of like first world podcast problems, is we get like 20, at least 20 requests a day to come on the podcast. So there are, I mean, there are PR firms that are focused on trying to get you on podcasts, right? So these things have blown up all over the place. So it's now trying to weed through and find out, you know, cause some of those are going to be great stories and maybe some things that Joel and I are passionate about. So.

Jasper (44:48.725)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Chad (45:05.98)
for the most part, it's trying to find those like hidden golden nuggets. And then also, you know, trying to get some of the bigger names on the podcast too, because if they see that, you know, we're an explicit podcast, they might not want to come on. So, you know, it's, it's a, that to me is the hardest part. The research for what we do in the space to me is, has always been exhilarating. Now it's my job.

Jasper (45:33.237)
Yeah.

Chad (45:33.552)
And I'm much more researched than I ever have been. I'm much more connected with these CEOs and these startups and whatnot than I have ever been. So being plugged in, I mean, that's the high side. The low side is trying to find the right people to spend time with on the podcast. Not that everybody's not worth it, but is it worth it for our audience?

Jasper (45:59.061)
Hmm. That's good. Yeah.

Brian Johnson (46:00.718)
Yeah, I love that. As we wrap up here, such a big military influence in your life, such a big business influence in your life, now the podcast being a big part of your life, do you still have ties to the military in this phase of life that you're in?

Chad (46:24.028)
Not really, other than friends. Other than friends. And I have friends that are still in the military. But no, not really. I mean, I'm looking to the next portion of my life, something that I never thought I'd be able to do. And you guys give me a hard time about it sometimes. We bought a place in Portugal. We're looking to spend a lot of time there. At this point, it's really just detaching. Oh yes, don't get me wrong, man. I mean, I...

Jasper (46:40.277)
you

Jasper (46:46.741)
You just want to be European. Just say it.

Brian Johnson (46:49.548)
hahahahah

Chad (46:53.788)
I love, love Europe. And again, it's about for us and even Julie, my wife, exploring being uncomfortable and being uncomfortable in, you know, on the Southern shores of, of Portugal or France or Spain. I mean, yeah, okay. No, I mean, it's new. It's new.

Brian Johnson (47:08.206)
Hahaha!

Jasper (47:10.165)
That's not uncomfortable man, come on! Drinking your cervezas? Yeah, that's uh...

Brian Johnson (47:12.974)
Yeah

Brian Johnson (47:19.534)
That's the first thing you mentioned this podcast. I said, you know what? I could do that.

Jasper (47:24.021)
All the training, nah, drinking, yeah.

Chad (47:24.976)
And you're welcome to Brian and you're welcome to Brian we we have a place with your name on it be be great

Brian Johnson (47:25.358)
hahahaha

Jasper (47:33.249)
Yeah, drink some beers on the Portuguese shores and pretend how uncomfortable we are. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Yeah.

Brian Johnson (47:34.286)
I like it.

Brian Johnson (47:38.318)
Right, right. Yeah, think of new podcasts. Yeah, it'd be tough. It'd be tough, yeah.

Chad (47:39.344)
pretend.

Jasper (47:45.493)
You can maybe do some live podcasting on the beaches of... Yeah, I like it. That's not a bad plan. Yeah, you need something to aspire to, right? Yeah.

Brian Johnson (47:50.274)
Absolutely. Yeah. Sergeant Sowash, you are a fascinating dude and we appreciate the time that we got to delve into. So thanks for letting us poke around in there today.

Chad (47:51.388)
too easy.

Chad (48:05.02)
It's been fun guys, it's been fun. Now all three of our stories are out there. Now the listeners can dive in, find out who these idiots are that are behind the mics, and enjoy. Here's the thing that I am so excited about, and this is definitely not uncomfortable for me. The people that we're going to be bringing on the podcast and talking to, a lot of these stories, I mean when Jasper brought this idea to me, it just clicked. It's like wow, those are stories that...

Brian Johnson (48:14.774)
Hahaha.

Chad (48:32.572)
I want to hear about and then we and then he found you Brian. I'm like, holy shit. This is gonna happen, right? This is gonna happen. I get to talk to Brian number one, not to mention, you know, I think he's gonna bring Gary Payton on anyway. Um,

Brian Johnson (48:39.118)
No.

Brian Johnson (48:47.264)
hahahahah

Jasper (48:48.233)
No pressure, Brian, no pressure.

Chad (48:53.692)
But serious, I'm really excited. We've just started this thing and it's like we've known each other for a while already.

Jasper (49:01.299)
Yeah, it's funny how that dynamic sort of immediately. I remember talking to you, Brian, after five minutes, I felt sort of a comfort level where I was like, okay, this is going to happen. Like usually in the back of your head, you'd have a sort of sense of doubt, like, surely this guy is not for real. The same conversation I had with Chad, I was like, okay, this could actually happen quite easily because we just need to be together, all three of us. And it works.

Brian Johnson (49:25.422)
I agree. I got a message on LinkedIn from some dude in Europe said some idea. I'm like, what is it like personal coaching? Is that the personal coaching thing? I get like a thousand of those a month, but this is different. This is different. I was like, okay, I'll give it a shot. And I agree. I agree. I love the idea and it's been fun so far. I'm excited about where we can take this. So we'll see how it goes.

Jasper (49:36.085)
I'm

Chad (49:37.468)
Oh, I bet.

Jasper (49:50.741)
Yeah, next episode we'll be back with someone that isn't one of us per se, right? We can actually delve into someone else's story now, so...

Chad (49:51.002)
Excellent.

Brian Johnson (49:55.47)
Is there room? We have room in the room for somebody else? We're kind of taking up a lot of space.

Jasper (50:02.229)
I think it's a full room, yeah. We might, yeah. This is also Brian, this is your exit interview, so thank you very much for coming on, but this... Yeah.

Chad (50:03.996)
Good question.

Brian Johnson (50:04.846)
Hahaha!

Chad (50:09.852)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (50:10.574)
That's right, that's right. Get rid of the dead weight. I get it. It's the story of my life. I'm used to it.

Jasper (50:20.053)
Yeah, as long as we get Mr. Payton on first and then we can sort of... Yeah.

Chad (50:20.698)
Whatever.

Oh, God.

Brian Johnson (50:25.678)
Right, when you got Sergeant Solos and the wonder from the Netherlands, what else do you need? I mean, you know.

Jasper (50:32.017)
Well we need Mr. Brian Johnson. Yeah.

Chad (50:35.26)
Yes.

Brian Johnson (50:35.374)
Hahaha!

Jasper (50:37.941)
Okay, that was awesome guys. Thank you so much. And I guess we'll see each other again soon.

Chad (50:43.644)
You got it.

Brian Johnson (50:44.91)
Sounds good. Nice work. Bye.

Chad (50:46.876)
Later. Okay, don't stop.