What an emotional show!!!
Ed and Ron were HONORED to have Chris “Elroy” Stricklin back on the show for the third time. Here is a link to his book as well as a link to his video presentation. The full transcript from our interview with him is below. Enjoy!
Show Transcript
Here is the full transcript from the show. Enjoy!
Like a chrysalis, were emerging from the economy of the Industrial Revolution and economy confined to and limited by the Earth's physical resources into the economy in mind, in which there are no bounds on human imagination. And the freedom to create is the most precious, natural resource.
Ron Baker 0:33
Welcome to the soul of enterprise business and the knowledge economy sponsored by Sage energizing Business Builders around the world to the imagination of our people in the power of technology. I'm Ron Baker, along with my good friend and various agents to colleague, Ed Kless. On today's show, folks, we're going to be talking to retired US Air Force Colonel Chris Stricklin about his new brand new book survivor's obligation How's it going?
Ed Kless 1:01
It's going great. Ron, looking forward to talking to Chris again.
Ron Baker 1:04
Yeah. As you know, I'm probably more excited than anybody about this because I'm a big Thunder boy fan, but Thunderbird fan. But, Chris, welcome back. This is just an honor to have you on for the third time.
Chris Stricklin 1:18
Yeah, you know, I always love to spend time with you and your listeners here. And it's always one of those great conversations. You never know where it's going to go. But you know, we're going to have a good time.
Ron Baker 1:28
Well, I'm going to dispense reading your bio, Chris will post it. But people can just also go back to our prior two interviews where we kind of focused on the lessons learned and the debriefing. But this book survivor's obligation, which you were gracious enough to share with Ed night, prior to its publication, I have to tell you, Chris, I was in a seminar that I was speaking at, and I was in the back of the room. I was reading your book, and I couldn't put it down. I didn't even want to get up and do my talk. Because I was just so engrossed in the book. It It's profound. It's in places it makes you weep. And in places it just, you know, you brought us into the cockpit of your rejection and and I thought to myself, wow, for you to even write that must have been just cathartic, painful, just a bundle of emotions. Just Why did you write this book?
Chris Stricklin 2:24
So first of all, I want to say that what you just said means a lot to me because I respect both of you a great deal and, and this book to write for me and my co author. For me, it was more painful than the ejection it honestly what? And for my wife as well, which we'll talk about here in a minute, but why did I write it for 13 years after my objection, what was deemed an unbelievable objection. It's one of those things where everybody just spends their time going, you shouldn't be here. Why are you here? And that's what I asked myself. It was a lot of weight on me and I was still in the Air Force. You know, I only retired two years ago. So I spent all those years trying to put it behind me and not talk about it. So for me to now write a book about it, and ask people to look at the video and talk about the lessons. It was therapeutic for me, in some ways that made me and my wife talk about it. Because we never mentioned this to each other. We never discussed the actions. in her mind. She was told by the Air Force, I didn't survive over the telephone. Obviously, we both have specific aspects of trauma from this. And it was therapeutic. It is therapeutic, because every time I can talk about my story for me, it gets a little easier to talk about, and I can talk about a little bit more. So thank you for your feedback.
Ron Baker 3:42
Chris, is it easier for you to talk about it now Now that you have?
Chris Stricklin 3:49
That's a tough question. I will tell you, the night before the book released, I had one of those moments I went to my wife and said I think I made a mistake. I wish I had written this book. Because I was terrified to let people in, you know, there's a persona of being a fighter pilot for both me and Joel, my co author, where we want to stand up and say everything's perfect. Here's how good everything we do is. And we don't want to admit we have trouble. We have struggles we have weaknesses, and that things affect us emotionally. I mean, who wants to people to know that fighter pilots have dealings? And and now, like you said, when you read the book, hopefully you felt what I felt you felt what Terry felt what Marcia felt, because this was traumatic on both of our families for our different stories.
Ron Baker 4:37
Do you wish you would have talked with your wife about it sooner? Looking back I
Chris Stricklin 4:42
I do. That's that's my biggest regret is that we didn't talk about it. And it was one of those things that the Air Force could put it aside and let me go on with my career again, so good way and it was just easier than dealing with it is to go I won't talk about that till I retired. And that's ultimately what drove me Open it up as a buddy of mine called it on it and call me on it and said, hey, you're retiring you, you guaranteed you would talk about this and I went, I'm not ready. And and he put me on contract to give a keynote to his organization. And together, we agreed to put my wife in the contract as well, because I knew if we weren't legally obligated to do this and do it with both of us in the same room, that that we would back out. And we needed that that impetus to push us forward and force us to tell our story because I think there's so much that can be learned. For everybody out there. This story has nothing to do with the objection of an aircraft or stage four cancer. Those are two things that spark your interest and may get you to open the cover. But when you finish it, hopefully you will fail that this is about surviving and how we get better to live intentionally tomorrow with the sunrise we get that so many others habits that weren't afforded. And that is what the book is about.
Ron Baker 5:57
Right now. I love how you say that this book is not about Why I crashes about why I survived and how it has impacted my life I guess just incredibly powerful. Chris, I have to ask you, you had a you wrote that you had a sinking feeling on September. What was it September
Chris Stricklin 6:15
2003.
Ron Baker 6:17
50th anniversary of the Thunderbirds, and you had a sinking feeling that day. Can you kind of explain that you didn't even want to do the maneuver?
Chris Stricklin 6:28
That's true. It was. It was one of those days where everything going wrong. It was one of those events where everything is going wrong. We had we had flown too much we were on our third show site third location on one trip. We didn't have enough fuel coming into our practice for neighbors our points move the satellite imagery was wrong. I can go on and on. It's everything that indicated this wasn't a good show. And and for some reason, on that morning, I had a normal routine I did and I completely broke my routine. I usually got up and went for a run and I didn't that day whenever I woke up. I had a sink in feeling that something was wrong? So first of all, I call home and talk to my wife and go Is everything okay? Because Because I think that's what it is. And she's like, everything's fine. What are you talking about? You know? And, and so I go through my routine of what I'm doing and I go, it's not right. So I went into the safety observer and said, something don't feel right today, too many things have gone wrong. I do not want to fly my tech off from there. What I want to do is, is transition to my backup the neighbor which I'll tell you that most most audiences wouldn't even notice we have a backup the neighbor we fly, but my takeoff maneuver was one of two of the most dangerous maneuvers that Thunderbirds color. And I said, don't feel good today. I don't want to fly it and he goes, you're trained to do this. This is what you do. You're skilled aviator, go fly your maneuver. And I went flew my minute.
Ron Baker 7:48
Did he feel any remorse or apologize to you afterwards about that decision?
Chris Stricklin 7:54
Well, there's there's always there's always a lot more to the story and Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Okay.
Ron Baker 8:01
Okay. I mean you like you said you did that maneuver 258 times. And you even had a bad feeling about your rejection. See, you said your crews Ben and all night are fixing it because something was troubling you on flights.
Chris Stricklin 8:16
Yeah, in the end, the month prior to the ejection, we were at the practice range in Las Vegas. And me and the other solo when we take off we go upside down and do about a negative 3g push to check the aircraft out. And when I would push upside down and negative G, the seat would move like a quarter inch, a half inch but just enough to let you fill the seat move. And so the first time it happened, I I stopped the maneuvers I brought the jet back and I wrote it up and I went checked it out and couldn't find anything. So I flew it the next day and it did it again. Well, it turns out, there's only two people that fly the F 16 like that. And both of us are Thunderbirds. So the company goes in to check the specs and see what they are and they go well really there are no specifications when you're upside down it over a negative three G's, you know, because it's not a normal thing. So we think it'll be good. And my crew chiefs, my team, the Thunderbirds, they said if it takes your attention away from what you're doing even for a split second when you're upside down at those altitudes, that's not good for us. And they pulled an all nighter, they replaced my ejection seat replaced every part of it, because it made me uncomfortable. And who knows how what was wrong with the other seat or what would have been different. But I will tell you that the ejection when it happened was on the new seat. And it was an out of the envelope projection, one that they say was unsolvable. And the seat was so far out of parameters, there is no way it could safely get me out of the aircraft. And I attribute that to my team, who put in the extra effort and cared enough to go if it's not right for you. It's not right for us, and we're going to go change it out. Wow, wow.
Ron Baker 9:54
That and also I have to ask you this because you wrote as you were describing That flight in those pages of the book, you said, I made my final decision not to reject. The captain stays with his ship, a pilot stays with his aircraft. Is that the ethic of a fighter pilot? Chris I thought the ethic of a fighter pilot was to reject not go down with the ship like a captain in the Navy.
Chris Stricklin 10:21
So did I. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to eject but when it came down to that moment, and and my training, I did not make it through this maneuver. My training made it through this maneuver. That's the power of what the Air Force does for how well we train, train our aviators. And as you go through because everything was automatic people go how upset were you? how nervous were you going through the maneuver? And I say I was the most calm I've ever been in my entire life. Because I had trained my entire life for that moment. And as it came down to it, when it was time to pull the handle, I made the conscious decision not to I said I'm not going to object and I knew I was going to crash I call it my fighter pilot hand is the one flying my right hand and my fighter pilot hand said, Nope, you're going with it. Either you bring it back or you're not going back and right or wrong. That was my mentality. And that's what went through my mind. And at that same moment, I watched the canopy come off the aircraft, I watched a smoke engulf me, I watched it ribbit by rivet, go through the sequence. And I thought, What's going on? Why is my canopy coming off? And as I look down, my left hand, had pulled the ejection handle. My left hand was the one that said you have to try.
Ron Baker 11:35
Right? Your training, your training just kicked in.
Chris Stricklin 11:39
The training just kicked in. So people ask me, other fighter pilot to want to know what happens when you make that decision. What it's like to make the ultimate decision to pull the objection handle and my answer is, I don't know I decided not to reject. But my training took over and said you have to try to live
Ron Baker 11:57
and that injections 40 Jesus It
Chris Stricklin 12:01
is about 40 G's and and i will tell you as I'm standing here talking to you today, I'm two and a half inches shorter, two and a half inches shorter than I was that morning. And and people assume it's from the ejection going up the rails, whether it's 30 G's, 40 G's, who knows. But the more important thing is, whenever I landed, the one thing that I did not do, according to my training was my parachute landing crawl. We're trained to dissipate the energy when we hit the ground across our body so we don't break anything. And I had so much adrenaline going on that day that I stuck the land and I landed on my feet, and I stayed on my face and stayed there. And it compressed my my body two and a half inches. The doctor said there's not two and a half inches of cartilage in your body and once you push through the cartilage, you hit bone on bone and it shatters every bone in your body. And my answer to them was, I stand before you two and a half inches shorter and I didn't break a bone
Ron Baker 12:59
and you You discovered you are two and a half inches shorter because of the greatest hug ever known to mankind with your wife.
Chris Stricklin 13:08
I love that you pulled that quote out of there. So for those that don't know I'm married my high school sweetheart. We've been together 31 years we've been married for 25 and she flew up there to see me I left. I left the scene on the backboard in a helicopter strapped to that for quite some time. And so he was in the days that followed, she ran up to hug me like you can picture any husband and wife do and and as she embraced me, I step back and I put my arms out and I looked at her and I literally think she thought I was crazy. She was What are you doing? And ago you need to take him to the hospital. And you know this the first thing I said to her and she goes Why? I said because you've gotten taller. It turns out when you've been with somebody that long one of those things you don't notice is you know where your faces touch when you hug and she was over two inches taller and I it took me aghast I step back and go oh my gosh, she didn't get taller I'm shorter and the fact that I entered the hospital on a blackboard means I never measured my height. So I went in, and I obviously the hospital knew me at this point we've met. Can I walk in and go, I want you to measure my height. And in true military fashion, their first question is, well, how tall are you? I know I want you to measure my height and they put me up there and they said, you're five eight, right at my record and open up my record because I've been 510 and a half for my entire life.
Ron Baker 14:29
Wow, Chris, I wish we didn't have to break unfortunately, we're right up against it. But this is just unbelievable story. Folks. I'd like to remind you if you want to get ahold of Ed or myself, send us an email to ask tsp at Vera sage. com. We will post full show notes and where you can access Chris's website his new book, survivors obligation which is just absolutely a fantastic spelled minding read at the soul of enterprise. com and now we want to hear from our sponsors include Sorry, I ran a little long on that, that no,
Ed Kless 15:03
not a problem, not a problem. And I'm just spellbound as well. Good. Just
Chris Stricklin 15:09
you You want me to shorten up my answers? Oh,
Chris Stricklin 15:10
no, no, no, no, I,
Ron Baker 15:13
I hope you don't mind reliving this. But it's just so compelling.
Chris Stricklin 15:21
I'm going to tell you, there's only one part of it I have trouble talking about. And you just nailed it when you asked me about making the decision not to a jet. So we've made it through that. Anything else that fair, JJ.
Ron Baker 15:33
Sorry, I just had to ask you about the ethic of the fighter pilot. I always thought it was to reject.
Chris Stricklin 15:41
Yo, did I were trained to do that. And no kidding until you're in that moment. It's like I say, with military people, until the first bullet flies. You don't know how you're going to react. Are you going to lean in and run toward it? Or you can duck away? You just don't know.
Ed Kless 15:54
Right? what's the what's the mic the mic? Everybody's got a plan to get punched in the face. You get punched in the face.
Ron Baker 16:04
Chris, are you the only Thunderbird in their history too hippy rejected at a live air show.
Chris Stricklin 16:11
I don't know that I think I am but I can't. I can't give you that back because it's not when I've looked up. I will know that after we get off this phone call.
Chris Stricklin 16:20
Okay. Wow.
Chris Stricklin 16:27
Absolutely compelling.
Chris Stricklin 16:29
And and
Ron Baker 16:30
yeah, I don't know if we're going to get to Joel's side but if you want to talk 10 seconds guys side, we can do that.
Chris Stricklin 16:38
I would like that if you just go Okay. How did you partner with Joe? I got it. Okay.
Announcer 16:47
You are tuned into the soul of enterprise with Ron Baker and Ed class. To find out more about our show. It is on the web at the soul of enterprise.com. You can also chat with us on Twitter using hashtag ask TSOE Now back to the soul of enterprise.
Ed Kless 17:06
The book is survivor's obligation and we are here talking to one of the co authors Chris Elroy, Strickland. And Chris, I wanted to ask you about a word choice, a very specific word choice that you had in the book on on page 14, actually. And because it's something that I've done a lot of thinking about myself and I want to perhaps do some therapy with you. My therapy, not yours. And this and this, this is the quote, a calmness I had never experienced before settled throughout my entire body. Now, earlier with Ron, you were talking about how pumped up you were on adrenaline which, you know, makes a ton of sense yet at the same time, there was this calmness that you had never experienced before. Settle through your entire body. I know. We We talked on this show, it's the soul of enterprise. We talked a little bit about spirituality, not necessarily religion, but is this is this the peace, which passes all understanding? Chris?
Chris Stricklin 18:11
It does. And, and it is one of those moments that literally when you quoted that out of the book, I got chills all the way across my body because I can remember it right now, like I was in that moment. And there came the moment where for every ounce of my body, I knew that I was going to crash. There was not a doubt it was not I might it was, I'm going to crash. And at that moment, you know, your reaction defines who you are. And at that moment, instead of panicking, my body went completely calm. And it said, you had trained for this, you had been through this 1000 times in your mind, pilots care, fly. We literally sit in a chair in our office, close our eyes. And we think through everything that can happen, both good and bad, both right and wrong, and how we will react if that happens. And that was the moment Where my body told me you've trained for this now it's time to see if you can do it
Ed Kless 19:07
and did you spend time that because then after that obviously this this incident occurs you have all of the the medical procedures that happened on you find out your two and a half inches shorter the not talking about it with your wife for for so long have Have you ever reconcile the fact that at the same moment when you had this absolute calmness was also the moment that everything flew? all of the pieces literally flew flew apart at the same time.
Chris Stricklin 19:35
So if I could for everybody listening the entire flight from lyst off to explosion, which 25 or 25 seconds long. Think about what you're doing 25 seconds. And for me if I sat here and told you everything I thought about everything I went through, I saw plenty of psychiatry psychologist investigators after the fact. It was three hours long in my mind. The temple was In the temporal distortion slowed time down till it almost stopped. I literally round where I was compared it against the times I had blown it before it was like, it was like Monday talking about a football game. I was watching replays of other times I had blown it to try to figure out what was wrong with this one so that I can correct what was wrong so that I couldn't make it out. It was unless you've been through something like that I can't even explain how fast the human brain can actually work when it needs to. So from that point to the rest of it, that was the calmness that allowed me to make sound decisions, all how go into the aircraft and flashing back to my family thinking about what is going on. You know, they always say, Oh, they didn't see it coming or, and I hate to say this because that makes some people feel okay. But I saw everything. I was oversensitive to everything going on hypersensitive to everything going on, and always thinking about everything in my life and nothing in my life and only the aircraft at hand. At that very moment, it's it's almost incredible to try to explain to you
Ed Kless 21:05
know, it is and I'm going to keep pushing on this because as I said, this is this is something that I personally struggle with because and i think it's it's a moment for us to learn from from a leadership standpoint as well. You know, we talked about, you know, things happening in business and things going going around us. And I came across this quote earlier this week, which is completely different source, but I want to share it with you and test something on you that the quote was this we can't change the past. We don't know the future. And we rarely are ever fully present
Chris Stricklin 21:39
in our in the actual presence. Do you think this sense that you had this again, this that the temporal temporal distortion that happened that made 25 seconds seemed like three hours was just an extreme case of you really being fully present in that moment, as as a as a spiritual being I do. I do think it's for President. And one of the things I'll tell you if I could flash forward a little bit to a different area. And let's talk about at the moment I came out of the aircraft and I will tell you, I never lost constant consciousness. From the moment I came out of the aircraft till I was standing on the ground, but my body, the body is an amazing thing. My body yet 16 years later, has not let me remember what the objection from leaving the aircraft until standing on the ground. So your memory in my opinion is not videos. If you think about it, it's still images of things that happen in the emotions around them. So picture me I know I'm going off the rails on the objection sequence next frame, I'm standing on the ground. And in that moment, I felt everything good in my life. Everything my life did not flashed before my eyes, but in one instance, I felt every positive every good thing, every ounce of love in my world. world. And it's something I can't explain to you. And it was only there for a second because right after I started feeling it I looked up at this guy is a beautiful day. And I was taking it all in and then I got snapped back to reality and went, wait a minute, I was just a mystic thing. Why am I standing on the ground? And so again, my training snapped me back to the ground to get back into the sequence. But, but when you're talking about those types of spirituality, that was the biggest moment I've ever had in my life because the feelings that came into my body, there's no way I can explain them to you.
Ed Kless 23:31
You know, and I know if you're aware of this and just because like I said, this is something that I picked up on in the book and obviously I'm obsessed with it. So if you'll pardon me, but you you right after that passage about what you say I saw no parachute. This again, quoting from the book, with the same calmness I'd experienced a few seconds before in the aircraft I began to look around as a spiritual person. I believe light would lead me to the other side after death, but nothing. My point being is that that That that whole thing that you, quote, can't remember, was completely and totally surrounded by this parenthetically, I guess by this calmness. And I just find that it's beautiful, that there's no other way to describe it, but beautiful.
Chris Stricklin 24:19
I appreciate that. And I love the fact that, that you pulled that out of the book because for me, that was the biggest moment. It was one of those spiritual moments and talking about presence. When I go out and talk about the book. It's not about talking about the objection. What it is, is talking about intentionality. Because I'm telling you that presence I had in that moment, the way I felt in that moment, the fact that I got it tomorrow that other people didn't make me so intentional in every move I make in every interaction, every hug with my kids, every time I say goodbye to my wife to walk out the door and go to work. It makes me always think that's going to be my last second and one of the things I ask people to do is After you read the book and see how it resonates with you, and what aspects of it resonate with you, I want you to lay down at night. And when you close your eyes, ask yourself one thing. If this was my last day on this earth, would I have done the same thing? If I knew? Would I have treated people the same way? Would I have devoted my time to the same things? And if the answer's no, live intentionally tomorrow to change those things? Because if you ask yourself every night, if this was my last day on earth, would I be happy with it? Unfortunately, one day, you're going to be right.
Ed Kless 25:36
Yeah. And I grew up Catholic. So I'm always fascinated by some of the stories of the saints and one of my my favorites is along this lines, I believe it was St. St. Anthony of Padua, who was a priest in the Order of St. Francis. They asked him he was he was out tending the garden one day and one of the one of his George's, one of the postulates came over to him and asked Anthony if if if you were told that the Messiah was returning right now what would you do? And he said I would tend the garden
Chris Stricklin 26:15
That's how you know you're doing the right things in life. Because if I could pull on one other side of the spirituality like you said, the book is not about why it crashes but why survive? When people go through trauma and and i will tell you, the way I define trauma is not ejected from an aircraft or stage four cancer. It's everything that goes through our life, whether it's a divorce, a marriage, a child, whether changing jobs, losing jobs, getting those are all traumatic aspects of our life. And you have to think of those things because if you win the lottery today, you don't go Why me? You go out and cash a check for most people. But if something negative happens, you go Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Now? Why did it happen to me and that's where you can get lost in the negative side of trauma. But for me, that's not what concerns me. concern me is, why did I survive? What am I still here on this earth to do? But more importantly, did I do it? Or did I miss it? And it forced me to live every day like today was the day I was left here for and make sure that was ready for those opportunities. But if you think of it that way, because we're all here for a reason, and like you said, spirituality is not necessarily religion. They're two totally different things to me. And they're also two totally intertwined things. But we have to think about what we're doing every day.
Ed Kless 27:33
Well, amen. And this is one of the few shows where I'm sort of resentful of our breaks but we have to take one and want to remind you that you can get a hold of Ron or me by sending an email to ask tsp at various age calm Of course, as you know, the show and website is the soul of enterprise where you will see show notes as well as previews to upcoming shows as well as the link to Chris's book. But right now, a word from our sponsor.
Chris Stricklin 28:01
Alright, you're clear. What do you think?
Ed Kless 28:09
Oh, man,
Ron Baker 28:10
this is great. Wow, that was powerful.
Ed Kless 28:14
I'm trying to withhold from weeping on the air. So yes,
Ron Baker 28:20
that Wow. That read that that first quote you said that about the past and the future was that
Ed Kless 28:30
we can't change the past. We don't know the future, yet we are rarely ever fully present. Okay.
Chris Stricklin 28:41
Okay, where we finish up today if you guys give me one, give me one second to say is there anything else that you'd like to add? I'm going to top that quote, If I don't
Ed Kless 28:54
stop it. Yes. All right. I'll buy you a drink. Anyway.
Ron Baker 29:00
Wow.
Ed Kless 29:01
Alright, so and Brian, if you want to pick up on Chris, I'll I'll can do the fourth segment and talk about Thor story. So if you Okay, okay.
Ron Baker 29:10
Yep. And you can mention that the book goes to charity and all that.
Ed Kless 29:16
Yeah. Because believe it or Believe it or not, Chris, you're your co author uses the word calm one time, and I want to make a connection. So that'll be
Chris Stricklin 29:27
we're very different. And I will tell you one other thing. Yeah, we're a year we couldn't write a book because we went our stories are two different and I don't remember if it makes version but literally, literally, go ahead.
Announcer 29:44
You are tuned into the soul of enterprise with Ron Baker and Ed class. To find out more about our show, visit us on the web at the soul of enterprise.com. You can also chat with us on Twitter using hashtag ask t so we know that to the soul of enterprise.
Ron Baker 30:01
Welcome back, everybody. We're here with Chris Strickland, co author of survivors obligation. And while Chris listening to you and Ed talk about that, how you were full of adrenaline, and yet so calm, and it also just reminded me that you were present enough to realize that there were thousands of people in the crowd that you had to move away from before you did anything. And yet all these other things were going on in your head as well. Your wife your family, your training was kicking in it that's not spiritual. I don't know what is.
Chris Stricklin 30:37
It is there was one of the most spiritual moments I've ever had in my life. And, and it's just like I said, writing the book was traumatic for me, because I had to put words to what I had felt all those years back and hadn't dealt with.
Ron Baker 30:53
Yeah, and you even had the presence of mind when you were in the ambulance to ask first today. Anyone get hurt? He responded, well, sir, just you?
Chris Stricklin 31:06
Yeah, that's, that's one of those moments in the books you can laugh about. But needless to say, when I was in the ambulance there, there put me in the back board and have this airman working on me, but there's a military ambulance. And and I asked him that question. It goes, I got a couple of questions for you. Did anybody get hurt? And and if you could have seen this surprise on his face, because he he kind of looked at me to see if I was serious. And he went, No, sir. Just you and he kind of looked at me on the blackboard in an ambulance. And he goes, he didn't say it, but his face said, You do know you're in an email. Right? Right.
Ron Baker 31:39
And your second question even shows the presence of mind because you asked if you could have completed the maneuver without hitting the ground.
Chris Stricklin 31:47
Because that's what's in your mind. Did I make the right decision? It I heard anybody and did I make the right decision? And the answer I needed an outside perspective on it. And in that moment, He instinctively reacted and said, There is no way you were completing that maneuver. And that's what I needed to go. Okay. I did the best I could. I mean, that's really what we're saying. But that that was what was on my mind. And as you know, most fighter pilots just speak what's on their mind.
Ron Baker 32:17
Chris, can you contrast survivor's guilt with survivors obligation for us? And I think people have an idea of what survivor's guilt is, but I'm not. I'm not sure that
Chris Stricklin 32:29
I can. And so survivor's guilt is something that's experienced, very commonly whenever a unit deploys to combat and 99 of us go home but one of us doesn't. there's times where you look around and go, why did I make it home and he or she did, what they may have been standing right beside you when it happened. And the same thing happens with our first responders. When someone has an incident happening, they don't get to go home to their loved one done. And like me focusing on the sunrise when I when I talked to be In person, there's one picture I show. And it's a sunrise picture. And most people think it's a sunset because they look very similar. And it's a sunrise on the day after my objection over my objection side, and I said, because I hadn't dealt with it, I knew I felt deep down. I wasn't going to deal with it for a while. But I had the presence of mind to stumble out of my room because I really couldn't stand up straight, and take that picture and put it away. And I didn't look at that picture for 13 years. I literally did not open the file. But now it's my favorite picture because it's the tomorrow I almost didn't get it tomorrow. I almost lost with my family with my friends, everything. And that's what's powerful about this is they could be your last any of us, any of us anything we do. It's not just high danger jobs, you got to make the most of it.
Ron Baker 33:47
Now, when you wrote about that single picture of the impact site, I thought, that must be some such a meaningful possession
Chris Stricklin 33:57
as it is I can't even it's another one of those. I can't tell you what I feel when I see that picture.
Ron Baker 34:07
Any reason why you didn't put it in the book?
Chris Stricklin 34:11
Because at the time I wrote the book, first of all, I told you up front that writing the book was therapeutic for me and my co author, and, and literally my wife and I had one of those moments last week where we went, Oh my gosh, I can't believe we did this. And it's still overwhelming for us because people like to ask me, how did you deal with that past hands? Well, people who have been through trauma, don't deal with it past tense. They are dealing with it present tense and the two of us, Marcia and Joel are dealing with his we still talk about that last weekend, we talked about how hard this book was on our wives. Because we are now talking about our trauma all the time, to different people like yourselves, and there are times that we all just break down in tears. I mean, literally, I'm literally break down in tears. That happens to us. routinely now, but now I see it as a healing process, not when I'm embarrassed up. Well, my wife was joking with somebody last night, something came up about some volunteer work we're doing. And she goes, she was talking to my kids. And she goes, your dad can't do that. And they're like, Why? Why can't dad do it? And she goes, he has become too emotional over the last few years, and there's no way he can go, his emotions can't handle that aspect of what we were going to volunteer anybody with a hospital. And she goes, he can't do it. He's too emotional. He's the emotional fighter pilot now.
Ron Baker 35:34
You know, after I finished your book, and I wrote you that note about just how impactful it was, and my dad read your book, as well. And we talked about it a couple days ago, and I said to my dad, I said, I almost feel like I'm invading Chris's privacy by asking some of these questions that I'm dying to ask them. But you write in the book that people rarely asked why good things happen. When painful events happen, acceptance is an important step.
Chris Stricklin 36:06
It is it is. And, you know, for me, you guys have been with me for quite a few years now in different avenues in person on the radio. I think we've all gotten to know each other. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but the side of me that you saw through this book, and our recent interactions are completely different than the persona you had before the book published, is that correct?
Ron Baker 36:29
That is absolutely correct.
Chris Stricklin 36:32
And when you say you're invading my privacy by asking the questions, I would say don't worry about it. You've already invited my privacy by reading the book, because that was an all access pass into my house. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I gave you permission for that. But, but that's what I feel like the book is for me and Joel both is showing the backside of how this affected us how it affected our families, how it affected our children, how it affects our future, and our today
Ron Baker 37:01
Do you think being putting yourself out like you did with the book and being vulnerable? How has that affected people's perceptions of you? I mean, like you said, You're a fighter pilot, everything's perfect. I mean, you guys are flawless. You do things, you know, a couple inches apart. And here, there was this traumatic event. Do you think showing that vulnerability is changed people's perceptions?
Chris Stricklin 37:30
It is, and you brought a smile to my face with that. I will tell you I was terrified to show vulnerability, because in my mind, I thought it was showing weakness. I truly did. And but I felt the calling to do it right. We have these callings in our lives and Joel and I felt the calling to share because we thought we could take our worst day and help other people through theirs help help make good out of the bat. And I'll summarize it like you said, You sent me a note those moments. I'll summarize it this way yesterday, I had a speaking engagement And I talked about the book. And they and we went down a path. I can talk about it so deep, but there's still things I can't. And I almost went over that line and almost got emotional during the presentation, which, as a professional speaker is not something we like to do. And, and there's that moment of how did they react to it. And I will tell you, when I walked off the stage, they didn't only clap, they got up and hug my neck. Literally, this was a professional organization and they walked up and one by one, put their arms around me and hugged me.
Chris Stricklin 38:30
I can't tell you what that means.
Ron Baker 38:33
It means you're human. We're just humans.
Chris Stricklin 38:36
We are all just humans.
Chris Stricklin 38:40
But book let us be humans together. Instead of hiding it or putting in the closet. I always say that I locked everything in a closet. I knew it was there. But fighter pilots are trained to compartmentalize their emotions so that we can contain not just fighter pilots, but military and first responders in general, because our emotions can't get in the way of doing our job. The problem is we Leave it in the closet for too long. And like you read in the book, at one point, something opened my closet a little bit and those emotions started blowing out. And when they did, I couldn't stop. I couldn't they were coming out whether I wanted to or not. And the fact that it took me 15 years for that to happen, My only regret is I didn't open up with my wife or others to help them learn from it. Right.
Ron Baker 39:25
You know, Chris, another thought that came to me when I was reading your book is spend a lot of time talking about living intentionally. And you know how this this dramatic impact affected that. The only other person that I've read that had a similar story to yours not exactly but but parent very parallel was Ronald Reagan. He when he was assassinated, the attempted assassination I was like he said, The Lord kept me here for a reason.
Chris Stricklin 39:56
And I better be ready for it. Right?
Ron Baker 39:58
Yep. And No, go ahead. No, don't go ahead, please.
Chris Stricklin 40:04
So So I got sidetracked on the survivor's remorse. So we started talking about that when you come home, a lot of people feel remorse from that. And as Joel and I started talking about it, we really looked at each other and said, we can't do that because and I don't mean to sound cold, but I'm not remorseful that I've survived. What I feel is an obligation to make it mean something to like, you've heard me say to be ready for whatever it was, I was kept here for and that is for survivors obligation was born that is post traumatic growth. Not ETFs D like we've painted it to be.
Ron Baker 40:38
Right. I just love that title. I love that title when you told us about it. I just knew it was going to be a great book when I think it was the second time you were on the show. And you gave us the title. I thought wow, that's a powerful title. is such a contrast to survivors, you know, guilt
Chris Stricklin 40:58
right? how we live our life we choose to live our life. Right? We choose how we react. We choose how we spend our time. Don't don't live in remorse.
Ron Baker 41:12
Right? And even before you told your wife, you wrote in the book that you had a conversation with a couple friends from San Antonio, if I remember right. In you kind of went through the story with them that must have been traumatic or cathartic.
Chris Stricklin 41:29
So that was unintentional and accidental. So that was the friend I told you about that wanted to put me on contract to talk to the organization and I flew down there to talk to him and his wife. I went to both of both of them, went to college with me at the Air Force Academy. He was in my wedding. So he knew me and Terry very well. And we were sitting at Chris Madrid's in San Antonio, incredible hamburger restaurant, we just went out to eat to talk about it. And while we were sitting there, that was right at the time, I was starting to deal with it back at home with my doctor and with all of the everything going on. And all of a sudden, I go, you guys, you want to hear my version of the story. And it was just meant to be a, you know, a way top version of it. And all of a sudden I dove in at a level I never dove in. And I'm looking at them. We all have tears in our eyes. And I went, Oh, my gosh, how did we end up here in a public place? We're in a restaurant. And that's where I realized the true amount that I had been hiding and putting the feelings aside.
Ron Baker 42:27
Wow. Well, again, Chris, I do resent these breaks. But unfortunately, we're up against another one. But I can't thank you enough ads going to take you home. But thank you so much for coming back on the show, and sharing some of your insights from this wonderful book. I really appreciate it. And folks, we'd like to remind you if you want to contact that or myself, send us an email to ask tsp at Vera Sage calm. And now we want to hear from our sponsor sage.
Chris Stricklin 42:59
All right, you're Clear. Cool.
Chris Stricklin 43:03
Thanks, Chris. Great stuff.
Chris Stricklin 43:06
I appreciate you guys doing this. I'm gonna tell you like I told my wife when I got home last night. Hopefully it's a great show for you guys and your listeners. I'm a professional speaker. You don't know how much it takes out of me to do what we're doing right now.
Ron Baker 43:19
I can imagine. Yeah, I can I get again part of me feels like we're being invasive. I have I have guilt.
Chris Stricklin 43:33
But the book give you permission to do that. People are always afraid to ask me questions. Now. It's like, you know, what's off limits? There's nothing off limits. Just go. Let's go. Let's see, we know
Ed Kless 43:44
for sure. Chris. I can remember the first time we interviewed you and I think Ron and I had a AR before action review. And I think we talked to
Ron Baker 43:54
ask him about the crash.
Chris Stricklin 44:00
And at the time you guys sent me home, you would not have gotten an answer. I don't know how it would have been answered. You know,
Ron Baker 44:07
a little bit about it. But
Ed Kless 44:09
we may you may I think we made the joke because what you had told me that you were shorter. And I think that I think we we kind of like, had a laugh about it to a certain extent.
Chris Stricklin 44:18
We didn't talk about it. We talked around it.
Ed Kless 44:20
Right. Exactly. Yeah, right. Right.
Chris Stricklin 44:23
Right. That's my way of dealing with it for all those Yeah. Yeah.
Ron Baker 44:27
Well, like you said, acceptance is a big challenge in this right. Here. Yes.
Announcer 44:43
You are tuned into the soul of enterprise with Ron Baker and Ed Kless. To find out more about our show, visit us on the web at the soul of enterprise.com. You can also chat with us on Twitter using hashtag ask gsae. Now back to the soul of enterprise
Ed Kless 45:01
And I have never been so grateful for the fact that Ron and I trade segments off before on the show so that I can well and I guess he can recover after talking to Chris about his this this story that he's so wonderfully shared with with us. Chris, I know that there's something that you wanted to make an announcement about was regarding the book. So let's, let's quick talk about that.
Chris Stricklin 45:23
Yeah, so Joel, and I, my co author, and I have always said, This book is not about us. Our stories only get you to pick it up. But it's really about the lessons we learned and, and we have always said we didn't want to be professional authors or sell books. We just wanted to create a community of survivors. All this morning, I talked to Joel and we've decided the best way to take us out of the equation is to donate all profits from the books to charities, so that everybody knows that genuinely, he and I want to share our stories and hear other people's stories. This is not about selling books or making a profit and so now We won't make a penny off the book, everything goes straight to charity, different charities because we're on different sides of the story here we have the areas we want to focus on. But thanks for letting me share that. He just announced that on social media while we were on this call.
Ed Kless 46:12
Oh, outstanding, outstanding. We're glad to be part of breaking that. And I think that's, that's terrific. So let's talk a little bit about Joel as we've alluded to it but to come straight out. It's really the two stories, your story and Joel's story. And Joseph is quite quite different, isn't it?
Chris Stricklin 46:30
It is quite different. So we share a background he's an epic thing, fighter pilot just like myself. And fighter pilots don't like to go to the doctor because we're afraid we might not get fly again. And one day he went to the doctor, he had a plane he goes, Hey, Doc, I got this going on. Just check it out and give me back to fly. And and it turns out, he didn't have just a pain. He had stage four cancer, a rare con that gave him a 15% chance of living five years. Think about that. He was on top of the world. He was on top of his episode eight Got a 15% chance of living five years. Just after that happened. His two year old, had a tumor on his lung. So while his wife is running between rooms in a hospital, she has both her husband and the son in the hospital. Now, mind you, that was nine years ago, nine years ago. So when I retired from the Air Force, I was working with Joelle and some consulting work. And we started talking about our trauma. And that is where the idea was born for the book. And for a year, we say our stories are two different there's no way we can relate them. And then one day, we said our differences are our similarities. The fact that we went through different kinds of trauma, but we ended up with the same post traumatic growth is what the book is about.
Ed Kless 47:46
But there's also some great contrasts to in that yours is 25.5 seconds. Everything happens to in your incident, of course, his story with him being diagnosed with cancer and then if I if I have The this right? He, he was uh, he was aware of that, but then goes to the appointment with his son hadn't yet told his wife, right? Because, again, the one time that he uses the word calm is in that section when he's making that transition, he said, I tried to keep calm in front of Marcia, right. And it was like the this this duel thing. His was it seems like it was 25 days or whatever that was. So there's this absolute elongated sense of his incident as opposed to yours, which is really this this tightness. But what is so cool about it, as you said is, is is in the end? You can't you had you came to the same place.
Chris Stricklin 48:41
That's right, we came to the same place. And you know what, it helped me because since his trauma was so stretched out between diagnosis and all the treatment to get him past it. He had dealt with things much differently than I had. So I will tell you, there were times we met every Sunday afternoon, talk about the book wherever we were in the world and There were times we were we were hugging each other virtually there were times we were yelling at each other, because we were going through different levels of our trauma. While we were writing the book, it took two and a half years for that reason. And I intentionally we wrote a short book because we want it to be a quick read so that nobody can say I don't read books that's too long. Because we think there's so many lessons you can get out of there. And that is his cancer, his long drawn out cancer, my very quick trauma between those two, hopefully everybody can relate to some aspect of it in their lives. Like one of my cats Raiders said it best before we published, he came in and said, there's a moment where you interior in the kitchen, you're talking about the conversation you haven't had. And he goes, that wasn't you and Terry, it was me and my wife. And I was asking myself, how many things are we not talking about that we should?
Ed Kless 49:52
Yeah, no, it's terrific, terrific. Insight there and regarding that, I wanted to to To ask you, you know about your career wise, it's then they both come off as clear heroes in this this story as well. There's a lot of marriages that that don't make it through this right that don't make it through the these types of stressful incidents.
Chris Stricklin 50:17
Yeah, they and I appreciate you bringing it up and they don't come off as heroes. They are the true heroes. They are because they're the ones that held it all together. Right? When I'm in the hospital, and Joel's in the hospital, just like all military spouses everywhere, when I disappear for a year to deploy that gana, Stan, I've got four kids at home and a wife who has to act like a single mom. That is every military person around the world not just looking at trauma. And when you go through trauma, you can choose to either let it bring you closer together or force you apart. That that is a deliberate choice you and your spouse have to make and whether you're talking about it or not. We knew we had been through it together and it brought us closer together.
Ed Kless 51:01
Yeah. At the same time, one of the things I just wanted to point out is that there there are plenty of people who who have experienced trauma and and don't make it. And they have and I'm going to say I am one of them went through a traumatic divorce situation a long, long time ago. It we have a survivor's obligation once you get on the other side of those incidents as well.
Chris Stricklin 51:27
That's right. You look at every aspect of your life and you can apply these principles to almost every move you make. You can imply that intentionality with everything you do.
Ed Kless 51:38
Yeah, so true. Well, anything else you want to mention here, Chris, before we wrap up?
Chris Stricklin 51:45
You know, if anybody takes anything away from the book, here's what I would ask you to take away today. Today, your presentation is the culmination of yesterday's actions, reactions and in Your decisions and in decisions, your peak and your valleys that chart the journey that is your life to today. Think about that. Don't be a passenger. Write your book and live intentionally to become the person you want to be tomorrow. Not the person you have allowed your experiences to make you today.
Ed Kless 52:23
Yes think TS Eliot said it in a minute. There is time for 1000 decisions and revisions that a minute will reverse.
Chris Stricklin 52:32
Powerful
Ed Kless 52:34
Yeah. And you're in your case 25.25 seconds. So just just just just amazing, amazing stuff. what what what's what's next for you? Obviously a speaking turck as a speaking tour for this book, but what what what else are you doing?
Chris Stricklin 52:52
You know, I'll tell you that Joel and I both have professional careers outside of the Air Force. Now that we're out of the Air Force, and we have no engine Tension have given up. We love what we do. We truly do the people we do it with. And it's a reason in the beginning we said we were writing this book to help others and to create a community. But neither of us are leaving our primary jobs to go out on a speaking tour. We're working it in where we can, but I will tell you as a professional speaker, it's amazing how many engagements I've taken in the past month because of the organization's I was partnering with not because of the paycheck that's coming in. It's the freedom of giving back the power of giving back. And I challenge all of you to find the area where you can devote time and resources because it's fulfilling it's more fulfilling than a paycheck ever will be.
Ed Kless 53:43
Yep, so very true. Well, I want to run had a chance to thank you I want I want to thank you for being on the show again. And we just love having you on as a guest whether it's talking about after action reviews and before action reviews and making decisions or This extraordinary personal story that you have chosen to share with us that we, we are all blessed to have, have you share with us and be in our lives. So so thank you for that.
Chris Stricklin 54:12
Thank you, gentlemen. And it was a pleasure as always, and every interaction always walk away better than I was before, if nothing else, because we're spending the time talking about improving some aspect of our life.
Ron Baker 54:26
Thank you so much, Chris. Ryan, what do we got coming up next week, next week. And we have Andy Armand Nino, who retired as of January 1, the former CEO of the firm I worked for so I'm really looking forward to that.
Ed Kless 54:43
Outstanding Well, I'll see you in hundred and 67 hours then.
Ron Baker 54:57
This has been the soul of enterprise business and the knowledge Economy sponsored by Sage energizing Business Builders around the world for the imagination of our people and the power of technology. Join us next week folks and Friday at 1pm Pacific we will have and Dr menino on. In the meantime, visit us at the soul of enterprise. com will post show notes and links to where you can learn more about Chris and the amazing book survivors obligation and his story and even watch a video he's got up there so you can also contact better myself at ask tsp advanced age calm. Thanks for listening, folks. Have a great weekend.
Chris Stricklin 55:36
Bye, guys.
Ed Kless 55:38
Alright, thanks.
Ron Baker 55:39
Thanks, john.
Chris Stricklin 55:40
Appreciate it. As always.