Navigating Life's Uncharted Skies with Jason O. Harris

Join us on this transformative journey with Jason O. Harris, where we unravel the intricate layers that contribute to personal and professional success. Jason, a seasoned commercial and US Air Force pilot, delves into his past experiences, highlighting how critical moments from our upbringing to our careers shape our approach to change and success. Listen in as we discuss the value of planning for the future, tackling the fear of career transitions, and the actionable steps one can take when preparing for significant life shifts.

We love to hear from you about the challenges and changes you are navigating, or any other thoughts, insights, question or celebrations you'd like to share!

Be in touch!
kat@koppett.com
john@johnregister.com

Transcript

John Register: If you've ever wondered what it takes to achieve a remarkable success, to overcome obstacles and transform your performance in the face of big change, you're in the right place. 

Kat Koppett: Welcome to Performance Shift, the podcast that will take you on a journey of discovery, exploration and transformation and give you the tools to navigate your own moments of change. 

John Register: I'm John Register, a two-time Paralympic athlete and Combat Army veteran and author. 

Kat Koppett: And I'm Kat Koppett, an organizational consultant, author and improviser. 

John Register: Together, we're going to be sharing our expertise and insights into how we can navigate change and find success in the face of adversity. 

Kat Koppett: You are here with us live. If you're here for watching us on LinkedIn, you can also get a gussied up edited version of our podcast a couple of weeks from now on Apple or Google or anywhere else where you catch your podcasts. 

John Register: Absolutely, and if you've been joined these episodes, please select the notification bell and share it with a friend and let's get in. Good morning to you. Tc, thank you for being on this morning. Invite some friends in. This is going to be a great conversation. Oh my gosh, I can't wait for this one. Today I got one of my most amazing friends on. I love when people just accelerate and take off. Is that the teaser? 

Kat Koppett: That's right. 

John Register: Well, they go deep. They just go deep in their material. They go deep in their material. We're going to talk about a lot of that. He's a commercial airline pilot, motivational speaker, tv personality, us Air Force pilot Thank you for your service, sir and a member of the greatest fraternity ever Omega sign five. And he's the father of Kathy. He has the daddy daughter doughnut dates with his daughter, lena, and has been on the history channel as a subject matter expert on two occasion. And, wow, talk about shifting performance. He has just landed his jet and made it in time for the show, so please welcome the one, the only, Jason O'Harris. Good morning, how are you? Good morning, sir, Good morning sir, indeed, it was a fantastic morning. Yeah, I hope you're doing well. So where in the world are you man? We don't have to say that. But oh my gosh, You're just jet setting, jet setting. 

Jason O. Harris: Yeah, so I am actually in New York City this morning, after landing from a nice long night of flying from Sao Paulo, Brazil, this time around, and then tomorrow night I'm off to Barcelona, Spain. 

John Register: Oh my gosh, can I go? I want to go. 

Jason O. Harris: Come on, let's go, man, there's a room, there's a room. 

John Register: So if you were to begin to tell your story I mean because I mean it's so fast what would you think the most significant moment for an audience is to know. 

Jason O. Harris: Wow, the most significant moment, I would say, man, honestly, I don't have an answer for that, John, like in a reason. I don't have an answer for that because I would be depriving other moments if I made one more significant than the other. Right. And so you know, being a spouse, that is very important in my journey. Being a father, that is very important in my journey. You know. 

Going through Air Force pilot training, that established the foundational pieces, but then backing it up from there going to the Air Force Academy, that was a big deal. But even backing it up there, literally growing up in the inner city streets of Oakland, California, those days were critical to who I am as a person. So I can't necessarily give one specific moment more credibility than the other, because they all work together in cohesion to allow me to be the person I am today, to show up in the way that I show up every single day in life, in business, on TV, with my family, with my daughter, with my wife. All of those things. They work together, man. So I can't necessarily put one in front of the other, unfortunately. 

John Register: No, it's not unfortunate. That's a great answer. To try to sum up who we are in one moment is almost it is impossible question, because we are the sum of the moments that we have had before us. Every moment should have taught us something else. You went on I mean, when we were first meeting about you were just thinking about this transition you were going to make right From Air Force how do I go into civilian world? And this was like way before you even retired from the Air Force. So a lot of people they get to the end of their career and then they start thinking about what's my next step? You were doing this at least seven years prior to leaving the Air Force. So in that moment, what was going on in your head and what caused you to think about that transition, that quote unquote performance shift that you are going to have so far in advance? 

Jason O. Harris: You know, John, as you're asking that question, one of the things that comes to mind is is this particular load master that I flew with, and I remember he was a load master on one of my first combat deployments in the C-130 and he had joined the Air Force right out of high school. And while we're on the deployment, a couple of times he mentioned how afraid of retirement he was. You know, he was a year out from retirement. I remember saying, scotty, you know, man, what's the deal? You knew this moment was coming 19 years ago. He says, yeah, but I didn't plan for it. And he says I'm so afraid of what's on the other side and I don't know what to do and I don't know if I can get out or if I want to get out because I'm afraid. And so I think about that moment in terms of the transition. For me, one of the things that was a driving factor and it's kind of shifted, you know, in terms of my mindset is I never wanted to be poor again. You know, I grew up. I have no idea how my mother made it work. I remember growing up watching her trying to struggle, trying to make ends meet and try to put food on the table and making certain that her kids were taken care of. And so, for me, I never wanted to experience that and then there was this thing that I learned, or these concepts I learned about understanding how to have more than one option. And so, as I made that transition right, you know, as I made that transition, I wanted to make sure that I had the opportunity to go left or I could go right. It did matter, and I had multiple options. That was the thinking when I began to transition off of active duty to become a reservist. So I took care I could feed my family with that. And then I became an airline pilot. I could feed my family with that. And then I started finding these other options throughout the journey that allowed me to be able to decide where I was going to go, so that I had this long runway of transition when it came time for my full military retirement. 

John Register: Yes options. Who knew what's coming up for you, Kat? 

Kat Koppett: Well, I mean, I love so much already and you've talked about, sir I this last thing that you said about options I love. I'm an improviser, professional improviser, and so I love the idea of the combination of planning, sort of knowing that you're not going to really know, planning for the unknown and and giving yourself multiple paths to success, since there's so much we can't control and so much we can't know. But that doesn't mean we can't be thoughtful and prepared. 

Jason O. Harris: No, you know, Kat, it's very interesting that you say that and, by the way, I want to steal your title professional improviser. I think my wife would say that exactly explains who I am. Yeah, to your point. To your point, Kat, like I can't improvise if I don't have a plan. You know, one of the things I think about is that I spent some time in special operations and I was a small airplane expert and we did things where people thought that we were cowboys and it wasn't that we were cowboys. You know, there's this, and I'll take a sidebar. In aviation, what we say, sometimes as a joke, but in all seriousness, is we say I'd rather be lucky than good any day. Right, and here's the thing about it you can't be lucky and you can't improvise to become lucky if you haven't made a plan up front. And so in special operations, we will go out and practice things, and as we practice things, people would think that we were cowboys, because they'd be like why would you do something crazy like that? I'd say, first off, it was all calculated. We made certain that we understood the risk and we took a level of risk that was a measurable level of risk, based on our experience levels, and then we will push those boundaries which would allow us to be lucky in those moments that we had to improvise, because we had options based on how we prepared and based on how we practiced for when we did find ourselves in those crazy scenarios, inside a battle and some of the most random occurrences that a human can refine themselves in. 

John Register: You know, you came to me with one of those options and I remember the conversation. It's like how do you do the speaker thing? And we had a conversation around fighter pilots and heavy pilots and you were saying I just don't have the fighter pilot story. Do you remember that conversation on options? And because I think that was one of the things that helped us take off from your mindset. 

Jason O. Harris: You know, I remember that conversation very clearly. I've often repeated that conversation, John, and the way I recall the conversation was I was doing this thing of what a lot of us as people do. I've looked to the left and I'm looking to the right and I'm comparing who I am to someone else and I'm comparing to what I think I can do in comparison with somebody is already doing. And the way you were able to help me change my mindset and shift my mindset was you said Jason, think about this. Don't look at that person in terms of what they're doing. Look at what your capabilities are, Look at what your skill sets are and focus on that. Don't focus on what they're doing, because that is taking you out of your game. It's kind of like you when you're running the hurdles, when you're running as fast as you can, if you get lost, looking to your left and looking to your right, you're going to miss your step and you're going to miss the hurdle right, and so in life, the same thing is. The way you helped me to change that mindset was you said Jason, stop thinking about what you don't have and focus on what you do have, which is you have combat, experience a significant amount of combat experience. You have unique experience. You have special operations experience. I started going wait a minute, this guy actually knows what he's talking about and literally in those moments in that conversation, you helped me to shift my mindset. And as you helped me to shift my mindset one of the other things you say I was able to have my insight, to see what was possible and what my potential was and what I could actually do with what I had. 

John Register: I think we often get trapped in comparison. I see it so many times and even you know I'll be upfront, I will sometimes keep comparing myself and I have to, you know, slap myself out of it when I'm doing it. Say, stop that, you have a unique set, you're supposed to be in the room where it happens, right, and then you're also supposed to not close the door to that room but keep it open for others. So that's, that's this thing, I think. We think we have to have all the marbles. It has to be in our plate, it has. We have to be able to do these things when, in fact, we have more creativity, when we're just open and we and we're so because we know exactly who we are, we know exactly our capabilities, and then what else might be even possible? You do this a lot in improv. 

Kat Koppett: You both are naming a couple of improv core, improv principles. One is the most famous one of just yes anding, which just means accepting whatever exists and building with it. So this is what I've got, this is what is true for me. I don't have you know. There's no point saying, oh, I wish it were different or I wish I were that person, this, these are the offers that I have. What can I grow and build with that? How do I create with that? And then, connected to that, the other thing I'm hearing is sometimes in improv we say dare to be obvious, dare to be boring, right that our originality and creativity actually comes from. If we trust our own authenticity and spontaneity. It might seem boring to us or obvious because it's us, but that's where our actual uniqueness and creativity and special difference comes from, as opposed to trying to be something we've seen from the outside, yes, and I would add to that cat I told you he's quick, he's great. 

Jason O. Harris: Often I say some of those exact things to some of the military members that I speak with that are looking to transition, and they look at what I've done and they go Jason, how did you do it? And I don't know it, I don't have this and I'll have that. And I go wait a minute, Stop comparing yourself to me, because I am not who you're competing with and no one else are you competing with. What you need to understand is who you are and what you're capable of. And you have all the tools and all the equipment. And oftentimes what happens, cat, is people. They begin to limit themselves down, they start camping themselves down because they have been put inside of an institution that has these things called performance reports and sometimes what happens is that performance report. It's a comparison to the people that you're with right in the military. When I tell people I say look, here's the deal. In a flying squadron we might have 30 pilots and of those 30 pilots, maybe only two of them have what's called proximity to power. That's a whole other principle that I talk about, this whole idea of proximity to power. And so the leader in that organization, the commander, is gonna go to them because they work closely with him. Does that mean the other 28 are not capable? No, does that mean that they're gonna get rated and ranked lower than those two? Yes, but what they have to understand is they have all the tools possible to succeed, but people, they get lost and they become afraid and they start limiting themselves, they stop being creative, they stop looking at the options and therefore they don't have the ability and they have destroyed their capability to improvise as a result of what someone else has told them over and over. And instead of saying yes and they go, yes, but yeah and you're like you've stopped yourself from even getting started. 

John Register: Well, when you began this journey and you started giving yourselves options, you started seeing options inside the options. Yes, and so I said in the introduction you've been on the History Channel twice. Now Tell us, how do those options come available to you with the background that you have had to give you a different? Now, instead of having runway two eight, you got runway two eight and one four right. 

Jason O. Harris: Yeah, no. So the interesting thing is, John, is that I've been on. I've had a PBS Nova special on the Hindenburg. We did a whole show kind of going back to revisit the Hindenburg accident that happened in 1937. What an incredible experience. I got to travel to Germany, got to travel to New Jersey to the original site, got to learn some really cool things and we had a successful show and then from that show, what ended up happening is we got an opportunity, or I was invited, to go and be a part of a History Channel show History's Greatest Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne and we did an episode on the Bermuda Triangle and I had about a five to seven minute clip in there as an aviation expert and expert in terms of accident investigation and just kind of looking at what could have happened. That then turned into a TV show. They gave us six episodes for season one of the show titled Bermuda Triangle Into Cursed Waters, and then now we just finished filming season two. We just had the premiere last week of the show. It did very well right behind the curse of Oak Island and, fingers crossed, we'll get a season three. But to your question, John, what ended up happening was I made the decision to put myself out there. And we know that kind of what you were talking about, that idea of authenticity. Sometimes we're afraid, sometimes we're afraid to be ourselves, sometimes we're afraid to be the boring or what we think is boring, what other people think is incredibly exciting, right, if I talk to other pilots about flying stuff, we're like, oh, that's just normal. But when John Registrar gets in the cockpit with me and flies the Cessna 172 and we find ourselves in weather, he's like, oh my God, that's the most exciting, crazy thing ever. True story, right? 

John Register: Yeah, I've got a pilot that's in there. That can go. No kidding, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, get us out of here. Jason, Jason, Jason. 

Jason O. Harris: And so what happened was I decided that I was going to unleash myself from being afraid, and I remember one of the first videos that I put out. I remember putting this video out on YouTube and getting trolled by somebody that I know I worked with before, and I know that I worked with this person because they said some things that were very identifying to the community that we existed in, which was a very unique community, and I remember Ed Hurton cut me to the core that somebody from this unit would say something in the way that they did. And I thought about it and I says, man, at first, you know, there's the anger that sets in, and then the aggression and then the retaliation. I want to find out who this person is. I want to find out who this keyboard warrior is, who this coward behind the keyboard is. And then I thought about it and I said you know, what good would it do me to find out who that person is? It would do me absolutely no good. How much energy would I expend trying to figure out who that is? And it would be wasted energy. And so I set that aside. I continued to put myself out there and there was a casting call and there was a military, a military speaker community that I was involved in. I did not, I wasn't very active in the community and someone put out in the community hey, we're looking for this type of profile, and more than one person threw my name ahead. So you guys got to check out Jason. So I was on a layover in Bogota, Colombia, got the email, I called the guy and said, hey, I saw a message from you just returning your call and from there it kind of just took off and it now has had a life of its own. But it started with me being authentic and me choosing to put myself out there and not be afraid of what could possibly happen by being public with my persona, if you would. 

John Register: I want to tag on that. I want no one cat to come back. I'm just going to teach you how to do the bitch. You got a question, but the tag on this is you're doing this while you're on active duty, so think about that, folks. You're doing the job and another job comes available and you get. You do it. I mean, that's, that's significance, that is significant. 

Jason O. Harris: Let me just add a slight tweak to that, John. I was no longer active duty, however. I was actively serving as a reservist, as a reserve member. But I was on active orders for quite a bit of time in this period and so I have amassed enough time to have an active duty retirement. So to add to that, I was an active serving reserve member, I was an active airline pilot, and then these opportunities kind of came along and so again it was options I could improvise. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, okay. So I'm gonna be the voice of a lot of our listeners right now and say I think it is worth naming that neither one of you are unexceptional people, right? So everyone's listening. I think everything we're talking about is valuable to all of us and universally applicable. But I also feel like it's important to name that you are both very exceptional, impressive, unique individuals and I just I want to thank. I feel very privileged being in the room with you and it's very impressive, so I just have to name that. And now I will continue the. I guess one of the things that that I'm teasing out of what you're talking about is this idea of being, of taking risks right, of being. I already see you laughing and smiling, so maybe I don't even have to ask more of a question. Talk to me about the willingness to take risks and what it takes to do that. 

Jason O. Harris: You know, Kat, the idea of risk is a lot of people are afraid of risk. And, and what I say you know, there's a story, and I've got a research to find the specifics, but suffice to say it's a 10% truth rule and is in effect now and so the story goes like this do you know how you catch a? Do you know how you catch a spider monkey? The way they catch a spider monkey is they take these little cages and they put the cage over these Apollo nuts, right, and so the spider monkey is hand. It could squeeze into the little gate, into the little grates or whatnot, and it could pull out a nut at a time, but instead it grabs a whole handful and it pulls it back, but it can't pull his hand back because his hand is full of nuts. Because of that, they're able to come and grab the monkey and take it away, right, but imagine if that monkey just took one at a time. It could pull all of them out and going about their merry way. And so I tell that story a lot of times, because what I tell that story is to drive home the point that in order to gain something, we have to be willing to give up something in order to gain something. We have to be willing to give up something, and sometime risk forces us to give up something in order to gain something. And so when you take a risk, you now have to choose consciously to give up safety and security, and oftentimes we are so comfortable with the safety and the security that we're accustomed to. You know, so often we're just we're very secure in a steady paycheck, we're very secure in knowing where the next promotion is gonna come from. All of that could go on and on and on. And for me, for whatever reason, cat I have no idea how it came about in over my lifetime, but there were people that were planted in my life along the journey that showed me that it was okay to take a risk, and they would say certain things like what's the worst that could happen? You know and I tell my daughter this, sometimes she's afraid I go honey, what's the worst that could happen? And when I once I was able to shift that mindset, taking risk became easier. But again I go back to that special operations mindset. They are calculated risk. I don't just go out there and burn the ships. A lot of people they believe in just burn the ships? No, stop time out. No, no, no, no, no, I'm not a burn the ship kind of person. I am a calculated risk taking kind of person. So when you see it, it looks as though man, this dude takes all kinds of risk. But what you don't understand is that I got a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, up to a tenth option in the event that this domino goes wrong and these fall and these fall and these fall. I have options that have backup plans and a backup plan to the backup plan, so that that risk is a calculated risk and not just a random risk of stupidity and ignorance and in and in service of what I've heard, also from you today, is you're very clear about your goal? 

Kat Koppett: I want to. I care about my family. I want to be able to support them. I want to know how I'm gonna do that, like there's a vision that then allows you to decide when to take risks or not. Am I getting that right? 

Jason O. Harris: Absolutely, Kat, because you know, I remember looking at John and he told me about this speaking thing and I thought, well, what are you talking about, man? And then he start opening up and I start beating up the people, learning about all these things and these opportunities, and then I was getting involved in a community and all these, all these things were happening, and then my daughter came along. And what an exciting time. And how my daughter come along and my wife said, honey, you know, your life is going to change. And it took time for me to process what she really, really meant. And while I could have just taken off and just say you know what, I'm gonna go for the gusto, I want to do X, Y, Z, I want to do this show and that show and I want to do these speaking opportunities. I could have taken over the world in my own mind, but what would have happened had I done that? I would have forsaken my family, and so, with that to your point, Kat, there's a verse in a book that a lot of people like to read on a regular basis, and it says what is it profit a man that gained the world and lose his soul? What is it profit a man to gain all the money in the world and have no one to enjoy with what is it? Profit a man to have all the success, all the rank and all the wealth and all the promotions in the world, but he has forgotten and forsaken his family. His children no longer are affectionate towards him, his spouse or her spouse, their spouses, their significant others. They become insignificant. And for me, I never wanted the idea of success or the thought and idea of money and wealth and riches and fame and all of these other things that we can name. I never wanted that to overshadow my priorities, which is my significant other, to make certain that she stays. My significant other, my daughter, to make sure that we have a close relationship. That's what was important for me and that's also part of that calculated risk taking. 

John Register: Beautiful, one of the things that keeps coming up for me. I wanna go back to one thing on the burn the ships. I think the story that we don't hear is the reason that person, that military operation, could burn the ships because they had a calculated plan, they knew, because they had trained over and over again. Just like you were saying, in the plan, the calculation of making sure of what is the most important thing remains. The most important thing begins to drive all the other options that we might have. And is this the good one? Is that gonna take me away or is that gonna drive me to towards the end state that I would like? With Allison myself, we thought her becoming a flight attendant was going to separate us. Now we just make wherever she lands home right, and so there's just different things that open up and can come together. Because of it, we can take the entire family someplace now and have a beautiful memory. So we make these amazing memories and if we're just able to do that, it was my daughter, Ashley, who taught me this with the story I won't get into, but she showed me that and it's become one of my values a hard yes versus an easy no. 

Jason O. Harris: I love that. 

John Register: And yeah, it's incredible of what could happen. What could happen. What's the worst that could happen if I just say yes, right, and I love that Cool, we're at the top of the hour. Was there something else? We wanted to jump in, Kat, did you have something for Jason? 

Kat Koppett: Well, I kind of want to ask about daughters and donuts, because we've been talking about family, so yeah, so just yes, and being your goals and your family together. So tell us about that. 

Jason O. Harris: You know, cat, one of the things that what I'll follow up to, kind of what we're just talking about, is that In life we have to be intentional and risk taking, we have to be intentional, and everything we do we have to be intentional, right even being authentic in order, like a lot of people say, they're authentic but they're not intentional, so they're not truly authentic, right. And so, for me, I've learned over time. I've made the mistakes, you know, and so, as I've made those mistakes, I'm always trying to figure out how do I learn from that mistake. You know, when I have a bad landing in the plane, then we kind of go back and we debrief, then we try it again, and sometimes in life we choose to not debrief it and we choose to not learn from it, we choose not to try it again. And so, for me, I want to make certain that in everything in my life I want to be intentional, especially with my family, with my wife, with my daughter, and so my daughter I was finishing up my second master's degree with the Air Force and my wife, her, my daughter they flew out to Philadelphia and we go to this place, the reading I think it's called Reading Market and I got some amazing food in there. So we come upon this really cool craft donut spot and my daughter's two years old at the time and we hand her a donut and she just licked all the sugar off the donut and she was just in heaven, right and so and so then then we come back to Colorado Springs and this new donut shop opens up, and I had this bright idea I'm going to take my daughter on Friday mornings before we go to the daycare. I'm going to take her to the donut shop. That gave her and I some daddy daughter time, and it just turned into this thing. I would post a couple pictures about it just for fun. No big deal, right? And it started turning. People ask me, say, hey, show some more pictures of your daughter and the donuts, and it just became this daddy daughter donut thing. And so what I, what I'd like to talk to people about, kind of impress upon people, cat, is that in order to create trust right, everybody says just trust me. Trust is not automatic. In order to get to trust, you have to back it all the way up to connecting with somebody. In order to connect with someone, you have to communicate with them, and so you communicate with them. That creates a connection that then leads to accountability. Once you get that connection, that commitment, that accountability, then you can bridge the gap to trust and I knew that that's what I wanted to do with my daughter, because I know I only have her for a few short years in this lifetime and if I don't create that level of trust now, then she won't have the same relationship with me like my wife has with her father. When we first met her life as placeholders said Daddy's girl. And she said you know, I'm a daddy's girl, you got to understand that, says I love it. And when our daughter came along, I said I want, if my daughter feels half as affectionate towards me as you do to your father, then I will have done a good job. And so that's the goal I'm going for. It's not a competition. That's what I'm intentional about and that's why I do. The Daddy daughter donates brilliant. 

John Register: I love it and it's Daddy, daughter donut dates before daycare. Love the alliteration you know for a hold it. Oh my gosh, thanks for being on season. Incredible human. She says wonderful. Hard yes versus easy no. Authentic and intentional risk exactly what we need to be doing. One more thing I want to share before we I know cats got a little bit of a problem for us to do, because that's what we love to do as we begin to wrap these shows up is you have a whole business now. That is on trust. No, fail, trust, you have it. I just want you to explain to our audience what that is. You know maybe how it's come about and what you do with this to change the environment of the companies, corporations that you are speaking to. 

Jason O. Harris: So thank you for that opportunity to speak about that, John. The no fail trust framework it's the idea of creating cultures of commitment, accountability and trust and we do that through the no fail trust framework. That is, trusted training, trusted processes. That then allows you to empower and trust your people. You see, oftentimes in organizations people will say here, go out and figure the job out, they'll give you the regulations or they'll give you the training manual and they don't provide you with trusted training. When you create an environment that has trusted training that has been validated, and you support and back that up with trusted processes like standard operating procedures, checklist things that we do in the military and aviation, especially flying airplanes, then it changed the dynamic. And now that person, you now can truly empower them. A lot of people they're trying to do it backwards, they're trying to tell people to just go figure it out, and they are empowering them and you're actually setting them up for failure. And now they're sitting in the corner and they're afraid to fail. They're afraid to try because they don't have the right training and they're uncomfortable, which then leads to imposter syndrome, leads to psychological safety issues and all other types of issues within an organization and then one of the biggest things that I love telling people about is is making a conscious choice. No matter what your role is, no matter what your title is of, you get a choice each day to be a boss, a manager or a leader, and you have to earn the title of leader every single day. 

John Register: Yeah, right, right Steve. Steve Purnick says "trust comes first". 

Jason O. Harris: There's a lot of types of trust, Steve. You know there's this idea of the basic employment contract is is, if I'm the employee, I the employee, I trust the employer to pay me, and you and the employer, you trust me to do the work. That's a basic level of trust, right? And then we start getting to a level of trust as far as our skill sets, and so that's the basic framework of no fill trust training process, then empowerment to trust the person to go out there next week to job, and then I get a little bit of a push in the back of my airplane. I tell a story about a loadmaster when I'm getting ready to make the perfect landing in combat and I have the office view, I have the window view on the CEO of the airplane and that young 171890, I got shot a high school young person. They tell me the CEO, the guy with the degrees, the guy with the pilot wings. They tell me to go around, meaning I no longer am. By landing the airplane, I add power and I make an escape maneuver and I get away from the ground or whatever was dangerous to us. And it's that young person who says I was able to see something that you were unable to see. I can't trust that young person if I haven't given them the training, given them a process and make sure that they have these different skill sets that are necessary to be able to tell me that, for me to trust them. And then the trust that I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do. So, yes, trust comes first in the basic employment agreement, in the basic connection agreement, but there's a whole higher level of trust. Failure is not an option. That's where no fell trust comes. In that plane landing in the combat zone with 60 Marines or 60 Army soldiers in the back, we cannot land, we cannot fail, because it would become catastrophic if I fail to listen to that low master and I failed to trust them and they failed to trust me. And so all of these things are stepping stones towards the ultimate level of trust in an organization as well as between individuals. 

John Register: And I think that's awesome Hanging out with Lieutenant Colonel Jason O. Harris. Thank you for your service. And Kat, what do we got? 

Kat Koppett: Oh my goodness, I just I want to talk forever. It's so delicious and I feel like maybe we're talking about collaboration and trust and co-building. I feel like maybe we should go back to a classic, John, and tell a word at a time "yes, and" story. We've talked about "yes, ands" today. So here's what we're going to do we're just going to create a story together. Maybe we can get a suggestion of a title if someone's listening. 

John Register: Someone out there listening? Give us a title. Give us a title of a story. Give us a title of a story. I see Steve's been in there. Tracy's in there, Tracy Franz, I see your questions that are coming up. We'll get to those in a second. 

Kat Koppett: Steve, by the way, is a brilliant professional improviser, Steve Purnick. Steve, all right. Steve, Steve you can call out. 

John Register: Steve, all right. Steve, Steve you've been called out. Give us a title of a story. 

Kat Koppett: And then what we're going to do. We'll give them a second to figure out what that is and while we're waiting, we can say that here's how we're going to do this. We're just going to tell the story a sentence at a time, so I'll start, then we can go to you, John, then we'll go to you, and we're just going to start our sentences, everyone after the first one. "Cold Turkey Friday" is our title, with the words yes and to remind ourselves to listen and accept and build with the offers that are there. So our intention, to summarize what we've been talking about today, is to create a story that goes with the title "Cold Turkey Friday," and we're going to be in the moment and just use this "yes, and" structure to create, co-create a story. So, "Cold Turkey Friday." It was the day after Thanksgiving and Frances was feeling sad. 

John Register: Yes, and Frances had just eaten a Cold Turkey Friday sandwich. 

Jason O. Harris: Yes, and Frances was sad, not because there was cold turkey and not because she had had a cold turkey sandwich. Frances was sad because the mac and cheese had been all eaten up, because it was so delicious and it outshined, or outshone, the cold turkey from Thursday. 

Kat Koppett: Yes, and Frances thought to herself I am not willing to only have the most wonderful and delicious thing I ever eat only once a year. I'm going to make more mac and cheese. 

John Register: Yes, and Frances, she went into the kitchen and she got the bowls out and she got the flour and she went to the store and she bought more noodles and she began to work and work to create the best mac and cheese with the Velveeta and the nacho cheese inside of this bowl, mixing it together so that she could have the best mac and cheese ever on her Cold Turkey Friday. 

Jason O. Harris: Yes, and Frances was still sad. And the reason Frances was still sad was because she didn't have Patti LaBelle's seven cheese mac and cheese recipe that was lauded by the Oprah Winfrey. 

Kat Koppett: Yes, and so she said I am not going to settle, I'm calling up Oprah and I'm getting that recipe. 

John Register: Yes, and when Oprah picked the phone up, she said "girl, you have to have Patty LaBelle's and my mac and cheese. Come on over, I'm going to put you on the private jet and we're going to have mac and cheese for days." 

Jason O. Harris: Yes, and Oprah took it to the next level. She said you are not just coming on my private jet, Frances, but we're going to stop en route. We're going to pick up Patti LaBelle and Patti is going to make that seven cheese mac and cheese in my kitchen for the three of us, and we might even invite Stedman and Gail to the party. 

Kat Koppett: Yes, and because of that, Frances was happy. The end. Brilliant! 

Jason O. Harris: I hope Oprah and Gail and Stedman dined in for that one. 

John Register: I think they should and I think they need to have Jason at the pilot to take us there. You are clearly a professional improviser on many different levels and I'm so delighted to meet you. Thank you for all your wisdom today. 

Jason O. Harris: Thank you for having me. I appreciate that. 

John Register: We have a few folks. Tracy France said we want to put that training link into the framework. We'll put that into our resources. Yes, we will do that, Steve. I think this is a follow up to your question. Thank you for the suggestion. Today as well, do we start with trust? Can trust be kept? The loss I know that was another one. We'll put that into resources as we're up on our time right now. And then now I need some Patti LaBelle mac and cheese. That's absolutely we got to have that. It's coming up because this is the second foodie thing that's happening. Halloween starts us off with all the candy we have in our drawers, and now we start popping that popping pills and candy and the Pez. And then we have Thanksgiving that comes up. So we just we say we're going to gorge and not gorge, but we fall asleep watching television. And then we have the holiday season, of course, and then the first thing we do after that is we say we make our New Year's resolution to lose all the weight, and so the training gyms are happy with that. So thank you all for listening in. This has been such an amazing show. Thank you, Jason. Is there any? How do we find? How do people find you? 

Jason O. Harris: They can find me at nofailtrust.com N-O-F-A-I-L-T-R-U-S-T.com, where you can send me an email, Jason, at nofailtrust.com, or you can also text me at 719-203-7257. 

John Register: And we'll put all those in the show notes. Kat, she has this brilliant thing behind her Training to imagine. I use that book all the time for my training sessions and when I'm improving the audience in my keynote addresses. Kat, how do we find you? 

Kat Koppett: You can find me at Koppet.com, k-o-p-p-e-t-t.com or here every other Saturday morning. 

John Register: Thank you and then, of course, my name is John Register. You can find me at Johnregister.com. I am a professional keynote speaker on inspiration and have a system and a process of how to overcome adversity, which we do not. So we help individuals hurdle adversity, amputate fear, embrace a new, normal mindset to win the medals that are in our own lives. So that's it for today's episode of Performance Shift. We hope you enjoyed the discussion, gained some valuable insight and that you can apply this work to your own life and thank you for tuning in. We want you to come back next and then two weeks we'll have another guest and then we're up, as Kat said, on Apple Podcasts, where you can find your podcast stations Follow, follow, follow, tell other folks about it Because it's a fun show. It's just a real fun show, and we will see you next time. Go forth and inspire your world. Bye for now.