How to get selected for SPECWAR
EPISODE 35
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WELCOME TO THE TEAM ROOM! WE HAVE THE DIRECTOR OF ASSESSMENT AND SELECTION FOR THE 724 STG TO DISCUSS WHAT THEY’RE LOOKING FOR WHEN SELECTING THEIR OPERATORS.
INTRO
Nikki Silva 00:03
You're listening to the ones ready podcast, a team of Air Force Special Operators forged in combat with over 70 years of combined operational experience as well as a decade of selection instructor experience. If you're tired of settling, and you want to do something you truly believe in, you're in the right place. Now, here's your host PJ team leader, jujitsu lover, meme enthusiast, and dad joke aficionado, Aaron love.
Aaron 00:27
Welcome back, everybody, with the Ones Ready team here in the tea room. We have a big one for you this week, as always, here you are. It's me. It's Peaches. It's Brian and our special guests. We'll get to that in a second. As always, we want to start off at the very first with our gratitude. We just want to say thanks to everybody that follows us on Instagram engages on the YouTube, checks us out on the Facebook looks around for wherever it is that we might be on other podcasts and such. We really, really appreciate you guys. We're glad that you're coming on coming along on this journey towards our end goal which is getting as many of you into Air Force Special Warfare as we possibly can. So, we just always want to start off and say thanks. As always, we have a couple partners that we want to put out there. Again, we're not making any money off of it, but we'd love for you to drop our code at checkout, that code is ONESREADY for both. And we want you to get a sweet discount, and then they'll know that you're supporters of the podcast because we support them too. So, the first one Alpha Brew, you guys know I'm a coffee nerd. I've been talking about this the entire time. If you follow me on Instagram, you can see all of the pour over and special stuff I'm doing well. I learned how to be a coffee nerd from Alpha Brew Coffee and Ricky the owner. So, he's a veteran. He's currently working in federal law enforcement. He's an awesome dude and he just started off his love of coffee led him to make the best coffee out there on the market. So, I know yoalpha brew coffeeu've heard it before. I know there's a ton of brands out there but does your coffee have nootropics like Alpha Brain from on it in it? Well, Ricky's does over at Alpha Brew Coffee. Do you have a CBD coffee if you're not into DoD and you're not planning on ever getting into DoD? Try that see CBD coffee out because that's awesome to everything. He has a single source. Really, really clean. It's delightful. Yeah, caffeine is off the charts. So, I only need like one or two cups of it where you know three or four cups of everything else. It's amazing. So, go try it out Alphabrewcoffeecompany.com and put your code in ONESREADY to check out and get a sweet discount. Same thing you know these luscious locks have to be taken care of shout out to one of our new partners Out of Regs pomade. Go check out Out of Regs pomade. For all of their natural hair product you can look at their sea salt spray, which is dope. You can look at the pipe hitter which I have in my hair right now and looks great even after a day of training hard or training hard for me I should say. But once again ONESREADY to check out over there Out of Regs pomade a there a new a new partner that came on so go give me a shout veteran and military as well. So, there you go. So, with that out of the way, we are pleased we are planning something super-duper special for you. So, we brought on one of the assessments and selection SMEs that we know this guy is the Top of the Pops, concerning assessment & selection and those attributes that we look for and all of this stuff. We get asked so many things on our DMs and it's always from you guys going, what does leadership look like? What does followership look like? How can I set myself apart for these attributes? Can I train for those attributes? Should I be reading books? All of those questions we brought on the man the myth, the legend, Mr. Trey Free the man behind the ITE (Insight Thru Experience) podcast YouTube channel and trying to get that information out there his dang self Trey. Welcome on. What's up, brother?
Trey 03:23
Thanks Aaron, I appreciate it, buddy. Excited to be here.
Aaron 03:25
Yeah, I know it's I know it's hot out your way. But I'm glad that you could get out of the heat and come hang out with us. So, I appreciate you.
Trey 03:33
Yeah, man. My pleasure. I look forward to getting to talk to you and Aaron. Correction, you Peaches and Brian man you guys are doing some incredible things out there for the community and man I've been looking forward to this all day excited about it.
Aaron 03:46
Yeah, us to man so we'll hop right into it. So you're in an Air Force Special Tactics alumni yourself, why don't you walk us through kind of you know as much as you want to talk about your career history, if you want to talk about where your station deployments and stuff like that just to let the listeners get to know You know you before you started the assessment selection game?
TREY’S BACKGROUND
Trey 04:03
Yeah, appreciate it. First thing I need to get out there is these are my views only so I'm not speaking for my organization, so just cover my butt a little bit there. But I started out in the Marine Corps back in 1989. So, a little old turn 49 this year so next year, I'm going to have a midlife crisis but we'll get over I forgot
Aaron 04:19
to say this to like you might be you know how there's the conspiracy theory about Keanu Reeves being immortal. I think you are Keanu Reeves immortal dad.
Trey 04:38
I pulled my lower back muscle yesterday. So, I'm walking around here like my son is You look like you're 90 right now. So, it's funny. You're saying this because if I had to get up right now, you'd be laughing. Yeah. And listening to podcast. It would be slow. Yeah, so I started out in the Marine Corps. I was lucky and got selected to go to Reconnaissance. career field so I did four years in Recon got to go to Desert Storm there didn't do a lot but 19 years old going to desert storm that was kind of cool. Got out in 93 stayed out for a year realizing man, I'm not made to be a civilian anymore. So, Combat Control was actually actively searching for prior service Marines who already have jumping dogs So, man that kind of sucked me up into that world I went through the rest of the pipeline went up to McCord after I earned my beret stay there for two years. Man, this is pre 9/11 so we weren't doing much my days were out at Moses Lake Washington clear and
Aaron 05:35
American let you get out there as nice this time of year too.
Trey 05:38
This cannot be what I went through all this for so you know, I'd heard about 24 of time now the 724 said heck let's go try it. See what they have going on. Because you know, it was really secretive back then didn't know a lot but I'm like heck, man. If you tell me there's somewhere else to go, I'll go so when trot out made it spent 11 years up there was up there obviously when 9/11 kicked off. Got a couple of cool deployments before 9/11 kicked off and then once 9/11 kicked off we were we were busy, like, was everybody else? Yeah,
Aaron 06:08
I was going to say like, how different was it you in the court where you're literally on a boat clearing people to drop into the water to 11 year, you know, 10 or 11 years later, whatever that turned out to be to be, you know, in the thick of it at 2001 at that unit like that. That had to be crazy, right? Like the switch.
Trey 06:24
Yeah, it was I just got back from a deployment in Bosnia, which was really cool. I've been home about a month I was sitting in silver team room, and we were just sitting around talking about what we're going to do for the day and that's when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Somebody turned it on. And then about three weeks later, we're sitting over there, starting the war. So really cool experience. So glad I was there at the time. Spent 11 years at the organization. Some of that was I was five years as an operator went to our OTC operator training courses and instructor and then ran that for a year, then moved back over as a team sup and then went to ops. Ops was my death. I was ready to move on, so did something weird. I went to the Senior NCO Academy, I was an instructor for the last two years in the Air Force, and then went back to the 724. Now, group to be a civilian assessment & selection guy. So that's where I've been since 2010. Just trying to refine how we find people that fit the culture up there and people who can get at it.
Aaron 07:28
I got to be honest with you, you're officially the coolest guest that's ever but do you just want to have this podcast now?
Trey 07:32
I doubt that it's true. I listen to every one of y'all is man, and y'all have some really good guest on here.
Peaches 07:40
But I didn't know that you went and we're an NCOA are an NCO Academy instructor.
Trey 07:46
Yeah, I didn't, I didn't put that out there too much. But I'll tell you, you know, after 11 years up there, I needed some stability. And as you know, at the senior NCO Academy anyway, they give you scheduled two years out or a year out. So, I know by the day you We're not going to take leave in my family and I lost all my special duty pays. I couldn't wear my beret up there, which was so weird. But I'll tell you what happened. Yeah, it is. I mean, back then to there were they were preaching joint ops and stuff. But they wouldn't let if you look different, they wouldn't let you look different. But we want to be a joint ops center it was it was strange. But I had a really good time to have some really good people working there. And I learned how to solve problems a little bit differently. So that's the beauty of stepping outside that fence line up there, right, because you get used to doing things your own way. You forget what's going out on in the real world. So that was really good to go step outside there. And then when I came back, everything that I had once believed I was questioning now and that was the beauty of it. Even our selection process, and I'm sure we'll talk about later, or just A&S in general is it all changed like I was the one running it when I left kind of and then I came back like holy cow. What are we doing, we're doing this wrong? And that kind of allowed us on our shift to the characteristics based versus just a kind of skills base, and we see that same transition down at A&S right now at Lachlan.
Peaches 09:07
Yeah, sometimes it's good to step away and get a little bit of an objective look, and then go right back into it. So that's pretty good.
Trey 09:15
Yeah. 100% 100.
Peaches 09:18
So, our audience primarily is, you know, candidates that are looking to come in, not necessarily guys that are already active and operating. So, this question is based on those guys that are already on a team, how can they best prepare for OTC selection? Do they need to be, you know, hitting absolutely crushing the standards across the board? Should they just kind of be at the minimums or should they just trust the process that you guys are going to be able to select them where they're at?
PREPARING FOR SELECTION
Trey 09:55
Is the way you phrased that is perfect, man. That was a good question. So, this is what I tell people now and this is so different even Peaches when you came up brother This is different now, I wish we had this process when you came up what they need to do is be really good at the basics but guess what? We have a history of your if you're a JTAC, you went through the same JTAC upgrade as everybody else right? So yep, we can get if you have the quals like a five level PJ isn't too different. I mean, don't get me wrong a guy at St unit and got a rescue unit. They may be a little bit different, but they're five level processes the same right? It might take a guy in ST a little bit longer. And most PJ's understand why. But all that we can man we can tweak that in OTC, what we're looking for you to do is come up there be physically prepared. I think no matter what you're talking about in any assessment and selection, if you're physically prepared, you get bandwidth back because you're going through the process. It's the guys who come up there thinking they can, I don't have to prep that hard. They lose bandwidth. So, when it's time to start solving those problems, some of those characteristics that we care about. They don't have bandwidth to plot to those because they're physically spent right? So read books that is key if you go to our website our sport psychologist has a host of mental performance things that you can do before you come up there, we, we try to make it Peaches to where there's no guesswork. I guess a good analogy is the NFL combine. Those guys aren't surprised by anything they do at the combine, right? They know what's coming, prepare for it and show us that you belong, you know, in the NFL, and somebody should hire you. So, it's kind of our same mantra now is we're going to give you what you need to prepare, just come up, we're going to give you the stage just come up and perform. So physical, be ready and then work on that mental game. And then we're going to test little things that it's hard to prepare for your problem-solving ability. How will you get along with people? All those things that you know? And I'm guessing like, if I'm you in your mind, you're like, oh, heck, I didn't get all that back in 2013 rock came through me. Yeah, yeah.
Peaches 11:59
Do you remember that or did you go look up my record? It was during the sequester this request. So, we had note at the outset of the web school and we had nothing going on. So, it was like, wow, I'll go give this shot.
Trey 12:18
I'll remember more than you think. I told him the other day you were one of my dudes stand out in my head, man.
Aaron 12:26
Trent is going to be so mad that this is going on that you got that we have a little bromance going. We had to respect his family time. So, we didn't we didn't like badger him too much about missing it. But man, he's going to listen to this audio and he's just going to edit with a poopoo face on.
Trey 12:44
Don't forget to give him a shout out to because that dude's awesome. And I got to meet him down there. He gave us a tour of the prep course. And that dude was awesome. And I know it was a hard thing to bring into from like the 724 and I'm going to have to go show him all this stuff with the prep course that everybody gives us grief. About Because they have float tanks and all this other stuff, which I'm like this is the best thing I've ever seen this is how it should be man thank goodness finally do in our whole life. The beauty of that down there is killing me man I can't fight for them down there at every chance I can. Yeah, there's amazing.
Brian 13:21
Yeah and it's hard to convey what it looks like just on a podcast or on a video or whatever. Like when you walk in that building, you're just like holy crap. This is like a class one setup right here is freaking fantastic. Absolutely.
Trey 13:33
I go recruit down there every class before they start A&S and I haven't got to since COVID hit we're going to start doing it on the internet though, actually. But every time I go down there, I'm impressed. I'm impressed about the product they're putting out. It doesn't always translate to success, but we know it's going to be a high attrition, right? We know that already. We just go in there and talk to him the day before and really don't talk to them about our unit that much I hope I want to put that on the radar but really we talked about that mental toughness and what it's going to take what I've seen guys come through our process and be successful, and how they can apply those same techniques. I don't know if it has an effect on it, but I like to think that it does, man because that's a special place down there.
Brian 14:12
So, I want to just go back a little bit to what you said before. And I think it's really important just double tap that thing because you're talking about the attributes of a person and what really makes a person a candidate you want to keep around and it's not the qualifications it's not the jumpmaster it's not all those things that you can train up to we get actually got a couple questions my inbox right now talking about like, should I do paramedic for should I, you know, knock out whatever first before I get into the pipeline. And I think it's really important to say like, hey, train up to the standards that you know, so far, you know, it's going to be push-ups, sit ups, pull ups, swimming, rucking, all those things. Try not to those that way, you know, like you said, you have the bandwidth. So, we get a lot of guys you know that our planners and like think ahead, and eventually they want to go up to one of the SMUs or one of those places and How far ahead would you say that a person should realistically plan? Because, you know, they're thinking hundred-meter targets that's way down the road that they're going to be doing any of that kind of stuff. What would you tell those guys that are just thinking a little bit too far ahead?
PLANNING AHEAD
Trey 15:15
I'm going to sound like a Ones Ready puppet because I'll listen to you guys all the time. And I listened to your free Frequently Asked Questions podcast yesterday actually. But the one-meter target is just what you said, if you don't take care of the basics first, you're no good. You're not going to make it far in the process. And we know that. So, it's the it's the physical readiness as you show up. Yep, there's going to be some more physical readiness, obviously for the eight weeks during prep. And then as you move over to A&S, but if you come here, with that baseline, that fiscal baseline already now the bandwidth is open to do other things inside of there, because at prep, they're teaching you other mindset things as well. But if you are so crushed by the workouts every day, you're missing a lot of those key cues that can help you in A&S and you know When I get there's too late man they've already they are who they are at the end of that eight weeks and then he like you know they're not saying hey I can't wait till Mr. Free comes down here so we can like get us through A&S.
Aaron 16:10
I'm sure someone has Trey somebody down there's like oh man if Trey isn't here, I'm not going to graduate
Brian 16:30
There was an INDOC construction they used to do that but I won't go there.
Trey 16:36
So anyways to answer your question in a long winded way Brian is the basics first and it's one meter target you make it through you come in make it through BMT you make it through prep you got to make it through A&S are all this is for naught anyway. And then there's a one-meter target what's what do I have to do today? And then what's coming tomorrow and how can I reflect on what I did today to make tomorrow better?
Brian 16:59
Right Just a follow up on that. What would you say the biggest mental mistake, you know, people getting flustered or people thinking too far ahead or, you know, not paying attention and attention to detail, what kind of things would you say is the biggest mental mistake that you see candidates make?
LARGEST MENTAL MISTAKE
Trey 17:16
Yeah, so it's at our place. And I would, I would bet a paycheck that it's the same down there is they can't get over a perceived failure, right. So, we're going to make people fail at our place, because that's how you handle it. It is, and they, they can't let it go. And so what we tend to see and I say this publicly, because it's not a secret, we want to see you be able to process what just happened, take the positive lessons learned away from it, and then come back tomorrow and apply those lessons without all the mental baggage because if you're, if you're ruminating on it, you're not going to perform tomorrow, like you should. And those are the guys we call the fatal funnel. They just start circling the drain and can't pull themselves out. And we have we have personally little things throughout selection where we're going to try to exacerbate that fatal funnel and see who can pull themselves out and who can't. And I would think is the same at A&S talking to the Lopaka and everybody else. You just got guys who just start feeling like, I don't have a chance. And I hear you guys talk about all the time about how you know you can't quit is a mindset, it's not a decision, right? The decision is the end of the mindset train. So, I think it's imperative for it, whether you're at the baseline or the first A&S or at heart A&S is your mindset has to be right. And quitting is never an option just isn't, I don't care, I don't care what you're going to do to me today. Doesn't matter. Like, I'm going to make it through, you're going to have to kick me out of here. I'm not quitting. And I think that if folks could just get to that level, they would have so much success and so much positivity as we're moving through these processes and not fear
Brian 18:51
That like you just said, I just want to put this in there real quick is what we see after you know, the traditional INDOC where you see after a hell night, you know, the team comes together and at that point, realistically, if they want to do the job, they're going to see it to the end, you see the team unity. You see everyone just on the side of the gunnel. like screaming Hoo-yah, they're just smoked, you know, they'll go into a muscle failure as many times I remember when I was going through, you know, I said that to my buddy, it's like, what are they going to do smoke us? muscle failure?
Aaron 19:18
It's like, I have two terrible teams. Yeah, exactly. I've been I've been terrible teams. You
Trey 19:25
One thing that we say when people get to our process, now we do an in-brief. And you know, at our place we expect guys have been beret wearers for a few years already they have to be. And the first thing that we say is, hey, not quitting is expected. Like you don't get an extra bonus for not quitting. That's expected. We want to see what you have on top of not quitting. And I think that's the mindset even at the genesis of man, I'm like you guys just said I'm just repeating it is that no matter what they do to me today, I just got to make it to the night and then I'm going to get some sleep. I'm going to wake up tomorrow if they give me sleep. I'm going to wake up tomorrow and eat some food if they give me food and I'm going to go get out of again today so I love it. I love what you're doing because I think folks are getting to understand the mindset a little bit better before they go into the shock of Lackland. And I think your podcast really helps out with it.
Aaron 20:11
Yeah, we appreciate that and make no mistake like no matter how good Prep is it's still a shock down there you're still doing work like I've been in the prep spaces I've seen the programming I know the coaches I know the guys that run it, you know, I just It's no joke you know, I always laugh at our dudes in the career for they're like "what's up with these beds and hold this cold water and these float tanks" and stuff. There are some people that are super poopoo because they didn't have that but man when you see that professional organization like make no mistake, you know, does young men and women are still getting after it like they're still going hard in the paint.
Trey 20:41
In the summertime if you just go watch them work out in the daytime because it's all outside. It's all freaking out in the heat, man. It's impressive what those kids are doing. And I just want to comment on something else you said there because I think this is important, especially for all US older hats on here. AKA Peaches. I think that Got, um, I think that it's hilarious as you grow older in this career field and you see everybody who gets upset that a A&S changed or something like that. And all that is us trying to hold on to, Hey, wait a minute, what defined me? And what I have probably now is changing. So, if that changes, who am I? Like? That's the question they have to ask themselves now if the process changes, but what does that make me then? Or am I not good enough anymore? And that's the wrong question. The question is, how do we find the right people and assess them more effectively than what happened when we all came through? Because if you look at when we came through, I get it man standards. I've heard y'all say this on the program. So back in the day, if you ran you know, if the standard 24 minutes for 3 miles and you ran 24:01 then clearly, you're never going to be a good operator. Right?
Aaron 21:44
Yeah, that was it. We figured it out. That's why
Trey 21:46
We had to come together and say that we were a bunch of idiots back then by holding people to that. got problems. I'm not trying to take away from everybody in the past. We had some great operators, but this new process the way we're doing this character-based fit process, you bring guys into the organization who are going to be there for the long haul and who wake up every day hungry to keep getting better. And when I think, you know, the A&S process, man, it just this just started a year and a half ago, two years ago. So, we're not going to see these results about another four years. So, the slow burn is also giving people time to get their arguments in. But once these guys get to the team to start performing, I think everybody's going to realize how good the thing or what good things are doing down at Lackland and the process. And what we'll see it's in that first crop. That first crop of dude is about to hit the units here pretty soon I just did a recruiting brief at CCS a couple of weeks ago, and the first guys that I ever briefed down at prep were in there, so they're hitting and they're going to STTS soon and they'll be out soon.
Peaches 22:46
That kind of brings me to another point because you know that they're eventually going to want to come and join the organization where you're at. And, and kind of along those same lines where I was talking about, hey, how, how does When best prep, in reality, how does someone prep for something that is pretty secret? I mean, I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I signed an NDA. Or at least maybe I just, I don't talk about it because I respect the process. And I don't want to give anything up. But I mean, it. I know when I was preparing for it, it's like, Ah, I'm just going to keep kind of doing what I'm doing and crease the volume a bit. But yeah, there are definitely things that I'd wish I had trained on.
Trey 23:30
Yeah. And so those years Peaches as you guys came through, and that's just me growing in the site docs, we have some fabulous site Doc's there now from our sport psych to our two ops psyches all of us just figuring out that what are we, if we want to bring people up here that fit our culture, let's go ahead and reveal to them what they're going to do when they get up here, like I said earlier, and we're just going to give you a stage. So back then when you came through, man, I was still in that it was going to be secret. I'm not going to give you any information. And you just grow out of that. Like, what are we doing, man? Like, really? What are we Doing? So really, if you go to our website, we have almost everything laid out on there. Now, if you listen to the podcast, you'll hear operators who just came through, rebuild it. And we talked about it. We talked about Exfil. We talked about land nav, we talked about everything that they went through. And just because I want it to be out there, so guys come up here prep, because honestly, Peaches, there's no excuse when you come up here. If you perform well, man, that's because hopefully, we prepped you a little bit. And if you don't perform well, it's probably because you didn't put in the work that you should have when you came up.
Peaches 24:29
Because you knew what you were supposed to do.
Brian 24:31
You tell a lot about your character right there.
Trey 24:33
Absolutely. We're getting an outline, man. So now there's no more secrets of Well, I didn't know what to prepare. Sorry, prepare for. Yeah, I think I think we're going down the right road. Again, it's a slow burn we'll see in a couple of years. Yeah,
Aaron 24:48
Give them some time. See if it works. So, man, let's get to the meat potatoes of it. Right. So, some of these some of the questions that we get, we get a lot of questions. Some of them are really good. Like some of the dams we get. I'll really like three or four going to be like, Oh, I bet I've never heard that one. Some of them, we respond back. We're like, hey, we've done like three podcasts on this one. Do you just want to go check the check the page? I want to go see that one? Like there's a million Reddit boards, right? Well, this was one of the ones that's it's really, really good. And we wanted to talk to you about it's one of the reasons we had you on so we want to talk about those attributes, those things that the cadre at assessment & selection are looking for the stuff that that you know, intimately, you know, can you just lay out you don't have to like list them 1-9 or 1-10, specifically what you're looking for. But, man, tell us, what are those at those attributes that the cadre are looking for? And then I've got some follow-on questions after that.
ATTRIBUTES
Trey 25:34
Yep. So, there's only five. So, I'm going to label them really quick, because I wrote them down because I knew you were going to go there today. Here's the magic too. Right. So, Rand, the corporation, the research agency is in the we're at the ending stage of our job analysis right now, but they're doing it Special Warfare. So, the same traits are down at Special Warfare as well. Now they're going to weight them a little bit differently, right? When you're at the end of the whip us, we're going to rate like problem solving a little bit higher than maybe Special Warfare A&S does, because they care about things like drive and initiative, and they care about physical attributes. But here's the five that we care about right now problem solving. So, can you be handed a whole bunch of pieces and develop a solution to that? Something that maybe you haven't done before, but you can take things from your past and make a solution out of this problem? Drive or motivation, however you want to say it, we call it drive, like huge? Are you going to wake up every day hungry? Are you going to be the guy who made it through OTC and then slough off and don't go to the gym anymore? And because we see that we see that on the career field anyway, right? The guys who get the raise, and then you don't see them in the gym for about seven or eight years. Stress tolerance if you can't perform under stress, and here's what we know. When we when people get put under stress, some of their bandwidth is reduced. So, we need to see people be able to combat that a little bit and get some of that bandwidth back. So, they can do things like problem solve, because to us, it all comes back to problem solving. What we hire people to do for the nation is to solve problems. So, all of these things give bandwidth back to that problem solving, interpersonal effectiveness. This is my favorite, if you so the way that we used to do this and way that even Lackland did this when y'all went through A&S his peers really didn't get a big vote. And even if they did get a vote in the cadre, aka me really didn't care because I'm the magic guy. Like I'm the guy with a gray on clearly, I know what's right. And y'all don't know what's right. Yeah, well, research has proven that is they have debunked that pretty well. So interpersonal effectiveness, how long How well do you get along with people especially when cadre on around because we all know when cadre around, everybody gets along really good with each other. When it got worse, it is so worse when the cadre go away. How are you treating everybody else around you? How are you treating support? folks? I heard somebody on your podcast today when I was listening to talking about you can measure a man or a woman now on how they treat people who don't wear the same color beret they do or don't wear beret at all. So perhaps as a light like, yeah, that's important to us too. And then communication if, if you can't get your point across when it's time to go brief a mission or Ground Force Commander that we need to do this instead of this. You're a you're a risk to the organization, we're probably not going to bring it so. Now communication down at the SW level down at lackland. It's totally different. We got time to work on you there. So, you can guarantee they're probably not going to touch that one as much as we do. But once you come up to our level, you got to come off OTC and be able to go convince somebody something and that takes good communication skills and understanding what they're going through and what you're going through and be able to close that gap to get what you need out of them. So those five that we look for.
Aaron 29:07
That's awesome. And for everybody to keep in mind, you know what Trey's talking about here, kind of how we put the different emphasis on the different traits that we look for these different selections. It's the buy versus the build model, right? Like it's trays or it trays organization they're buying, you know, that that product is already formed, at A&S down at lackland. At the very, very beginning, we're taking those raw materials and we're building that up, right, so we put different focus areas and it's time to assess things differently. So, man, thanks for laying out was amazing. There's a lot of things in there that I think, you know, in my head, you know, step one is, you know, if I if I feel like I'm weak in these areas, I want to be able to work on it and train it. I think I heard a couple of those attributes in there that you can actually like, train and get yourself a little bit better on so for your maybe problem solving or communication like what is the number one attribute you think that that people could improve? They just don't Know that they can work on it beforehand?
Trey 30:02
Yeah. So, at a foundational level, your drive your motivation every day like you can fix that. It takes discipline, which is a choice. And again, it's a mindset. It's getting out of bed when it's cold, and you don't feel like working out. It's all those little things. And the beautiful thing is, nobody can make you work on that. But you because once you come up to a process, we're going to tell you what to do. And you'll do it, then what we care about is what are you doing, nobody's telling you what to do? Can you still hold the standard and hold the line, that's what means everything to all of us in his career field? So, I'll tell Lopaka all the time. And he knows like, I don't tell him he tells me but the important piece is finding dudes who are motivated intrinsically to get up every day and be better. And if you're a great starting point, if you get there, problem solving, I just think people should read man, if I had to read more books, when I was younger, my ability to problem solve would have been so much better. Thank god they weren't assessing for what they're assessing for now. When I came through because Trey wouldn't have been at the organization. I said,
Aaron 31:04
I said the same thing all the time. Like I'm, I'm glad I was already a PJ before they made this. I'd be in some trouble.
Trey 31:13
Yeah. What is that? So interpersonal effectiveness, I'll just stop there Aaron. Interpersonal effectiveness is just getting feedback on how you treat people get more self-aware on how you treat people. Because you might be a douche and you don't know it, but somebody around you will tell you eventually they won't unless you ask usually though, right? So just get some feedback from the people around you of what's your perception of me. And then you can change from there. We are so valuable when it comes to all of these traits except for like intelligence, intelligence. We know its kind of hard baked into people. But man, if you read and here's what I tell people about the intelligence piece. If you're on the lower end of intelligence, if you can gain some bandwidth back by being in shape by not being stressed and all these other things, you can increase how smart you are on the objective and yeah, absolutely over some people that are really smart that are stressed out, yep, man, you can beat them because you have more bandwidth than they do to solve that problem.
Peaches 32:09
And not just that being having that, you know, more bandwidth will help enabled you to react differently to situations instead of freaking out or getting amped. The guys when they're looking at you, they want you to have an even keel. They want a consistent reaction, not somebody who's flying off the handle or gets pissed off or anything like that. So, by not being stressed due to the physicality of it, you are able or you should be able to maintain that calm demeanor in a sticky situation.
Trey 32:44
So again, that goes about your I mean you're touching on stress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness right there and communication because if I'm my bandwidth isn't absorbed, I can communicate better I can, you know, with my peers around me, it's just going to feed in on itself, especially down at Lackland through A&S man peers way a lot down there. So, you can't play a game for the eight weeks there. I promise people go down there try to play a role, and it's not going to work. They're going to figure out who you are really quickly. So, all these things, and I like Aaron asked the question, all these things you can start working on before you get there. Just understanding who you are before you get to lackland would be a huge benefit for some folks.
Aaron 33:23
Just even knowing your why like, Okay, this is set in this course. And here's what I want to do that that has to be huge. So even if it's outside of those five attributes that we kind of just talked about and touch on. Is there one thing that's a showstopper that you look at a candidate and you're like, nope, you're out. I can tell right now.
Trey 33:41
Such a good question. My answer is no, but don't get me wrong. Do we fight our gut reactions and feelings and biases all the time? Guys will show up. I'm like, oh, boy, this is going to be rough.
Aaron 33:57
Oh, man, everybody, every single instructor since History of time has had that one student that is doing just fine. But you just hate him. Just like I don't know what it is about you. I hate your face. First Year, you can't explain it and it's a bias. It's just there. And my good friend Eric used to laugh at me. So, he was the DO and I was his absolute. And he would look at me and he'd be like, Oh, yeah, that guy that's your horse. You love him. He's your friend. And then he would just he would play that for the entire time. Like oh, yeah, and then like, it would pick up steam and the other instructors were like, Hey, everybody, Aaron's horse is going to graduate because listen to how mediocre he did today but just above the standard and it just infuriated me.
Trey 34:39
I just want to give everybody the calm feeling that the processes we have are so professional though like we overcome that but it's fun on the backside it's fun man we're always like that she boy right there right if somebody is doing man you he's going to do bad but ultimately, I don't think there's one red line other than something immoral, unethical listener background, right. If we find that out. We don't we don't get rid of people there are no like, if you don't do this, you're going to be gone before the interface two or something we want everybody to go through. Because that way at the end, when you leave, we can give you a full snapshot of you. My job there Aaron is to, I just run the process, I try to create a climate and an environment for the guys that come just get enthralled in so we can see who they really are. And then at the end, I'm going to give you feedback me and one of the site operational psych’s are going to give you feedback on who you are. So, if we don't pick you up, or whether we do pick you up, we want you to leave there better. So, all the two series squadrons and rescue units can get somebody even better back to them after they leave the process. So ultimately, everybody's going to go through unless they self-eliminate. That freaks a lot of people out like why do you got to have a red line? But we don't. We don't have any red lines. I want to see you go all the way through. We all okay.
Peaches 35:53
Yes, the red line thing is just a legacy thing.
Trey 35:56
100 that we have 100%. It makes everyone feel good and you don't have to, if I don't have to think if you don't run, you know, if you're one second over, I don't have to make a decision there. That was your fault. I would rather our guys have to make a decision. I want it to be hard. I want it to be our operators who are watching the process to have to get together and talk deep about a guy because a they're growing from it. And our process grows from it to have those conversations not just know he was one second over, man, he's never going to be a good operator up here.
Peaches 36:23
Now. Well, I mean, you guys are looking for people that are good leaders and good followers. And a lot of people they just, especially now with all the self-help books, everything is about leadership, and you very rarely hear anything about followership. So, if I could ask you, you know, what is good leadership mean to you? And what is good followership mean to you?
LEADERSHIP & FOLLOWERSHIP
Trey 36:50
Yeah, so my answer might not be sexy here, but for a leader to me and this evolves, I think it'll evolve for all of us as we grow older and, you know, as we're young, we're just complaining all day. Time about the leaders to go above and beyond we really don't understand what they're what they're going through in the pressures. But the best leadership I've seen to date are really no leaders, you hear the quip leaders lead from the front. I think leaders lead from the middle of the pack. They're motivating the dudes behind them there. And I was just using this for an example. They are keeping tally on the guys in front of them but they're leading to where they can make an impact over the whole group. So that makes you think physical but if you think about you know, in the team rooms we have we have our officers get to be ground force commanders. Man, that's awesome. They get to tactically lead dudes now. And so if you go ask all enlisted dudes under them it's the guys who cares the guys who come in and give a crap, it's the guys who make sure no matter what everybody has what they need for the day or for the next three months or for the next year. And they are ceaselessly trying to make sure trying to shape the environment for their guys to be successful. If you see that man, you know, it is beautiful and when you see guys who aren't that you know it instantly to the beauty of our place is, we get to select for that upfront. And that's a privilege. It's a privilege. We don't take lightly followership, I love it. So, I love selection because followership is hard. Everybody has to figure out that balance of man, is it my time to lead or do I need to just shut up and carry the Jerry can today,
Aaron 38:25
man, that is that is such a nuanced thing. And that's I was going to say, when we started talking about the whole leader leadership thing and how people have evolved, I've almost come full circle at this point. We're like, Man, I'm working on my followership every day like, Hey, is this my training event? Should I be instructing right now? Should I be I don't know. Maybe shutting my mouth and standing off to the back and letting these dudes do the hard work that they've done because there's us and there's them when you're young, you're like, I can't believe they did this and they're always ruining my eyes. I got bad news for you. I'm a them now.
Trey 39:00
You know, so I think you know, there and I think it Yeah, followership is just, we look forward up there. And because again, it's that nuance thing, at times, you're going to be attached to people and you're absolutely in follower role. But there are times, especially when things he didn't chaos ensues, that you have to step up a little bit and you're going to have to push against somebody who isn't used to being pushed against to make sure that you're not dropping bombs at the wrong time or on the wrong people, or that you have medical assets in place at the right spot. And some of those guys that you're that are leading, don't like to hear that. And so, it's again, it's that nuance time of you should be the good follower all the time and then recognize when it's time to step up, and I guess I'm really speaking to the enlisted guys there, right? They're going to be natural times where you need to step up and we see some guys not take that initiative, especially during selection and that's a risk to us. We got to figure out man, was that just a one off? Or is that his? His standard operating procedures if you will?
Aaron 39:58
Yes, that is that is baseline.
Trey 40:00
Should I say every time and word absolutely that is that is baseline. Yeah, like that. Yeah. So, it's tough to figure out and I know I've just long-winded answer on Peaches initial question but and those are two things that are evolving my I have a master's degree in strategic leadership. And I still have problems deciding what I think good leadership is on a daily basis, but by God, you should know when you see it, and it's usually just a dude who cares so much that he's not going to go home until everybody's taken care of under him.
Peaches 40:32
So, in that same vein as leadership I mean, the way that you guys are programmed stuff, yes, you do see people succeed in some of the situations that you guys put them, but I would say more so you see people fail. So, like, I will try and formulate this question. But is it better to see somebody lead and succeed or lead fail, but fail fast not and they can recover not a Hey, I'm dwelling on it.
Trey 41:07
Yeah, it's good. So, if you remember Exfil Peaches. That's where we see a lot of it come out, right? Because we don't really direct people into leadership roles a lot. A lot of times we just expect to see like the officers know that they're supposed to at some point step up. That's an it's a really good question. I think we don't expect to see leaders succeed, because we try to set up failures along the way, what we expect to see is them take input, right, so the worst leaders that come through with the gods who think they can solve it themselves when they have all these tools surrounding them, all these tools like 20 other dudes who could help them solve this. And they decided to make the decision on their own and they just keep drawing, they just keep cracking the whip. Those are the guys that worry us the guys who we will accept failure from and still pick up are usually the guys who know how to use the tools around him might not have made the best decision because you know, they're always depleted man, we have them in a weakened state. But we see them trying to solve the problem. And if they, if they apply one solution, it doesn't work. They're going back to their team and trying to figure out another solution. Those are the guys you can work with. Those are the guys you can train. It's the guys who won't take input because they think they can solve it themselves. They scare me. Because you just got to walk that out years down the road. And man, if we can't fix that, that that turns into an ugly monster. And, you know, if you tie that back down to guys coming through the basic courses, you see that you see guys who are just they don't take input from anybody. They're alone on an island somewhere. There every time that it's time for the team to solve the problem. They're either the one shouting out the comments, or if people aren't listening to them, they regress back into themselves. Those are the dudes that worry me not to do too, or trying to seek feedback from everybody and figure out the problem, guys that you want.
Peaches 42:54
Yeah, and I think I think maybe some of those situations that you see where you see somebody who is Not taking input maybe, and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. But maybe it's just because they feel like they like they know that they are being evaluated at that time. So, they think that every decision they make every command that comes out of their mouth, they're being evaluated on and it's okay to be wrong. It's okay to take input. Because you're going to be wrong.
Trey 43:28
Yes, that is one that I
Aaron 43:31
feel like being wrong is where I Excel. I think that's where I've made my happy place is being wrong. It's a good place.
Trey 43:40
To start, the guys who are about to start A&S are going through A&S man just Peaches just gave you the key piece of advice, throw out ideas, quit worrying about being wrong. They need to see who you are. If you're hiding in the shadows. If you're the grey guy and we can't make a decision we will not take risk on a grey guy. We will not because we don't know how you're going to be once it is your turn. So, don’t be the great guy, put some stuff out there. Don't worry, fail your way forward, man because we all fail and they expect you to fail. What we want to see is can you improve after you fail?
Peaches 44:09
Absolutely. That's one of the things that I really loved about the Weapons School is, okay, we go out and we fly missions, and we do that kind of stuff. But it was always kind of sitting, sitting back BSing after a debrief, or just an idea happened to pop into your head and you go, Hey, I wonder if this tactic would work if you guys did this, and we did this. And it's everybody just kind of spit ball on it. And it's like, well, hey, let's go try this out this afternoon. And we go out there fly with the A-10s.
Trey 44:39
That's problem solving what you said right there. So, if you're not involved in that conversation, we can assess your problem solving, if you're involved in that conversation. We know you're trying we can see at least there's some common sense coming out of you whether it would work or not, man, it doesn't really matter. Throw some ideas out there and get the team moving forward. That's there for
Peaches 45:01
You know, Jimmy, I won't say his last name but he, we were doing an airfield and he decided to throw a mountain bike on the 60. And it was just like, I'd never thought about that. Are you kidding me? That's use it on the runway. Absolutely.
Aaron 45:18
Yeah. What a beautiful young man. I'm going to rustle his hair the next time I see him.
Peaches 45:22
Yeah. It's great. It's fantastic. Like, hey, that's really smart. Because it's a lot lighter than a motorcycle. And we can only fit four of us on here.
Trey 45:32
What do you call those stand-up things they just got rid of them? They just discontinued in the stand-up things, a Segway. I couldn't even stand on thing man. I was like, I don't know parking lot in his broad daylight. I'm glad we didn't go that route. I'll be honest with you, but it was out the box.
Brian 46:01
Nice. All right, so just one last question. This is just, you know, we ask everybody kind of like, their one biggest piece of advice, whether it's like a quote or something you live by or something that you know gets you motivated. You know, we have the Earn Each Breath, I say Burn the Boats. So, if you have like a quote or a piece of advice for those people that are going through an S and then you know, in the future might see your, your face down there. What piece of advice if you want to like one quick thing?
ADVICE
Trey 46:32
I think this career field will provide a life that none of us on here can explain. It is beyond words and description. It is worth putting in the effort up front with your developers, it is worth all the pain that you even go through and A&S and it preschool and all these other places. It is worth all of it. Without this life, I can't imagine where I would be had I not lived this life. It is like getting be surrounded by guys like you my whole career. I look back and like man, how can you take this package this in some words and give it to people who are about to come into they don't. Again, quitting is a mindset it's not a decision so how can they change that mindset up front to where they get to enjoy this? And by the way, save the nation as well. And that's it man just get motivated, frickin be driven and just get at it and frickin live this life man. It is exceptional. Hey, before we get off here, too, I got to give y'all a shout out one more time. Y'all are freaking awesome. What y'all are doing here? I talk about you all the time at work because y'all are doing more for us than I'm doing for us recruiting what y'all are doing?
Aaron 47:43
I don't know about that my friend look. After this thing comes out with a video that you just dropped the last 35 seconds Forget about it. You're now the new fake. I'm going to put you on the $20 bill guy.
Trey 47:54
What do you guys do for this? And you do it for frickin free. You're getting paid for this man. You all have done jobs. It's crazy. Like Brian just did that frickin long test. Are you kidding me? y'all do this for the love of Special Warfare. And it's, I just want to give y'all a big shout out on here because y'all are doing my job better than I'm doing my job and take work out of it. Y'all are building a community that's going to save the nation. So, man from bottom, my heart and from us, man, we appreciate what you're doing here.
Peaches 48:23
Appreciate it, Trey, and you also have a podcast as well.
Trey 48:27
So, yeah, it's Insight Through Experience. And all we're doing with a podcast really is its kind of a good recruiting method during COVID. Right, but it's also we're doing support podcasts now so people can understand what the culture is like up to seven to four. And at some point, hopefully make the seven to four a blip on their career path to come up and maybe join the organization help us solve some of the nation's hardest technical problems because we're solving things that we can't talk about. That only us only we are oriented towards these problem sets and we need smart people to come up and help us solve some of these problems.
Brian 49:03
Exactly. I think I really appreciate you coming on the podcast, and spreading the knowledge. Like you said, You're the expert on selection overall, you've been living it for a really long time, lots of leadership courses, and always focused on making the career field better, just like we are doing our best. And I appreciate you shouting out and listening to our episodes. You know, a lot of the things that you talked about here are super important. And I think we kind of echoed some of the stuff that we're, we go over in a lot of the different podcasts. And it's great to just hear from a person that's doing it and you know that we're going down the right path. Like I said, you guys that are listening right now, make sure you go and listen to that podcast, lots of great knowledge from him and his guests on there. And again, a lot of important things that you need to prep for in selection. Like Trey said, You're going out there to fight for America and solve the problems that no one else can and you To start that in practice, now it's not, you know, you pass the past test and you've reached that milestone, you can stop and let off the gas, it's a constant on the gas, going uphill, always making gains every single day trying to make yourself better. Whatever it is, we know the standards. And like Trey said, we're putting them out there. And we're trying to make you guys visible on your wall, write it wherever you want, you know, today, or this week, this month, this is what objective I'm going to attain. And I'm going to get that reached that. And once I'm done with that, I'm going to keep on going, you know, five meter targets, like we were talking about, don't go ahead of yourself saying, you know, I'm going to be in the 24th that's the only thing I'm going to do, because you're going to trip over the thing that's right in front of you, which is selection. So, don't trip on that thing. Focus on what is in front of you. Yeah, maybe in the back of your mind. Like, you know, eventually I got to set this stone in place so I can get to that you know, next foothold or whatever to get to that place. But keep in mind was right in front of you. And, you know, a ton of awesome quotes, you know, a soundbite we're going to use right now. It's going to be really tough and We're going through.
Trey 51:09
I just want to foot stomp what Brian just said, Man, he just gave the secrets to everybody out there. So, listen to what he just said, Man that is the key to coming in prepared for what you're going to go through.
Brian 51:20
And, as always, you know, go hit up, Trey. And if you have any questions for us, at any point in time, you can always hit us up at @onesready on Instagram. Also info@onesready.com check out the website, you know if you guys have anything for us that you want to hear in order to help you prep for selection or make you a better person. Like I said, we're invested in this group and this career field and you guys to make sure that you're as ready as possible to go and fight those future wars that we're not going to be around because eventually, you know, they're going to kick us out of the military and they're not going to let us do the things that we want to do.
Aaron 51:53
Yeah, so for the dudes that are already in Trey isn't an Instagram, isn't it 724STG_RAS. So, for your bubs that are in and you want to go check out selection and you want to kind of make that next step in your career. If you're ready for that next challenge, go check that out. So 724STG_RAS on Instagram.
Brian 52:23
Appreciate that. Hit him up. And again, if you have anything, let us know. Appreciate you again. Trey coming on the show. And you guys go out their Earn Each Breath. We'll see you next time. Train hard.
Aaron 52:33
Thanks, everybody.
TLDR: LIFE IN THE SOF COMMUNITY IS GREAT. PREPARATION, PROBLEM SOLVING, AND GOOD LEADERSHIP/FOLLOWERSHIP ARE THE KEYS TO THE CASTLE. FINALLY WE AREN’T WORTHY HAVING TREY ON!
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