Speaker 0 | 00:09.682

Sorry, man. It’s okay. I did the same thing. I did the same thing with my mom today. Not that I look any better. Not that I do video shows. I mean, honestly, your background probably looks better than mine. I’m in a new old house where this office has yet to be painted. It’s like, I do have some asbestos in this house. That’s how old it is.

Speaker 1 | 00:32.969

Oh, good. Good. That’s always good.

Speaker 0 | 00:34.389

You know, especially if we disturb it. So anyways, you know, thank you so much for, I guess, spending some time with me. And we can do this a couple ways. I’m going to hit record. And if this is a good conversation, we’ll turn it into a show. And if not, and we need to do another one, we’ll do it that way.

Speaker 1 | 00:55.458

Sounds good.

Speaker 0 | 00:56.198

Okay. So welcome everyone back to… dissecting popular IT nerds. We are, I will butcher your last name. I know I will butcher this last one, but we’re speaking with Len. Wait, I should take it. I should take a shot at this. This is so hard. Svitenko.

Speaker 1 | 01:15.813

That’s good. That’s good, Svitenko.

Speaker 0 | 01:18.716

Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 | 01:20.757

You did not break the cardinal rule, which a lot of people do, which is add letters in there that just don’t exist. Wow,

Speaker 0 | 01:27.343

quiet. My wife’s Monique. People call her Monica. I don’t know where they get that one from, but that’s a classic. Every now and then they spell my name Phil with an F at Starbucks too. That’s always great. I do get a chuckle out of that. How do you spell your name by the way? P-H. Okay. So IT operations lead at a very small company called Shell, Shell Oil. No one’s heard of them. And so how’s that life treating you?

Speaker 1 | 01:59.428

Not bad. So to be clear, I’m in charge of an application we have called WellVantage, and we use it in our wells operation, our wells business. I’ve worked for Shell on and off for, gosh, I guess a little over 12 years. I worked for Shell for a while. I had been an IT manager or application developer and then IT manager, if you will, at a refinery. I did that for a number of years. I then worked for them in information security, left and went to work for a couple of other companies, including Staples, and came back to Shell in 2015 and have been with them since.

Speaker 0 | 02:44.484

Excellent. If you hear my children almost dying in the background, because my microphone is pretty good, I’m hoping they aren’t dying. Someone’s having a meltdown right now because they were told to clean the house. Hurry up and clean the house. I’ve got to go do a podcast. Mom is not here today. Mom is somewhere else. So there are kids just freely roaming around in the background. With that being said, how did you get started in this world of IT in general?

Speaker 1 | 03:19.795

So great question. I think the earliest generation of me being in IT was when I was in college. I took my first IT class, if you will, and started messing around with it and ended up going to work in the lowest element of IT you can think of, which was fixing printers. Actually fixed everything from dot matrix printers to inkjet printers and eventually started working on computers and then networks and just was really fortunate to work for a couple of small companies in California. And had some really good mentors along the way that took me under their wing, taught me how to do things, taught me, you know, the right way to fix things and troubleshoot and diagnose. And did that for years and then ended up working for a medical group as their sort of, you know, IT repair guy. Did all of their inter-repairs and software issues and things along those lines and have kind of progressed since then and managed it. find my way through various small ways of IT.

Speaker 0 | 04:33.726

It was like a brave world to get involved in IT back then. I think it took more bravery and just love for the job back then, whereas now you could probably get involved in IT and maybe not know whether you even like it or not.

Speaker 1 | 04:47.390

I think so. In fact, I think I end up having a lot of people who either work for me or work with me and they didn’t get into IT. You know, they got a degree in something else or they were in school or something else and sort of stumbled into IT and now they’re not sure. if that’s what they want to do. Right. But, um, you know, for me, there was something about the ability to, um, learn and, and fix things and actually get my hands on it or my brain around it. Um, and, and I just enjoyed it. And of course, you know, that we all have the quintessential stories of somebody bringing in a computer and, you know, you fix it in about three seconds and they’re amazed to buy it. Right. So that was always fun too.

Speaker 0 | 05:33.669

Well, fixing dot matrix printers, let’s not underrate that either. Because that, you know, those ink ribbons, those ink ribbons and loading paper out of a box that came in a big stream and watching it feed into the back of the printer. That’s, you know, there’s something nostalgic about that.

Speaker 1 | 05:51.456

Oh, yeah. And they’re still around. I mean, you know, you’ll still see them at places that require the multi-page, you know, impact printer, if you will.

Speaker 0 | 05:59.739

One thing that you can’t do anymore that you could do back then is. print a whole banner that would go across your entire garage door without having to rip it apart that’s true and and and make cards that you fold it into four different ways i’m sure you can still do that but these are some of the things that i remember the the cards that you would make fold it here fold here fold here and now you have card that’s nice okay so tell me a little bit about what is well vantage technology

Speaker 1 | 06:33.025

Yeah, so within Shell, the easiest way to explain it is Shell uses a number of applications that we believe give us a competitive advantage. WellVantage is one of them. It gives us information as we are producing wells and, if you will, taking our assets from the ground to where they’re going to finally be. refined and turned into something usable. And we think that gives us an opportunity to do things better, faster, cheaper, if you will. My role in that organization is to operationally run the application. I’ve got a great team that works for me. They’re spread all over the world. And we do everything from infrastructure support, through application support, through data mapping, which is… you know, hey, the information is coming to us from point A, and we’ve got to translate it into what the operators will understand when they look at the screen. And so I’ve got some really smart guys who do that. And, you know, it gives Shell, again, we believe it gives us a competitive advantage. We believe it gives us some opportunities that we may not otherwise have. And so that’s, you know, more or less what the intent of the application is.

Speaker 0 | 08:01.353

Are there some things that you do in IT that, this might sound like a really stupid question, but are there some things that you do in IT right now that are not taught in school? Again, it’s a dumb question. It’s not. It’s like, because this business piece, you have an MBA, right? So you’re talking about data mapping and you’re talking about some things and there’s some general skill sets that IT technology people have. But where is there like… Where’s the line drawn? And do you have that skill set because of where you came from, where IT was a, no pun intended, cloudy environment back in the day, and now it’s even cloudier. But you know what I mean? Does it make sense? Like where’s this special skill set that maybe isn’t taught in school?

Speaker 1 | 08:53.617

Yeah, so I think the closest thing that I use. all the time that they attempt to teach in school, and I don’t know that they do it well, is being the quote-unquote business analyst or the person who can speak business to IT and IT to the business. And I think one of the challenges that you run into with a lot of traditional IT people is that’s an area that they don’t learn in school and they don’t really get trained on how to explain the value of whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish. And I think that’s a really good question. For years when I worked in information security, we were always seen as the no. We just tell people no. People will want to put something in place or want to expand on something. And we’re like, no, can’t do it. You’re not allowed. And one of the things that I tried to do when I was in that world, and one of the things I do with my current role, is explain how to get to a yes, or explain the value in whatever it is that is trying to be accomplished. Or if the business comes to us and says, we, you know. We want to turn water into oil. It’s going to be great. And you go, well, you can’t do that because, but here’s what we can do instead. And I think a lot of IT guys don’t.

Speaker 0 | 10:07.752

Cold fusion.

Speaker 1 | 10:08.392

Didn’t learn the skill. Yeah. Didn’t learn the skill of just stop saying no and instead say, look, we can’t do that where we can, but here are the requirements.

Speaker 0 | 10:20.915

But that’s assuming that people are coming to IT to begin with and asking them to do something.

Speaker 1 | 10:26.797

It’s funny. I was actually. recently on a call where that was brought up and you’re right i mean there’s you know we call it shadow it there’s so much of it out there where the business has gone and done their own thing or somebody has gone and done their own thing with absolutely no thought to is it sustainable will it fit in the environment is it part of a you know a good portfolio but

Speaker 0 | 10:49.785

yeah you’re right they don’t always come back to so and from a very ignoramus standpoint to me oil is oil refining is refining who are you competing with from a competitive advantage like what are you guys competing with trying to make a bigger profit is it just we’re just trying to make a bigger profit and cut back you know what is it no so you know and this is where a blockchain guy steps in and says i can tell that you know nothing about money i’ve had that said to me before phil i can tell that by you know by you don’t know anything about the barrel price? Come on. Anyways, go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 11:28.987

Let’s take money out of it. Everybody’s in business to make money. Everybody’s competing with…

Speaker 0 | 11:36.869

I’m glad you said it. I’m glad someone finally said that. Yes, the purpose of a business is to make money. When you get mad that a bunch of people got laid off, well, sorry. That happens.

Speaker 1 | 11:49.133

It’s bad. I get it. Let’s take money out of it. of it. And let’s talk about what you want to do as any sort of manufacturer. So whether it’s oil, whether it’s cars, whether it’s whatever, you have a certain amount of raw material, right? If it’s a car, you get a certain amount of metal or plastic or whatever. For us, we have a certain amount of oil that we have found or extracted. And what you want to do is be efficient with it. And even if you take money out of the equation, if you want to be a good, you know, environmental citizen, if you want to be a good corporation of the world, if you want to make the best use out of what you’ve been given, your goal is to, okay, how do we turn all of oil into something valuable? So for example, in a refinery, and I run the risk of sounding like an idiot because I’m not a refiner, but they have different kinds of equipment. And the intent of each piece of equipment is to continue to refine more and more of the oil. Because as you turn some oil into gas that you put in your car, there’s other parts of that oil that gets siphoned off because it doesn’t turn into the gas. So what do you do with that? There’s other pieces of the refining equipment that then can turn that into asphalt or plastic or whatever. And so the intent of any competitive advantage application, whether it’s ours, whether it’s something that, you know. Exxon has or something that BP has or any of these other companies that are out there, or even some of the smaller ones, their intent is really, hey, how do we make the best use of the raw material? So I think that’s where you’re going.

Speaker 0 | 13:31.788

And then you, as IT lead, is almost the same job to now, how do we take this application and make it the most refined team of IT people? operating at the most, what’s the word? Why am I not thinking it? At the most efficient level that an application can work at. Where do you guys have holes? I don’t want to say where do you guys have holes in the network because that’s kind of like, let’s sign an NDA, Phil. I don’t mean it that way. I mean it more along the lines of where do you see, for other people that are in larger companies, because… And I deal with a lot of kind of mid-market IT guys that, you know, it’s them and five other guys running an entire company. But where do you see some of the biggest holes that can pop up for people, like predictions, I guess, so to speak? Where do you have problems in the network? Or where does, you know, because there’s a lot of communication points. There must be a lot of break points.

Speaker 1 | 14:37.951

Sure. So, you know, the trick, and I think anybody would tell you this, right? It’s. whether it’s in standard IT or IT security, is you use a defense in-depth model and you try to have redundancies and things like that because of the nature of what we do in the oil and gas world. You know, we have a lot of equipment that’s remote. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, whether it’s out in the Gulf of Mexico, or it’s, you know, out in the middle of West Texas, or it’s in the middle of Alaska. You know, it’s not right next to your office building with a, you know, wonderful core infrastructure right next to it, right? It’s running off of, you know, satellite technology or cellular technology or something like that. And so we tend to see a lot of problems. When you’re using things like that that aren’t quite as robust as, say, you know, back in the day when you’d walk over and plug in your network cable. And so I think that’s where a lot of it is. I think beyond that, you know, a lot of the places that you start to see gaps is particularly in a COVID world. You know, most companies went from, and Shell did the same, we went from being in the office all the time to being remote. And we did the same thing, you know, with… with folks all over the world. And so you, you amass this strain on your infrastructure that it wasn’t originally designed for. And Shell, I think that did a fantastic job. We’re really fortunate that, you know, when, when a lot of our infrastructure was put in place, it was put in in such a way that it was robust enough to take it. But I think that’s one gap. I think the other place that where people come in and where, when I look at the team, especially the team I have right now, which is, again, one of the best teams I’ve worked with in Shell, or anywhere for that matter. The team has done just a fantastic job of embracing newer technology or newer ways of working, whether it’s the use of artificial intelligence operations, the use of tools that are out there to, at a minimum, help diagnose some issues and sometimes solve the issue. before, you know, a ticket is even created, right? And then we can track that and go back and look after the fact that what happened, but the issue has been solved or at least mostly solved. And so I think companies that aren’t embracing or looking to that kind of, you know, self-healing or AI ops type of exercises are going to struggle, you know, for the coming years. I think that’s really where the next iteration of IT is going to live.

Speaker 0 | 17:27.787

Any suggestions or best practices there?

Speaker 1 | 17:32.430

Yeah. Honestly, talk to the business. Sit down with them and say, what do you experience on a daily basis? So in IT, we tend to get myopically focused on, well, this breaks all the time and this problem occurs all the time. How do we keep that problem from happening? So we put in regular reboots or we put in matching cycles or things on those lines. But a lot of times I think people forget to go to the business and say, hey, what problem do you have with this application or with this area of IT on a regular basis? And you’d be surprised that, you know, you go to the business, you ask them that question, and all of a sudden they go, you know, we do the same 10 steps every day. We pay a guy to sit there and click 11 things and print out this report and, you know, then go back and do the math and check. And all of a sudden you find out, wow, you know, I could literally have someone sit with you for a couple of weeks, learn that process, and we can programmatically put it in place. So that it’s answering your questions in advance or it’s doing these reports for you. And so all of a sudden what they used to use the tool for to get the information that they needed, they realized, but the tool can actually do the work. We don’t need to use the tool. We just have the tool and it does everything for us. And so I think best practice when I sit with your business and ask them, hey, what do you do with our application or what do you do with our service on a regular basis that’s the same all the time? It sounds simple, but I think a lot of people don’t do it.

Speaker 0 | 19:10.356

It’s like the it’s like it’s almost like the example of. what I think Instagram was originally aligned with. Wasn’t it supposed to be like, it originally was like a food app or like take pictures of your food or something like this. Right. And they realized people started using it for all kinds of different things and were using it in a different way. And it took on its own life of its own. It’s almost like, why are you guys using the application or how are you using the application? You’re like, what the heck you’re doing this. You’re doing what you’re having someone manually enter stuff into a spreadsheet after this. Huh?

Speaker 1 | 19:50.319

and you’re emailing it you oftentimes find out right that they’re using that application in a way that you know By the way, there’s this other thing over here that you could use that is 100 times easier and would save your day. But yeah, exactly. You find out that they take what you give them and they’re doing all these additional pieces of work. Whereas you could say, well, we could do all that and just give you what it is you’re looking for.

Speaker 0 | 20:18.070

You have a significant history. How much did the MBA help? Or did it help from a standpoint of, I got an MBA. I can say I have an MBA. What has been the single biggest, most helpful thing in your career slash turning point? What is the thing that, the first thing that comes to mind is the single biggest learning moment. It was when I went to Staples and realized I had made the wrong decision. No. Not saying anything wrong with Staples. I shop there all the time.

Speaker 1 | 20:57.959

Well, I’ll tell you, it was not the NBA, although the NBA was helpful. I think what the NBA gave me was the constant sort of business mindset instead of just looking at, you know, somebody comes to you and says, write this code or do this thing or make this happen.

Speaker 0 | 21:17.768

You might ask, why? Why am I writing this stupid code? That’s dumb. Well,

Speaker 1 | 21:21.909

the MBA gave me the mindset. And you start to learn, you know, for example, when you talk to people in IT and you say, okay, well, give me the cost benefit analysis of what it is you’re trying to do. And they look at you like you’ve got three eyes. They don’t know what it is that you’re asking. And so the MBA gave me some of those tools. And, you know, I can easily sit and explain to a business person, here’s how much we can save you. make for you, et cetera. But that wasn’t the thing. I’ll be very candid. What the thing was that I think made the difference for me in my career. And it only happened a few years ago as I went through reserve officer candidate school and no officer candidate school is a literally, you know, it’s leadership in a, in a very high pressure, you know, pressure cooker environment. Uh, and you have to learn quickly. how to fail forward, how to be willing to make mistakes, how to correct people, you know, how to drive to a, to an outcome. That was, I think the thing that has been driven more of my success.

Speaker 0 | 22:25.289

Can you just paint a picture? Can you just tell a story? I walked into a room, this is what it started. Like they threw us into a pool with a weight belt on and said, survive. I mean, what, I mean, what, what was it like?

Speaker 1 | 22:37.554

Um,

Speaker 0 | 22:38.834

what was so like, what was so crazy? What was so stressful? Was it a gun to your head mentality? I mean, this is what you’re saying. This is kind of like.

Speaker 1 | 22:47.457

No, but for, well, here’s the thing. So for the entire program, you’re basically told, and I won’t give you a specific instance here soon, but basically told that you’re failing to meet the graduation criteria. You’re just failing. You’re failing, you’re failing, you’re failing. And my best story.

Speaker 0 | 23:10.367

It sounds like my philosophy of fatherhood. You’re a failure. Do better.

Speaker 1 | 23:17.102

Well, so it was through the reserve program, so we had a weekend. So my first weekend, Bill, I’m not a runner, and I struggled with my two-mile run and that kind of thing. And we get to the end of our first weekend, and the instructor says to me, Hey, Tank, how do you feel it went? Because they couldn’t say Sputankos if they’d be short. how do you feel it went? And I said, well,

Speaker 0 | 23:43.021

they said, Hey, tank.

Speaker 1 | 23:45.083

Yeah. It’s an awesome name now that’s stuck early on. It’s still there. And they said, listen, what, what is it? Or they said, how do you think it went? I said, well, I’m not a runner and I get my runtime and I know I have a lot to learn and I know I have a lot to improve on. Uh, but I was glad that I made that run and the instructor says to me, are you ready for some feedback? And I said, yes, sir. And he goes, you’re fat. you’re slower you’re ready for some more and he didn’t laugh and what it is is for six months you have somebody who pushes you farther than you would have ever thought you could go and and it culminates in you know a very trying final field exercise that you know mentally and physically pushes you pretty well and coming out of that you really just was it all a physical aspect was it all was it all cardio

Speaker 0 | 24:40.416

What was it?

Speaker 1 | 24:41.416

What was it? No, honestly, I would say the hardest part of it is mental. You know, the physical is the physical. I mean, yes, you run. Yes, you climb things. Yes, you carry.

Speaker 0 | 24:51.643

Mental how? Mental toughness? Mental, like, I’m going to quit? I feel like quitting?

Speaker 1 | 24:55.646

No, exactly. The closest I ever came to quitting was literally the last night. Why? You know, you go through this whole process. First of all, I was so cold. I’ve never been that cold. And we were, you know, out. We’d been out for, I can’t remember how long. And we’re just laying on the ground waiting for the morning. And I remember the instructors are sitting over in this truck, right? And the truck’s running and they’re nice and warm. I just thought.

Speaker 0 | 25:22.405

Eating a Big Mac.

Speaker 1 | 25:23.766

I could be in there and just sleep and warm. And so much of me just. wanted to walk away. Um, just, I just be in a miserable state, but I knew this is it. I just got to push through this. Right. And so you just, I learned that, that I can do anything. But the other thing that I learned through the whole program is how to lead people, right. And how to get people motivated. And I think as it leaders, we don’t always do that. I mean, I’ve worked with some it leaders who, you know, they, they know all the cloud jargon. They know all the, all the the technology and the words.

Speaker 0 | 26:00.291

Okay. So what is it? How do you lead people?

Speaker 1 | 26:05.514

Well, that’s a complicated question.

Speaker 0 | 26:08.256

Do you push them? Do you push them? Do you push their buttons? Do you push them? Do you encourage them to go beyond, step out of their comfort zone?

Speaker 1 | 26:14.521

Do you think the most important thing you got to do is, I think if, if you, I have worked for leaders who led me through intimidation and I’ve worked for leaders who inspired me and I would. go a hundred extra miles for the guy who inspired me or the gal who inspired me. I think if you try and push, if you’re a pusher, the people aren’t going to react to that. And you see it. I think if you inspire your people, if you give them a vision and you get out of the way, you know, you don’t micromanage them. You don’t tell them, Hey, you can’t do that. You say, I can give it a shot. And then the important thing I think after you, you open the opportunity, you encourage them is man, you better take the hit. you better give them air cover. So, you know, I tell my team, look, if you want to go do something, you do it. And if it doesn’t work, I will be the one who takes the hit you want.

Speaker 0 | 27:07.543

That’s powerful. I’m trying to link, I’m trying to connect the dots from you’re fat and slow and do you want some more to inspire? I am trying to connect how you learned. And I’m freezing and I want to give up and quit. I’m trying to connect the dots that you learned inspire from that. Connect the dots for me. How did you come out of that with inspire?

Speaker 1 | 27:42.003

Sure. I think the most important thing is when they’re telling you those things, when they’re pushing you, when you’re constantly in trouble, you’re constantly harassed. constantly under pressure, but then you finish, right? You get to the end, you graduate, and those same men and women who pushed you and were just, just, were all over your butt, right? Come up to you and they just say to you, man, you are impressive. You took everything we gave you. You stood up to the forces. you know, listened, you learned, you improved. And we’re just, you know, all of a sudden they tell you they’re tremendously proud of you. And when you’ve gotten to that point where you have those people saying that they’re proud, the inspiration and respect that you have for those people is tremendous. And this is, look, this is how the military works, right? They, when you come in, they break you down a fair amount. They get you to a place where you’re moldable. And then you start to learn the right way to do things. And so when I had those opportunities and then they taught me how to do, and then it works, you know, you go out in the field and you lead men and women and you, you show them how to do things and you, you give them the intent and then you let them do it. It’s just, it’s an amazing process to watch occur. But I think when it translates to business and where I get to the, to the from your fat and slow to inspire people is we all go through adversity. And I think when you are open and honest with your team about challenges that you are facing as an IT leader and things that you’re going through, hey, we have a problem. And I need you as a team to help me solve this problem. And you’re vulnerable and you’re open, which, you know, going through a program like that where you’re very vulnerable and you’re wide open and they see everything. The people respond and they… they react to it. And so I think, you know, I’ve been open and honest with my team and I’ve said, these are the problems that we’re having. These are the things we’ve got to face. And COVID, it’s how are we going to do things when we can’t do it the way we used to. Uh, and so it’s, it’s a lot of integrity and a lot of openness.

Speaker 0 | 30:09.724

I can see, I don’t disagree with anything that you’ve said. And I’ve learned all that stuff, like the hard way myself. And even this morning, I was ready to quit in round four of jujitsu practice at five minutes. And I was at the end of this round and there was a kid that was. clearly in much better shape than me, much younger than me, really good cardio. And I have been out of jujitsu for like six months and my cardio is way behind and I was sucking wind big time, but I’m a purple belt and he was a white belt. And there was absolutely no way that I was going to give up or lose for that matter, but I really wanted to. I was… dying in my mind and I was absolutely stalling for the last 30 seconds. So I can feel the pain. I can still feel the pain now and I feel so great now after, you know, kind of like that, you know, adrenaline, whatever it is, you know, the natural endorphins, whatever it is. Anyways, I completely agree with being vulnerable, being a vulnerable leader. I completely agree with inspire versus intimidate because everyone, can remember that boss that they absolutely hated and is like, I will never do that. And we do all go through adversity. So what about the people that never had to go through that pain and suffering like you went through? It’s just okay. We’re just going to inspire them anyways. We’re going to let them fail forward or we’re going to throw them into a situation where they can drown, but we’re going to throw them a life vest last minute or watch them swim to shore and survive.

Speaker 1 | 31:54.604

No, I think in that scenario where you reach those people, someone who may be a third party, the way you lead them and the way you work with them, you know, so let’s take IT, for example. I will go to people on my team, many of whom, I think almost all of them have not been through the military, and I’ll say to them, okay, you know, strategically, here’s what we want to do, right? So let’s take the AI ops space. I could go to them and say, hey, I want you to come to a point to where most of your tickets are solved or at least diagnosed partially, you know, before you even touch it. So it could be scripts. I don’t know. You’re smarter than I am. You figure it out. And then you say, by the way, take as long as you need to do this. But, you know, we’ve got to balance priorities. Talk to me about your priorities. Take as long as you need to do this. If you need money, let’s talk about what you need. And then when it doesn’t work, when there’s a challenge, and, you know, my boss comes to me and says, you did all this, you spent all this time, it didn’t work. What were you doing? Hey, that was my decision. Don’t be mad at the team. Don’t be mad at them. And when you do things like that, your team gets inspired by the fact that they see someone. who gives them the chance to try something, right? So in military training, right, the whole goal is go try this, go make an effort at it, give it a shot. If you fail, we’re here. You know, particularly as we’re going through officer candidate school, they would tell you, fail, please fail. We want you to fail because we’ll teach you what happens when you fail. And it’s better that you fail now in school than you go out as a leader and you fail in, you know, the real world, if you will. And so for me, when I say to my team, go try. get a lab, do this stuff, see if it works, see if we can do something that nobody has done before. I think you all of a sudden will see a team that gets inspired. They’re excited. They want to do it. And in turn, they’re learning that same method of leadership. They’re learning that same method of IT behavior, if you will. And they go down the road and they can do the same thing, hopefully, for a team that they run. So, you know, in your jujitsu moment, what you may not have known is there was… Probably someone in that class who saw you, right? But saw you not give up and saw you keep fighting. That guy you taught something to or that guy you taught. So it’s not always the direct person you’re working with. Other people.

Speaker 0 | 34:38.012

Really trying to apply this to fatherhood. I really am.

Speaker 1 | 34:43.294

If you figure that out, I got three kids. You can tell me. Because I don’t always.

Speaker 0 | 34:48.621

Don’t fail that test. I tell my wife that all the time. Just let them fail. Stop doing their homework for them. Dang it. You don’t have to correct their spelling. Let it come back butchered by the teacher with red circles around it and wrong and omit needless words. And this is wrong and that’s wrong. Let them fail. let me sign them up now sign them up now maybe I didn’t learn maybe I didn’t maybe I didn’t get the inspire message there I was me more inspiring my wife to let them fail this was so great I don’t even want to I don’t even want to go any further, Tank, because you’ve inspired me. I mean, really, this is one of the much better conversations that we’ve had around IT leadership in a long time. Any suggestions for people out there listening? Should we go have them live in the Navy SEAL for a month? No,

Speaker 1 | 36:02.944

but I’ll tell you what, it’s funny you say that. If anyone wants to go in… learn about being inspired and learn about how to lead and learn about how to, you can do things that you may have never thought you could do. And I think it’s applicable in any, any line of work, including IT, including military, there’s a book and it’s called can’t hurt me by David Goggins. And if you’re going to listen, if you’re going to do it, listen to the audio book. Now I’m going to forewarn you that if you don’t like foul language, don’t get the audio book because it is chock full of foul language. So anyone who listens to the podcast, if you’re going to have your feelings hurt, this is not the book for you. But this is a guy, and I’ll give you the 10 second version of it. He was, you know, in his, I think late 20s or, yeah, I think late 20s, maybe early 30s. He was a 300 plus pound exterminator and he became a Navy SEAL. And then he went on to do some amazing things. And his story. about how he went from that 300-pound exterminator to a Navy SEAL. Half the time you listen to it, all you’re going to say is, this guy has to be lying. But it’s all true.

Speaker 0 | 37:21.147

Did we have a Navy SEAL guy that who’s the Navy SEAL guy on YouTube that calls fake Navy SEALs up, you know, and checks them? He’s like, where was the bell? In relationship to the field, where’s the bell located? And you know what I’m talking about? It’s great.

Speaker 1 | 37:37.232

No, I do. But listen, I would encourage, we listen, we were encouraged to listen to the audio book when we went through Officer Candidate School. It’s a great book. If you listen to that book and you still feel like there are things you can’t do in life, then you just weren’t paying it.

Speaker 0 | 37:53.883

Thank you so much for being on the show. This was great.

Speaker 1 | 37:56.105

Yeah. Hey, anytime.