New Format And Four Pillars

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Cut the Tie. It's 2026, and I'm excited to have my first guest of the year, a repeat offender, John Tiger, John the Dragon Tiger. And he's going to reintroduce himself. But we're going to open up the year here with the new format, the new style for Cut the Tie on your success. And the idea is we're going to be exploring how people are successful and success beyond finances. You know, where we're going to look at faith. We're going to look at how the relationships and wellness. Because for you to truly be successful, what over a thousand interviews has shown me that the people who are truly successful have almost all four of those going in some fashion, in some direction. And they don't look at their success as a destination. They look at it as a way they're going. And every step is a success towards that direction. So, John, uh, welcome back to the show. You rock, man. I appreciate you giving me your time. I know, you know, as a as a former, former person running from Senate, I'll take anybody who uh I'll take all the losers from Senate. I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Like, well, I am a loser, but maybe the chief loser, and I love being on your show. We had a blast the first time around, and thanks for inviting me back.

John’s Military Path And Purpose

SPEAKER_01 1:02

I appreciate it. So uh for those who didn't maybe catch the first one or don't know you, uh introduce yourself, your creds, you know, just brag away.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

No, got it. So I grew up, I was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force, flying F-15Es in combat. I became a test pilot, specifically an F-22 test pilot. And then my last four assignments in the military, I commanded the president's airfield outside of Washington, D.C. That's Joint Base Andrews. I commanded Edwards Air Force Base, which is a place that I call the center of the aerospace testing universe. It's where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947, and it's been at the nexus of every aerospace first since then. I was our nation's senior defense official in Iraq, deployed for 14 months during COVID. And then I ran international affairs for the Air Force and the Space Force. I retired from the military three years ago because I firmly believe that there's something more impactful I can do for my country by being out than staying in. And right now I do a lot of keynote speaking, a lot of writing, a lot of national security interviews on place like Fox News and a little bit of consulting, all revolving around national security, international affairs, leadership, innovation, or advanced technology.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

And it's amazing, career. And in uh I've said this before. Anybody who has a call sign of the dragon has done something pretty damn cool because they don't they don't hand out the cool ones to anybody.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Well, so I don't know. I got really lucky in my squadron in 1998. It's where I got my call sign. They tried to give cool sounding names based on something stupid you did. And so mine is a really cool sounding name, but it's based on something stupid. And all I will tell you is that it has to do with Zirgo Spain and nuclear weapons, and I'll leave it at that.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

That's gonna be a headline for one of the posts for sure. Some guy nuclear weapons and what he blew up. What? It has to be fire involved, people. I mean, there's the only way, unless it's gold, different kind of dragon, or Lord of the Rings. But anyway, we'll we'll check that for now. Um, your new focus, or not new focus, but something you've really become really active and passionate about is is this idea of in God we trust, this idea of faith, and as not just a national kind of cliche, but as like an everyday American belief system that you deliver. Is I know I'm probably way shortening that, but this is where you're going in 2026, how you're defining success on that path of faith, relationships, and you're gonna make money on it. So it ties it kind of all together. Is tell me about this a little bit, what you're doing with it.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yeah, well, Thomas, first of all, I think that everyone should define success by doing what you're designed or supposed to do, and doing so relentlessly, pursue it without holding back. And so right now I feel like as I balance my life in a variety of ways, that the first big project for this year, something that we've been working on now, my pastor and I in Washington, D.C. for the last several months, is publishing this book for our nation's 250th birthday. This is our nation's 250th birthday, and we're excited about that. And in about a month, we are publishing a book that's entitled, In God I Trust, making our national motto my personal declaration. And so it's going to be a combination American history book because there's a lot of American history that gets lost somewhere and that Americans need to know about. But also, how do we make sure that we as individuals are trusting our Lord and God like our nation was founded on based on our principles? And I'm excited to see that work roll out and how that makes an impact as a birthday present back to the citizens of this great nation during this important 250th year.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

You know, when people hear these ideas of God or faith or whatever else, and you know, as I'm writing a book in the chapter, I struggle with do I just make it a Christian book or do I say, hey, faith is just a higher power, something bigger you believe in? Likely, you know, my opinion, we're probably all praying to some same God. But the the idea is how do you approach that uh the idea of God in the in in in the stroke of every American?

Spiritual Resilience And Higher Purpose

SPEAKER_00 5:01

So, Thomas, I don't mind that this is an explicitly Christian book. The worldview of our founders was biblically based. And so we don't mind or shy away from the fact that this is fundamentally a book about the Christian foundation of this nation, which is trusting in God and how we should apply that as Christians in our own life. But I do think that there's an interesting nuance here. And one of the four pillars of resilience in the United States Air Force is a spiritual pillar of resilience. In fact, I think I can name all four of them. It is physical, social, spiritual, and mental. And the idea is that if you shore up every one of those four areas, then now you're on a solid foundation so you can be resilient when the challenges come your way. But that spiritual pillar of resilience isn't necessarily explicitly religious. The idea is that everybody needs to have a higher purpose. There needs to be something greater than yourself that you are here to serve. In part in the military, that's easy. It's important and defend the Constitution of the United States and our great nation. But I think spiritual, in my particular case, certainly revolves around my belief in Christ. But I think in general, it helps me understand that I am here serving something far greater than myself. And everybody, regardless of your religious affiliation or whether you have one or not, needs to understand that we should be motivated by a higher purpose or set of values or something that is greater than ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

I agree with the uh context that definitely higher value. And I think when when as I'm writing my own book here, I'm thinking, do I do I make it specifically like, hey, I not so much it should be Christian, but I take that foundations of just kindness, love, things like this. And and to me, that's just kind of applies everywhere. So I applaud that you were like, hey, I'm I'm non unapologetic about it. I'm trying to figure it out. So I always ask people these questions of how they kind of deal with that piece, but for yours, it's specifically, you're right, you're tying it back to a foundation and that was definitely around Christ. It was a Christian-based piece that accepted every other religion. That's the other thing with it. So that's that's the amazing uh version of Christianity that the United States came came with. Because I don't think that was always everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

No, in fact, it certainly wasn't. And the idea that our religious beliefs as Christians created a nation that respected and provided dignity to everybody, whoever you were, and whatever you believed. And I think that is something that is extra special about this great nation. And I'm excited that some of that comes out in this book in God I Trust.

Loving Enemies Under Pressure

SPEAKER_01 7:41

I mean, if you if just to dive into a little, so if you look at the teachings of Jesus, right? You were supposed to, you know, make a plate for your enemy and wash feet. And if you look at other religions as an enemy, then you're supposed to act as Christ, and then that's great. So accept it and and help, you know, which is interesting because you're in the military. So how do you get a crack? We'll go down that route. How you like, you know, I'm gonna blow these guys up. Now I love them.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I'm afraid now, now I will tell you there's an interesting nuance here, and I would uh encourage your listeners to read Matthew 5, 44. Uh, it's a verse that tells us that for our enemies, we should do four things. We should love them, pray for them, do good to them, and bless them. And I actually got very publicly attacked for my faith in 2018, right after I pinned on One Star General. And this particular individual that published in Newsweek and made a big deal out of a small ministry that I had, encouraging Christians to pray for our nation and our leaders. But the thing that God impressed upon my heart the first day after this very public attack was that this individual, even though he may hate me, I need to actively pray for. And in fact, this morning, as a part of my daily prayer list, I pray for that individual by name. And I did so this morning because it's part of the command that we are given in that verse, Matthew 5, 44.

Founders’ Bible Literacy And Liberty

SPEAKER_01 9:01

That's impressive. I will I will give it to you. Not everyone's going to take that route in life for sure. But I think, I think, you know, as part of your book, are you taking some of the history as it ties to is the through line the biblical ties and the history components that maybe have been lost because of just modern-day society not wanting to talk about those things? Or tell me about that. Tell me how you may actually differently asked, how does the history tie to that through line?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, and and I'm excited because I wrote it as a co-author with my pastor. And so I am uniquely qualified to talk about some of these patriotic elements of US history. And he is certainly qualified to talk about the spiritual application of those broader principles. But maybe just one story that I think people don't know about, which was something that happened on July 4th, 1776, in addition to signing the Declaration of Independence, that the first Continental Congress established a three-person committee to create our first national seal. And those three people were Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. And they independently went about their design of our national seal. And Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, as recorded in Adams' letters to his wife, created signals or signs as a part of the motto that were equivalent to the Israelites escaping captivity in Egypt. And they were following the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and they had gotten across the Red Sea. And I love the idea that our founders, even those that sometimes we consider secular or more secular, like Jefferson and Franklin, understood the Bible well enough to see that our nation was an analog to Israelites escaping from slavery and making their way to the promised land. And our promised land is liberty. And I love the idea that on July 4th, 1776, our founders had the vision that we were in some ways equivalent to God's promise to the Israelites that if we follow his pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, we'll find ourselves in the promised land.

Focus Without Distraction Builds Legacy

SPEAKER_01 11:18

I look back on those times and I'd be like, man, they got a lot of stuff done for not having a lot of attack. Like, you know, if you need to send a message to somebody that was on a horse, took a few days, hopefully it got there, anybody read it. I don't know. And you know, you look at what they did and accomplished in a lifetime. It is it it's mind blowing, really, to me. It's because it's like because it seems like, okay, yeah, I can see that today because people can communicate and talk through it. But I feel like they moved with such swift, like uh like resolve. Like this is what we're doing. Like do you do you do you have a history or anything on that that talks about how they did it? I mean, I feel like they made decisions that would take uh 20 terms to do right now.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

I think that they were more deliberate and intentional about not being distracted, or maybe the environment helped them because we didn't have distractions like phones in our pockets, or they didn't. And one of the things that maybe was most telling along those lines, Thomas, was that when I was deployed for 14 months to Iraq, I got a copy of um the letters between John and Abigail Adams for my wife to read. And I read the same book while I was deployed. And people don't know that John Adams was away from his wife, separated from his wife for nine of the 27 years surrounding our nation's independence, including 44 months at one time. All they had was letters. They didn't have texts, they didn't have emails, they didn't have FaceTime, they didn't have Zoom. They had to sit down and think about how I am going to sustain this relationship by the written word. And those letters are fascinating. But I think they were so focused because they didn't have the distractions that now have caused us to try to do everything at once and we're really doing nothing well. And I love that those letters are a great revelation of when you focus and when something is important to you, then you actually get far more done than when you're trying to juggle a whole bunch of things and distractions weigh in.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

That that's so pointed. And I think if uh, you know, I try to tie by the ideas of success itself. If you want to be successful, you know, you got to think in that term. Like you only have so much ink in this quill and this pen and this little and that candle is only so tall for me to ride tonight. Yep. I gotta make use of that time and that amount of resources I have today and and and repeat. So, and I I think there was also a bigger draw to legacy back then, too. I think people really, especially people of power, really wanted to be known and remembered by something more so than ever. Uh, does that come out at all in the history as well, that this this need to be the guy that did this or this woman who did that?

Priorities Show Up In Time

SPEAKER_00 13:54

I think that just the fact that James Madison in the Constitutional Convention decided all on his own to take notes during the entirety of the Continental Convention, uh the Constitutional Convention, not because they needed real-time his notes. There was a scribe that was tracking what was going on, but he wanted to capture the environment or the culture. And he actually says in his postscript to those notes that he has published that he's doing this because this is going to be a telling monument for the rest of human history to what it looks like to diligently strive towards liberty and ordering a country and a government around those thoughts. And so certainly just the nature that he took those notes is an indication that he understood the power of legacy. But going back a little bit to something you started that question with, Thomas, is that the most egalitarian thing is that we've all got the exact same amount of time. And the difference between maybe success or not quite being successful enough is that you use the time you have to accomplish the things that you're supposed to accomplish. Herb Keller was the founder and president of Southwest Airlines, and I fly a lot on business to speak, and I tend to fly Southwest a lot, but he said that you can tell what someone's real priorities are by looking at two things, their calendar and their checkbook. Don't look at what they say their priorities are. Don't look at a mission statement on a wall. Look at how they spend their most valuable resources of time first and money second. And by doing so, you can really tell what someone's priorities are. And you and I can say my priority in 2026 is to do X. But unless we're intentionally investing our time and our resources to doing it, then it's not really our priority. And I love the idea that you can tell someone's priorities by looking at two things, their calendar and their checkbook.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Uh, and if I actually looked at that, it doesn't look like I'm very bogused on it.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Uh, me neither. It it's a girl or boy. Yep. Yep. And I think having feedback loops in our life where we self-assess, not just annually, not just at resolution time, but maybe every two weeks or every month. And we say, this is what I think my priorities are or what I've said they are. How am I doing in spending my time and my financial resources into accomplishing the things that are important? And that gives you a chance to correct so you can get back on the right path, maybe to accomplishing things like our forefathers did 250 years ago.

Debriefs And Feedback Loops That Win

SPEAKER_01 16:29

You know, and it uh that's that's fantastic advice because at any point you can kind of start over. And so right now you need to spend the money on this or start spending it on that. You can start using your time, you know, more effectively and efficiently instead of Netflix, you go read a book on something that helps you advance the next thing or whatever it will be. Uh or spending it.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Let me give a recommendation on that, Thomas, if you don't mind. I served for 28 years in the Air Force. I was a fighter pilot. I love flying F-15Es and F-22s. But the last time that an American military member was killed on the ground by a manned adversary from the air was April 15th, 1953, 72 years, coming up on 73 years ago. And people wonder why. How have we been so dominant in the air domain for the last 73 years? And is it the great planes that we fly? Well, maybe in part. Is it people that are really good pilots that we train well? Maybe in part. But every single sortie, Thomas, I have ever flown, we start with a brief. These are the objectives of the mission, whether training, test, or combat. Here's how we're going to accomplish it. Then we go out and execute. And at the end of the mission, we come back in that same room and we look at what were our objectives? How did we do when we fell short? What was the root cause? And how can we do better and set up processes or procedures or communicate better so that we don't see those shortcomings that erode our elements of objectives the next time we go out? That process sometimes lasts as long as you fly, sometimes two times as long, sometimes three times as long, sometimes four times as long. The reason we are so dominant as an Air Force or in the air is in part good planes and in part good pilots, but it is having this relentless feedback loop where we brief to objectives, we execute, and every single time we go back and assess and we try to get to root cause dispassionately. And I love that idea for us as human beings in our businesses, in our teams, with our families, have a process where you go back and do an after action or a hot wash or a debrief. Hold yourself accountable to your stated objectives and get to root cause when you fall short.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

You speak to an unspoken piece there, which is leadership of the objective itself and the actual attainability of it. Uh and given the resources and constraints of where you are at the time of technology time training. How important though is that leadership of is that even possible? So it's like because yes, you guys spell short, but like we just flew faster and did this more than any. You could have broken every record in the world, but if you didn't get the objective done, because it was just truly not attainable.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Yeah, and I think maybe in a good debrief, you would assess not just how you did against the objective, but the objective itself. You know, some people say the difference between leadership and management is leaders do the right things and managers just do things right. Meaning you focus as a leader on what should I be spending my time or my organization's time and money on instead of micromanaging how did I do against a particular written metric or objective? There are people that can be really efficient headed in the wrong direction. We need to first be headed in the right direction and then do our best to get there. And if that right direction is unattainable, then maybe there are stepping stones that we need to first say are our near-term objectives that we need to achieve first before we do something more grandiose that right now seems unachievable.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

You know, uh I define success as this idea of it's a it's not uh destination, it's a direction. So it's it's a way you go. And you know, I try to bring in the different lenses beyond just finances. And I've talked about this with wellness and and and relationships and uh, you know, finances are important, obviously too and faith. You know, what I find when I'm not feeling successful, one or more of those is completely lacked, missing, or disregarded. In your own life, have you found at times that you're like, I'm really I've let this go. I why am I doing it? Like you feel like a set, like there's something off and you know what it is, and then you just take a step, you do one of your debrief kind of ideas. Have you ever had that in your life? Because you've been very successful, but you've had, you know, uh leaders eat last, right? So so tell me about that a little bit where maybe you've realized that and what you did about it.

Two-Week Reviews And Realignment

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah, Thomas, back in 2006, I was ending my first assignment as a test pilot in the F-22. I was a brand new dad. We had two babies at home. We were flying six days a week because we were behind in creating the F-22 into the capability that was operationally capable. And I would get to the end of a day or a week or a month, and I'd look back and say, wow, I was really busy, but what did I accomplish? And I hated that feeling. And so I created some structures in my own life where now I create, I looked at universally what are the priority areas of my life. I set annual goals to fulfill those priority areas. And then every two weeks or so, I sit down uninterrupted and I look back and say, how am I doing against my annual priorities and goals? I also set two week goals. How am I doing against those? And what do I need to adjust for the next two week period of time so I can do a better job? And I think as I list out my priority areas. Which are faith, family, friends, country, career, ministry opportunities, and miscellaneous relationships. I realize at the end of those two weeks when I self-assess, I never have nailed it. I'm never perfectly aligned to those priority areas and achieving the goals within those priority areas. But I'm far better aligned than if I didn't have the feedback loop. And this every two-week period, actually, it's on my calendar now for the next one. I just did my previous one, the 26th of January. I will sit down for two hours and I'll assess. And it's important that we have that feedback loop. And that helps me overcome that problem I noticed in my life in 2006. And it allows me to regularly correct every couple of weeks so that I'm doing things better and better things in the next period of time than I did in the previous period of time.

Finding Purpose Through Convergence

SPEAKER_01 22:54

And you're um you have a fundamental thing. I'll go back to the very beginning of energy here because you said something of, hey, you should do what you're putting this earth to do and do it pretty much relentlessly. I'm maybe summarizing up. Help the person who's going, yes, but what is it am I on this earth to do?

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah, so so I appreciate that. And you know, as a dad, one of my desires is how do I help my kids figure out the answer to that question? Part of it, the spiritual part is pray about it. But a part of it is, at least with my kids, how do I expose them to enough opportunities so we can figure out where there's a convergence on what are they good at, what do they like doing, what do they see themselves sustainably doing for a long period of time, and where do they feel the Lord directing them? And I think at some point, hopefully they now are all in college or out of college, they have figured a part of that out. But part of it is I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, Thomas. And so I continually assess, all right, what am I good at? What do I like? What do I see myself sustainably doing? And where do I see the Lord directing me? And I think if we think about those things and pray about them and ask mentors to talk to us about them, then we're better able to figure out what is my purpose. So then I can relentlessly pursue that thing that I'm supposed to be pursuing because it is because it is my purpose.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

One of the ideas that I I kind of share with people, I get vast this question too, and I love how you answered it, because it it it it's it relates to. So if you don't know what to go do, and if you think, okay, if I if you head in a direction, what's gonna hold you back? And you and you list, okay, those don't do anymore. Or you, you know, if for example, I don't have enough money, if I had all the money in the world, I would just answer that question. Uh-huh. And then because that's telling you where your light really is. That tells you really the direction you want to travel, but you're being dragged or pulled some other direction. And if you say, I if I had all the money, I don't know what I would do, then you may be leaning towards once you discover faith a little bit, it seems like you have no bigger purpose. Uh what do you like people to do for you? And like, and so the idea is if you don't know, even with no obstacles in place, uh, that tells you there's probably a part of you that's missing a bigger purpose. And and I guess this idea of of for me with these ideas of cut the ties is as you start moving in direction, the these unseen ties start revealing themselves. They start pulling you like, well, this person in my life, this person I'm married to or dating, or or this parent, they're whole they they won't let me go. Those are the hard decisions you might have to make in life to go. And and and that's that's like so so the question to you is on the hard ones, have you run into a few of those that you're like, I love this person or I love this thing, or I have to let it go?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah, I think that I have been pretty good throughout my life, Thomas, especially because as a 17-year-old, I jumped into the military doing ROTC, that I had that structure for the better part of the entirety of my adult life.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Let me interrupt you, but do it this way that have you managed or led somebody that you had to get them through that?

Tactically Content Strategically Restless

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Yeah, yeah. So, so one of the things I love talking to people about is when they're trying to figure out what is it that they're supposed to do, or how do I structure my life now so it best propagates this ability to achieve a purpose, that I tell them to be tactically content, but strategically restless. In fact, that came from an astronaut friend of mine, not that phrase, but when I was struggling a little bit with what am I supposed to do with my life and how do I structure my life appropriately, kind of as a captain in the Air Force, he directed me to Psalm 119-105. Thy word shall be a lamp under my feet and a light under my path. And the idea is you have a fuzzy idea of where you're supposed to go in the future, but you have a spotlight on what it is that you're supposed to do now, whatever it is that you've been placed here to do, that I'm in a job or I'm a student, or I'm a dad, or I'm a church member. There's a spotlight right there. Don't sacrifice the opportunity today to make an impact because you're always looking somewhere down the road in the future. You don't know what the future is gonna hold. There's a lot of zigs and zags in life between me being here now and maybe the ultimate dream or desire. And that dream or desire is never gonna come to fruition if I don't relentlessly focus on being an expert and being a good human being today at what I'm supposed to do. And so the times that I think people get distracted or they're following a really good long-range goal, but they're so focused on that that they miss out on the opportunity for impact now and the doors never open because they're never the one that people trust to do the thing right now. And that's one of the things that I think I focus on most when I mentor people is to be tactically content. Do what it is that you're supposed to do today, and a little bit of strategic restlessness will help you make sure that you're generally vectored towards the right position in the future.

unknown 28:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

The metaphor I give of people that is if you're driving on a trip, you relentlessly stare at the map, you wreck. Yes. If you relentlessly stare in the rearview mirror, you wreck. I love that. Yep. Just stay in the road, look a little ahead, have a good old general accession of where you've been, where you're gonna go, and we may have to make an exit.

Put Your Mask On First

SPEAKER_00 28:18

So yes. And while you do that, and this was a chief master sergeant that gave me this great recommendation is make sure that you put your mask on first. Here's what I mean by that. You travel on an airplane, maybe that Southwest Airline flight that I was telling earlier. Oh, you're out there, pretty united. Like you produce fly on the ballot, Spirit Frontier. I mean, I don't know. But say you lose oxygen and pressurization in the cabin, you're told to put your mask on first. And here's why. Because if you start trying to help other people, you're gonna quickly become incapacitated and you're not gonna be a help to yourself or anyone else. In fact, you'll be a burden to other people. While we are pursuing our purpose, we need to make sure we're doing those things in our lives that put our own mask on first so that we can help other people because we're living our lives sustainably and we're not becoming a burden to others. We're actually relieving their burdens because we've taken care of ourselves first.

Restlessness After Leaving Structure

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Correct. That all works. All right. What is it today you're most struggling with?

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Wow. I will say that three years ago I retired from the Air Force. I did so because I firmly believe there's something greater I can do in my life's purpose to maximize my impact on people in our nation than I did in uniform. And I think as I as I am making an impact today, I'm tactically content that I think sometimes I get a little bit restless of the what does God want me to do next? Or should I run for governor? Should I run for the next Senate seat? Or am I waiting on an appointed position? I don't know the answer to all of those things. But sometimes, Thomas, my challenge today is that I get a little too restless. And that means that sometimes I'm not making the best possible impact that I should be making today.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

It's because you've now you've lost the structure, but the structure of a lot of the time of your day has been pivoted. And now you're in this world that we all live in of just madness.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Yeah, but there's there's no real constraints, right? I mean, we used to say in the military, you've got constraints day to day, but you also are told the next time it's time to move. Now we know that we're gonna move to X location and we're gonna have movers that move us there. And now we don't have those constraints. I've got a wife that has an incredible job as a chemistry professor at the Naval Academy here in Annapolis. So we have that structure. But for me, I really cannot wait until I see the manifestation of what it is I'm supposed to do big next. Uh, but I need to make sure that I don't sacrifice the here and now as I wait and prepare for that opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

That's awesome. John, thank you so much for coming on. Uh let everybody know who do you want to get a hold of you and how do you want them to do that for this year?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, Thomas, I have a website, johntickert.com, all one word. I know you'll put it in the show notes. There's a free newsletter on there, and I encourage your listeners to sign up for. Like I said, I do a lot of keynote speaking on those topics: leadership, innovation, national security, international affairs, and advanced technology. If there's ever anything I can do for someone out there, then please have them reach out directly. And I love being on your show, Thomas. Thanks for having me on and helping me learn in my life how to cut the tie.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

I appreciate having you. And listen, every and everybody who's still listening at this point, uh, definitely check out um his website. I got it up over here. Um, I'll be joining the newsletter here shortly. Thank you for letting me know that was available. And uh listen, get out there, go, go figure out the direction of success you want to be in. If you if you're listening to the show, you have an idea that you want to be successful, but something's off. Think of the areas of faith and family or or or your your relationships and in your finances and also in just your health, wellness, and figure out what is kind of missing. And I bet that's an idea of where you could start cutting ties and getting your uh idea of success in order, because the more successes you find in those are categories, the clearer it becomes, I think, of where you need to go. I think that that that creates the the space you need. And John, you've definitely nailed it out. But thank you again so much for uh for being on today.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Thomas, keep having me back. I love being on. All right, cheers. Have a great one. Thanks for listening, guys. Get out there, cut a tie.