26. Be the One! - Ed “HAMSTER” Hamill

This is the B1 Change 1 podcast where our mission is to help listeners to find values, practice

integrity, and inspire change.

Our vision is to mentor men and empower them to achieve more by taking responsibility

for shaping their own lives.

This is Cass, an evolving man who has been shaped by adversity and continues to grow

through his imperfections.

And he's Roscoe, an imperfect work in progress that tries to suck less every day.

Between us, we have over 40 years of Air Force Fighter Palette experience with countless

hours as trainers, instructors, and mentors.

Join us and learn to take responsibility for your own life as we dive into subjects from

leadership to resilience to vulnerability.

Be the one who changes their course, be decisive, driven, and purposeful.

Set the example for others, lead.

We wish we had had the show when we were younger men, be the one.

So we usually start with something goofy.

So how does every good fighter pilot story start?

So there I was.

There I was.

There I was.

Teaching academics just a couple of days ago.

I got a two lecture day.

So I get up and I got the courses in the morning.

And this is like a, this ends up being like a three and a half hour lecture.

And then I get a little bit of a lunch break.

But the second round of academics is to one of our upgrading CIPs.

And he's sitting there at my desk when I get upstairs.

So I had just enough time to refill my coffee, get downstairs, and then I briefed him for

close to two hours.

So it was, you know, between 530 and six hours of straight talking that day.

One stage in front of people.

At the end, I'm spent.

I come back upstairs.

I grab yet another cup of coffee and I went over and sat down with the bro.

I'm on just to kind of BS for a second.

Kind of wind down because I had been scheduled to come over to Cassis to record a show that

day.

So I needed some, I needed some WUSA time.

And I'm sitting there with him for like 30 minutes at his desk in his chair.

And he looks at me goes, Roscoe, I think your shirt's on inside out.

What are you talking about?

No, it's not.

He goes, no, the buttons are on the inside, dude.

Dude, I was on stage for six hours and not one person said anything.

I taught an entire day's lecture with my eyes on golf shirt on inside out.

The tag was hanging out the back of this dang thing.

And nobody said anything to me.

So I told that story for a reason.

It's because on the B1 Change 1 podcast, we like to highlight our failures sometimes.

And there you go.

There's my failure for the week.

Big failure.

I can't even dress myself.

And I'm almost half a century old.

There you go.

We do it all the time.

All the time.

Yeah.

No new lessons, right?

Yeah, exactly.

No new lessons.

Just lessons relearned.

All right, guys.

Well, today we're excited to have a guest on.

We have retired Colonel Ed Hamster Hamill is going to join us on the show today.

Currently Hamster flies for one of the major US carriers and also performs on the air

show circuit flying for the folds of on flying the folds of honor by plane.

Hamster's a veteran airshow pilot and performed in his first show back in 1999.

He completed a 30 year career flying the 16 in the Air Force and has performed in his

by plane for over 42 million people at air shows across North America.

Currently Hamster is partnering with folds of honor foundation, which provides scholarships

to the families of fallen and disabled military veterans and first responders.

He and folds of honor do this to honor their sacrifice to this great country and to educate

their legacy.

Since 2007, folds of honor has given out over 51,000 scholarships worth nearly $240 million.

Hamster has more than 2,200 hours in the by plane, including competitions and over 2,200

hours in the F-16, including combat time.

So Hamster, welcome to the B-1 Championship.

Welcome back, guys.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Yeah, dude.

Glad to be here.

So you're a local Phoenician.

Is that right?

Well, pretty much.

Yeah.

Been there for seven.

Yeah, been here for a minute.

Where are you originally from?

Southern California.

Orange County.

Nice.

Lived in Chicago a little bit in Atlanta, but the roots are really in Orange County.

Yeah, my wife did her high school years out there.

We're actually headed back out here after the first of the year, which before this episode

comes out, we will have gone there and come back.

But she's got a bunch of friends who live around there.

Alabama got into the College Football Playhouse playing in Pasadena.

Oh, yeah.

So we're going to go couch serve for the weekend down around Irvine and Orange County.

Her dad was a CEO at an El Toro.

He was a, yeah, he was a Hornet guy in the Marine.

He was a ex-Ocio out there.

So she spent like our whole high school years and so out there.

Yeah.

He's to live in Mission Viejo, which is right next to El Toro.

Yeah, right on.

That's cool.

Right on.

All right, Hans.

So you've been a pilot for a long time, brother.

They're doing a lot of different things.

Commercial and air show.

Talk to us a little about, just give us a little bit of your backstory, man.

Like how did the air show thing come to fruition?

What was your path into the air force?

Why don't you share a little bit of your background with us?

Yeah.

You know, it's probably very similar to yours and a lot of others got in deviation.

Probably made that decision at a very young age like I did.

So I went to air shows growing up.

My grandfather was a military pilot and a corporate pilot.

He actually flew the hump in China.

C-47's over the hump, pretty small group, very, they're only about 69 plus or minus of those

pilots.

Honestly.

It's a pretty cool mission.

And so my earliest memories were sitting on my grandfather's lap and assessing the 310

are flying across the country with, you know, the rest of my family in the airplane.

And and just being exposed to flying at a young age, general aviation, not necessarily

military.

Yeah.

So we'd go to air shows and Southern California had air shows Chicago as the big Chicago

or in water show.

And palwaki airport in Chicago, I don't think it's called palwaki.

I think it's called like Chicago executive now, but that's where my dad and I would go.

And we, you know, we'd be hands on the chain link fence, looking through the fence and

watching the airplanes.

And then once a year or twice a year, my grandfather, grandmother, who is also a pilot,

one of the original 99s, if you're familiar with the 99s, women pilot organization.

They'd come in and we sometimes get to go flying with them, which is pretty cool.

So I think it started for me.

When I knew that I wanted to be a fighter pilot, you probably know the exact moment.

And we're very fortunate.

All of us are fortunate when you know the exact moment when you know what you want to do

for the rest of your life and it, that's it, you don't change your mind.

We are very fortunate.

I say that because now you know where you need to go to school, what goals you need to

set, what kind of friends you want to hang out with, what kind of people you want to

surround yourself with.

And so that happened for me at age 14 on Lake Shore Drive with my dad and my family watching

the Chicago and Watershow.

And it was literally a fighter jet.

And I'm pretty sure it was just F4 at the time.

I don't want to say just F4, but it was net four and it wasn't even one of the aerobatic

performing F4s.

It was just straight and level in full afterburner.

And it was a two ship.

And you can imagine how loud that was.

And then the jet flies by and I just went, you know, maybe a week before that I want

to be a fighter fighter.

Maybe a week before that I wanted to be a cop, a lawyer that did it for you.

And then you know, I kind of nudge my dad and I go, all right, I think I want to do

that.

Yeah, okay.

And he knew the military background that I was exposed to with my grandfather.

And I know that I know now that my dad really wanted to go in the military and fly as well.

And that didn't work out for him.

So he was very excited when I said, I want to do that, I want to be a fighter pilot.

And then shortly thereafter is when I saw the F16 and then that was it.

I'm like, not only don't we have a fighter pilot, but I want to fly that specific fighter.

Yeah.

But then when you go through high school and you go through college, you know, high school,

I, I messed around with, you know, the civil air patrol.

And it was called the naval sea cadets, I think, or something.

You know, just a little bit of all that and just kind of seeing is this really what I want

to do.

And that's, and that's a great place to start and to just see if you like this whole

thing about, you know, short haircut and wearing a uniform exposure, man, you know, there's

more to it than just find that's airplane, right?

There's a lot more to it, right?

You got to learn how to march first, but, you know, I've, I've also been very stubborn.

I, you know, parents will tell you that, my sister will tell you that.

And sometimes that's good, sometimes that's not so good.

And so it was early on a 14 ad an air show.

So when I knew that I wanted to go in the military and be a fighter pilot, I laid out the path

right then in high school.

I got more serious about it than approaching college and made it really easy because I

knew the first thing a college had to have was a path to commissioning.

I didn't want to go to the academy, honestly, I don't think I had the grades for it.

Yeah.

I wanted to go to a university and go through ROTC.

I didn't have the grades to go to a university and go to all sort training school, which is

another path.

So I chose San Diego State University.

We lived in Orange County.

And so that was the first requirement.

Great.

They got an ROTC detachment.

So I took a visit and, and that was it.

And I did pretty well in high school, grades wise.

So I was all in for aerospace engineering until I finished my first semester of college.

I figured out what aerospace engineering entailed.

It's how you thought that there would be no math.

And then I realized, this requires you to be smart.

I just debriefed my son.

He's going through arrow engineering at Embryrittle right now.

Just finished freshman one.

And the same exact conversation goes, man, I don't know about this.

My dad was a PhD undergrad, a PhD or a chemistry undergrad in PhD.

And he was a, or I'm screwing all that.

Sorry.

Undergraded in chemistry and he got his PhD in chemistry.

And so he was one of those Brainiacs extremely smart.

That was a very difficult thing to do.

I never realized I thought, you know, you can do it.

I can do it.

Not so fast.

So, so I realized halfway through that first semester, you know, I got a 2.0 GPA.

I got a pivot.

And I, you know what?

Would you guys talk about failures?

Yeah.

I thought I was a failure.

I thought I failed.

I thought I screwed this whole thing up.

And so I quickly went in and talked to several people, the Lieutenant Colonel

Victor Lutz, the detachment 075 commander at San Diego State University.

Great guy.

Awesome mentor.

Someone I could go talk to, that's another key here is I've surrounded myself

with people that I can go talk to.

Yeah.

When I think I have completely failed at something.

And he goes, okay, you want to be a fighter pilot?

Yeah.

Well, okay, you need a degree.

Yeah.

Well, you don't need an aerospace engineering degree.

You need a degree.

So let's look at what else, you know, you can go into that might be interesting.

And so I came home after a semester one and had the difficult conversation with

my parents because I thought they'd be very disappointed.

And I said, it's ain't working for me.

I'm not going to get that degree, which is one of those scores I got to fill.

So I initially was going to switch to industrial artists.

And then I looked into a little bit more and went, that's great if that's what you really

want to do.

But then I found business and the business degree with an emphasis in management is where

I went.

And the reason why I really enjoyed that is because I had run businesses and started businesses

all the way as early as third grade.

There was a lawnmowing business, a snow shoveling business.

I would literally hand right out in invoices, and I was making all this money.

And then in high school, a very lucrative business to get into is stringing tennis

rackets.

Because I was an avid tennis player as well as soccer all the way through to play at

San Diego State, but tennis is, I was in all the NJTP programs and I was all about tennis

as well.

That's a great thing to get into because you can get the string for extremely low cost,

like two, three, four, five dollars.

And then you can charge 20 bucks, 25 dollars to string a racket.

And once you get really good, you can pay off for the stringer that you have to buy.

And then you're making a profit pretty quick.

And so I looked back at early experiences, you know, doing that, thinking, those were

fun.

Money, so I can go out and buy the things I want to buy and have fun.

Yeah.

I didn't realize that that's really something all the way to this day.

And I'm sure you guys have started a business, whether it's an LLC as court sole proprietorship,

you're probably running B1 change one as a business.

And so I started doing that early on.

And I know I'm getting way off track, you know, from, you know, being a pilot and how

you start there.

But, but all those things come together.

And so, you know, now I'm back in college and I'm, I'm fulfilling my, my dream of being

a pilot.

And the first thing I need to do is get a commission, get a degree and then get commission.

And so I was on my way to doing that.

And, and ROTC was a great way to do it because it was basically a fraternity.

And I had a lot of friends in fraternities and sororities which are great networking opportunities.

And they have a lot of fun too.

But man, we had a lot of fun in ROTC.

It was, I lived in a house with a five bedroom house and we had one non ROTC.

Everyone else was, we were all in ROTC together.

We would go out to the same parties, we'd hang out all weekends.

Yeah.

You know, and you'd walk into that party on a Friday Saturday night and we'd be hanging

out and then you'd look in the back of the room and go, all right, they're doing something

that we can't do.

Yeah.

We show up on Monday and we get that random drug test or whatever or we have to fill

out that questionnaire that says, have you ever?

So we were able to use ROTC as the scapegoat.

Yeah.

So we would never judge.

We would never say, hey, we're not, we don't do that stuff because we think that you're

a bunch of losers because you're doing it.

We wouldn't go there.

We would just say, hey, we'd love to stay but we can't because we're in ROTC and everyone

go, oh, those guys are going to get that's in ROTC.

Yeah.

ROTC later by and it was it was part of surrounding yourself with good people.

Yeah, it was accountability to to a certain extent, right?

You guys were able to keep each other accountable accountable, you didn't get stuff in trouble.

And so you learned personal responsibility with a taste of group responsibility and social

responsibility, but it starts with making your own bed, personal responsibility.

And so you have to take care of yourself as you're looking at it and if you're, you know,

you're looking out for your, your buddy, your fellow cadet, your, your friend, whoever

that you care about.

And before you can say, hey, we need to go because this, I don't think this is what we

want to be around.

You got to make sure your own house is in order before you try to take care of everybody

else in the house.

That's for sure.

So the personal responsibility aspect is, is a biggie.

So went on to very fortunate because I got a pile of slots and went into the Air Force

and, and I say fortunate, I used to, you know, grew up listening to my dad, I was telling

me, the harder you worked, the luckier you get.

And what he really meant is the harder you work, the more fortunate you are.

Because I do believe that it's, it's not our plan and it's, it's the big guys plan.

It's God's plan.

And once you, once you know what that is and once you accept it and move forward and great

things can happen.

And so I'm, I'm a true believer of that.

But I do, but there is, you know, the harder you work, the more options seem to open up.

And so, you know, I heard someone say early on, I listened in an interview many years ago

and it was a father and a great famous professional athlete.

And they were talking about him raising his kids and he just says, look, I just told my

kids, be nice and say, please, thank you or excuse me.

Those are the three things that's all you have to say, please, thank you or excuse me.

If you remember, those three things growing up and you're not sure what to say, it's

not hard, is it?

No, it's not hard.

One of those three things and it seems to work, you know, well for you and you never

know who you're talking to because I've just this last year, I met somebody randomly

and we had a nice, very pleasant conversation and three, four days later it turns out to

be an integral part of the air show I was flying.

She was the supervisor of the tower as I'm working with and she's like, yeah, I ran into

the other day and it was, you know, you're a nicest guy in the world and immediately we

had a great work in relationship and we worked that weekend for the air show.

But so you never know, you know, all the way through college you never know who you're

talking to.

You're just watching, right?

Because we've talked about that on the podcast, you never know who's watching.

You know, you could be, you could be, you could be slumming away at the job that you're

in.

But if you're putting in maximum effort, you know, you never know who else is watching the

work that's going on and what, what kind of a perception that they're building around

you and what opportunity that may open for you down the road.

Absolutely.

So, so I was lucky when in, you know, when in the Air Force and then from there, you

know, did well in pilot training and fortunately got an S-16.

And I'm, you know, I'm sure you were familiar with the banking of all pilots.

Yeah, in the 90s.

Yeah.

Were you banked?

Nope.

I, I got in just after that.

I got in as the swing came back to getting, and you didn't, pilots.

You know what the banking?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I'm familiar.

So you're familiar.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's another time where, you know, I was as devastated, you know, most

of us were.

So I was in the first seven, the very first seven of the 800 or so that they wanted banking.

And we got tagged at Shepherd and we were off cycle from the other, uh, from UPT bases.

And so they came in when personal came in and said, guess what?

First seven, you're going to get banked.

I remember calling my parents on the phone and sitting tears going, you know, my dream

of being a pilot now, I don't think they're going to bring us back.

Yeah.

I didn't think they, you know, I didn't think that would happen.

You just never know there's a lot of question marks when that happened.

Yeah.

And just for the listeners banking in the mid to late 90s, uh, the Air Force had a surplus

or felt that they had a surplus of pilots.

And so they were taking guys and that were selected for pilot training.

And they were basically putting them into non-flying assignments for a couple of years

until it opened back up.

The key is we finished pilot training.

Oh, you guys were done.

Yeah, this was our assignment night.

Oh, no way.

So we're having an assignment night towards the end of pilot training trying to find it,

you know, and that's where, you know, you spin that down to your goal of the dice.

And so we get up there and instead of getting a net 16 or a 15 or whatever, a 10 was available.

They go, hey, uh, when you graduate from pilot training here after your year long pilot

training at Sherpert Air Force Base in which stuff falls Texas, congratulations.

As your wings, you are officially an Air Force pilot, you're going to go do a non-flying

job for two to three years while we figured out and try to find a cockpit for you.

And so that must have been devastating.

It, yeah, it was reminiscent of 10 to 21 when they took all the young guys that were

wing men's and operational squadrons as they were standing at all the RPAs, all the

remotes and after Iraq and Afghanistan and pulled them out of the cockpit and sent them

over to predators.

Yep.

Yeah.

So we were talking in the pregame a little bit about life just has this way of just

punching you over and over and over again, but sometimes it punches you when you least

expect it.

And I mean, we've all got personal stories.

I just had one last night where things are going hunky door.

I'm sitting there watching a movie with the wife and life punched and life punched hard

and it ended up being a long night.

But sometimes it just comes out of nowhere, doesn't it?

Like you think everything is your smooth sailing, everything's going great.

My life is turning out exactly the way that I wanted and planned for it and worked hard

to get it and then all of a sudden, here's a wreck.

It's pulled out.

Sweep a leg, Johnny.

And you know, you're on your back starting over.

Yeah.

Well, fast forward through the banking, that's a whole other episode in itself of being

to, you know, very disappointed.

But I survived.

You know, they brought me back out of that non-flying job and I got the S-16 and I went

operationally to Coonson, Air Base in South Korea and Spangall and Air Base in Germany.

I was a one of these.

What is good?

What is good?

Look behind you, brother.

That's right there.

Beautiful.

And for my pantone friends, go eight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alright.

Yeah.

It's all good.

Go Wolfpack.

Yeah.

And then 23rd Hawks at Fighting Hawks at Spangall and Air Base, Germany loved it there.

And then I got a sign back to Luke.

Before I returned to Luke as I was returning to the States in the back of my mind, I go

back to one of the air shows, one of the many air shows I went to and one of them specifically

where I saw a aerobatic performer flying a biplane and I'm like, one day, when I come

full circle, I'd like to get into that and do that.

So that started, you know, that desire to do that wasn't just early on as a kid, but

it really took shape before I entered the Air Force.

I know in the back of my mind, I want to get back in air shows in some capacity, not

sure how.

And I love the aerobatic side of it and I love the biplane side of it.

So get back to the States and I get involved in helping out on the staff side of running

the air show at Luke, which was great because it got me involved in learning about how to

put an air show on.

And then it also gave me a reason to go up to the annual air show convention, which is

up in Las Vegas every year.

International Council of Air Shows, we refer to it as ICAS.

So I go up to the ICAS convention and it has everybody in the industry there for about

a five day period.

Performers, producers, narrators, you know, announcers, vendors, everybody, right?

So I go up there and I'm like, I'm part of the staff at Luke Day's air show, but you

know who I'm really going to seek out is I'm going to see if one of my, you know, idols

in the show business is there.

And he was.

So I looked him up and I approached him and said, and said, Mr. Tucker, my name is Ed Hamill.

I'm an F-16 guy, but I really want to get into this.

And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, got it.

So does everybody else in their brother?

Good on you.

I go, no, no, no, I'm serious.

And he goes, well, if you're serious and come up and fly with me at my, at my aerobatic

school in Salinas, California.

And so I did.

And then I went up and flew them again and again.

I finally convinced him that I'm really serious like we're all in my wife and I are like,

this is something that we want to do.

And so he took me under his wing.

So to speak, it was a seven year apprenticeship really.

It was seven years before I really stopped calling him before and after every time I flew

in the biplane.

And I learned everything about not just flying air shows, but I started out in competition

aerobatics and he taught me everything about the business.

And there's so much more than just flying the airplane.

Sure.

There always is.

And the competition flying was a great way to start and that's what he directed me

to do.

And he sent me to a coach, a aerobatic competition coach that he had worked with back

in the day.

And so I worked with this gentleman for a while.

I did that for three years.

And simultaneously I got into starting to fly air shows at the same time.

And then that's when I got my first sponsor.

So I started in 1999 flying the biplane.

I bought the biplane, the same one I have today.

And it was like learning how to fly all over again.

I was in 11 year.

I don't know how many hours I had in a 16 by then, maybe 200 hours of general aviation

before, but learning how to fly this biplane, a tail dragger, and learning how to skydance

and really the wings and the fabric covered wings of fly wires are literally an extension

of your arms when you're flying this airplane.

You feel the engine, the wings, the stalling, the outer rotation, everything.

It just becomes a part of you.

And so I didn't do a lot of duel with my mentor, who is Sean Tucker.

And Sean and I did, we did a lot more duel in the biplane before he would let me take

it home.

Sure.

Like almost 12 hours.

Yeah.

And how many hours do we get in the F 16 before we're so low?

Yeah, not 12.

It's about half of that.

Like four, four, five, seven like that.

I think four rides and an instrument ride and then you're on TR5, right?

So.

So I was actually going through this training and I was getting a little bit worried because

I'm like, come on.

I'm ready to, you know, go by myself and he goes, no, you're not ready out of my cheese.

So we just might, you know, am I that bad?

Yeah, do I suck that much?

But he wanted to go out to the area, not just to, he says, I'm not going to just train

you in the pattern to take off and land.

Because if you can get into bad attitudes and bad situations out in the area, you can

do it in the traffic pattern.

Yeah.

But you end every possible bad situation and I'm going to make sure that you can get

out of everything before I even to be safe and you're teaching how to fill the jet before

before I even take off and land by myself around the traffic pattern.

So that's, you know, and that was really good.

And that's how I got into air show flying.

That's so cool, man.

I looked up a mentor and it was literally just, I found a way to get in front of that

person that was doing something that I wanted to do.

And it took me two to three months to convince this person.

Yeah.

It's a little persistence, little resiliency.

It was, you know, it, yeah, it, you know, that started in many of the jobs that I, you

know, a lot of us had odd jobs growing up and a lot of the jobs that I got, I did not

get the first time I, I tried to get it, you know, a good example is Orange County Airport.

Beach, Kraft West, FBO, I wanted to be a line technician.

I wanted a fuel airplanes.

I wanted to be around airplanes and I went and knocked on the door at this small fixed

base operator, FBO at, it was located where the existing John Wayne Orange County Airport

terminal is.

Oh, okay.

You know, before they built that terminal and this was a small FBO in the primarily fueled

corporate corporate airplanes and I went and I knocked on the door and talked to the

manager and he goes, sorry, we're full and I go, look, I only got to summer.

I got to go back to school.

So I need this job now and I want to work here and he goes, well, we don't have an opening.

It's like, okay, all right, copy that.

Here's, you have my resume, you know, you know, I'll see you soon.

So I came back to the next day, knocked on this door, filled in the door and he goes, hey,

I told you went off a job and I go, that's okay.

No problem.

All right.

Yeah.

And I went back, knocked on the door of the next day, 20 second day in a row and he goes,

okay, all right.

I'll hire you as an audience and then four days later, one of the other people quit and

it worked out great.

Yeah, that's awesome.

So, you know, we, we all have, you know, especially, you know, successful career in the military.

We all have examples of that.

Yeah, it's a great story, man, because one of the things that we talk about on the podcast

all the time is the importance of a mission and sometimes you've got to seek those people

out, right?

That does, a lot of, I think a lot of people sometimes expect or just wait for things to kind

of fall into their lap and you know, that's not how you create opportunity, right?

You create opportunity by going out and seeking that advice and seeking, you know, and that's

what you're doing, you're information gathering, you're talking to people, you're finding out,

what's this look like?

Like, what are the steps that I have to take?

What do I have to do?

Oh, shit, it's a seven year process, well, let me go talk to Mama and make sure that

we're really engaged and ready to commit to something like this, right?

Absolutely.

So I mean, that's the fact that you brought that up is awesome, and it's just the persistence

behind it too, because guess what?

Sometimes the first answer isn't always yes.

Sometimes you get no after no after no, but you got to pivot, you talk about pivot in all

the time, right?

Like you were talking about going to college, you know, after arrow first semester, you're

like, dude, this isn't going to, this is not going to get me to where I need to be.

So what's the pivot I have to make here to achieve that in-state goal, right?

That's so important, man.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I talk to kids all the time and I just tell them, if you don't hear the right answer,

you might not be talking to the right person.

But if you do hear that answer, you don't want to hear maybe three, four, five times in

a row, then maybe then reevaluate, maybe I'm asking the wrong question, maybe I am going

down the pathest, maybe not for me.

But if it only takes one or two knows and you're out, then you might, that might not be

for you.

Yeah, you might not have been that committed to begin with.

But that, you know, that too, that speaks to some things that we've talked to on the

show as well as you might not be ready for that question yet, right?

You just might not be there.

You know, like if you show up to the FBO for the first time, they're like, hey, I want

to go fly that.

Dude, no, like we got to start you over here.

Sometimes it's baby steps and we see this, we talked about this about the younger generation

just a few weeks ago where, you know, these guys are graduating high school and are expecting

to be executives and companies and it doesn't work that way.

Sometimes you have to, you have to earn it.

You have to deserve it.

You have to give it the time and effort that it deserves.

While you were telling that whole story, I got a whole page full of notes already.

But for the recurring listeners who have listened to our show, every theme that we've talked

about came up in that story right there, effort, discipline, humility, drive performance,

goal setting, mentorship, hard work, opportunity, failure, resiliency, knowledge.

It takes time, lots of time, you got it well, persistence and perseverance.

These are all things that are just bed rocks of what we talk about on this podcast.

That was awesome.

What a lot of people probably don't realize too is, okay, so here you are, qualified

F-16 dude, who's been flying the jet for years, probably got about 1500 hours at that point.

It's my guess.

Correct.

That's about right.

Yeah, probably about 1500 hours in the F-16.

How many calls do you have to get?

I mean, like, and then you're now you're going to go fly a biplane, well, a lot of people

that don't know about flying would think, oh, dude, flies an F-16, you can go fly Acro and

a little plane.

It's no big deal, right?

And then to be able to fly on the airshow circuit, I'm sure there's a whole bunch of

calls that you have to go through because I know that they have like different altitudes

that people are qualified to, that you can perform at and everything like that.

And so that goes back to what you're saying, Roscoe, right?

You can't just, can't necessarily just pick up from one and go to the other, right?

There's other skills that you have to build.

There's other things that you have to do.

There's other qualifications that you have to get if you want to move into whatever that

next phase is for you sometimes.

It's not just a clean one of the next.

I was reading this book by Rick Patino a while back.

It's called Success as a Choice.

It's kind of an older book, but he's a legendary basketball coach, one of a bunch of trophies

and stuff at a university in Kentucky.

And he has 10 points in the book.

It's 10 points to how to be successful, right?

And the first chapter is self-esteem.

And what he talks about in the self-esteem chapter is you have to earn it.

Like you have to go out there and put forth the effort and the work and practice to get

good at it.

What are the Kobe Bryant's and Michael Jordan's of the world say, give it 10,000 reps.

If you want to get to that level to where you deserve victory, then you have to give it

the reps.

You have to give it the time.

And sometimes it takes seven years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It can.

So, yeah, I've been through that, I mean, here's a good example.

My dad said this to me driving around Luke Air Force Base after I finished the B course.

And I was fortunate.

I did very well.

Got a couple of awards.

All that stuff is good.

We're driving on the base and I just go, Dad, my whole life, all I wanted to do is,

you know, 16 guy, I just finished the B course.

You know, I kind of was like, now what?

Yeah.

I'm here.

Yeah, I did it.

I did it.

And my dad's like, okay, well, now it's time to just said, you go, I go, well, and you

go, now you're going to go be the best F 16 combat pilot in your first unit.

You're not going to say anything, you're just going to go do it.

And I go, and I go, and I kind of, it took somebody to help me re-cage that you, so

there's a, there's tactical goals and there are strategic long-term goals.

And so, you know, and that goes back to what I talked to, and I've been very fortunate

to be able to talk to a lot of high school kids in college kids across the country with

my sponsorship from O309 when I was sponsored by the Air Force Reserve Recruiting

Service.

It was a great fit because I was able to go in, and I'd be flying a show, but my real

job was to go help the local Air Force Reserve Recruiter, recruit the right people.

And so I'd go out and talk with them, and we'd talk about options.

And in my goal, or for my motto for that, for all those years, and still is, is simple

and it sounds cliche, but it was set goals, work hard, never give up.

So those are the three, and that's what I live by.

So the first thing that would come up is, you know, a kid would come up and go, I don't

know what my goal is.

You were lucky.

You know, you're fortunate.

14 years old, you knew what you wanted, and I go, okay?

If you don't know what your big goal is, then start setting small goals.

And as you accomplish those small goals, one day you're going to wake up, you're going

to run into somebody and talk to them, you're going to look at something, you're going

to surround yourself with the right people, and you might just, you know, figure out

with that big goal.

Absolutely.

It'll click.

It's like a friggin' echo chamber, right?

It is, right?

Man, dude.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sick goals, work hard, never give up.

I'm going to take a month off.

You can just sit over here and talk to Roscoe for the first time.

No, I don't need any too, because.

So here's what I, it's great.

Early on, I was a freshman at RTC, as I went, I want to go to pilot training.

I'd love to go to this place called Shepherd, because it's supposed to be pretty cool.

Yeah.

I went to that pilot training, because he trained with all these European pilots, and it's

supposed to be a neat experience.

And so I looked and I found a senior that was just graduating, and he's got a pilot slot

at Shepherd.

So I went up to him, we talked for a little bit, and I said, can I have your resume?

Great.

So I got a copy of it, and he goes, I go, look, I won't give it to anybody, just can

I have your resume.

So I got his resume, and I looked at everything he did, I put squares to the left of it,

and I tacked it up on my wall.

And that was my.

There you go.

There's my to-do list.

Yeah.

I'm like, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel.

Yeah.

So look for somebody doing what you want to do, go find that executive, go find that manager

and say, how'd you get to where you're at, find out what they did, and go, hey, look at

that.

There's half my workload is off, because now I have an outline for my thesis, my thesis

or my paper this due.

Now I've got the outline.

The outline is the hardest thing to do, and I know what I got to go after.

So I am, but going, getting back to flying real quick, getting back into air shows.

So I did competition aerobatics, which was awesome, but it doesn't matter, how well

you do in competition aerobatics, you know, you can win national championship, and you

won't get any money, but you'll get a trophy that maybe you could drink out of it,

for the whole cereal on the list, but you're going to put any food on the table.

It's all money out the door, but what you do get that from competition aerobatics is

that solid foundation that I still use to this day flying in air shows.

And so you can't really put a price tag on that, but it's not going to pay the bills.

So three years of competition aerobatics simultaneously getting into the air show

flying with the right mentorship and the friends, you do start at high altitudes.

You know, the first year you have 800 foot floor or 500 foot floor now, and then you fly

X number of shows at X number of show sites, and you do a reevaluation, both flying

evaluation and a ground evaluation, and then you get your next level lower, and then

it goes from 500 feet to 250 foot, and then down a surface level waiver.

And by the time you've gotten a surface level waiver, you've been flying for a while.

You can't just zip through this in a year or two, you've been flying for a little bit,

and you also have evaluations and mentorship.

And we've got a really very fortunate to be one of the evaluators in the country.

We've got a small number of them.

We're down to probably 35, 40 in the whole country, I think.

And the actual qualifications called a statement of aerobatic competency.

It's called a sack cart, and so it's on top of whatever FAA license you have.

So as I'm going through that, three years into it, this is cost and this, my wife and her like,

okay, you know, this is cost and it's a lot of money.

It's all money out the door.

I mean, when you're new in the aerosol industry, you can't really charge a big fee

if anything at all.

You're trying to just get experience and you're trying to fly exposure.

You're trying to fill the squares to go down the next level.

So it's really cost a business.

It's like set up expenses for a business, you know, until you start getting revenue,

you know it's going to cost.

So I'm three years into this, 2002, and I had gotten out of the Air Force.

So I got hired at the airline in 2000, and I was all in on this air show stuff.

So I got out, separated, made that decision instead of staying in the military.

I said, I'm done.

I'm going to be airlines and air shows.

And about a year later, 9-11 happens, and about, it's just a lot of stuff happens,

and I start to miss being part of a fighter squadron.

Not necessarily flying the S-16, which I missed, but what I really missed.

No, it's a camaraderie.

It was Thursday, Thursday.

Yeah, and first name Friday.

Taco Tuesday.

Taco Tuesday.

On a Thursday.

Three clock coffee, you know, and having this social network of people that are like

minded, and you've all got the same goals in life.

So as I was getting back in and applying to get back in the reserve at Luke,

we had the airplane for sale.

We just couldn't do it anymore.

So it was for sale for probably six months,

and we were to take the first offer if we had gotten one.

And I was making cold calls after cold calls, and I was pitching companies to try to get sponsorship.

And I had a couple of bites on the airplane.

They weren't serious.

And then on a Friday afternoon, I thought, you know, this would be a cool idea.

Of course, you get a lot of cool ideas when you're looking for sponsorship.

Yeah.

A lot of things make sense, but that's not what is going to make it happen.

Budgets have to be available.

Has to be the right fit for both parties.

And I make literally a cold call to Robyn's Air Force Base in Georgia.

And for those not familiar, it's where the headquarters Air Force Reserve command is.

And I get the operator.

I'm going to use the Dell of the first three numbers or numbers.

And then like 11, 10 or something, go to the operator, back when they used to have an operator.

Please connect me to, yeah.

And I go, hey, do you have anything like a recruiting command or recruiting,

where she goes, recruiting service?

And I go, that sounds pretty good.

Who do you have?

Chief Master Sergeant, so and so.

And I go, okay, put me through that number.

So I get this voicemail.

Hey, this is Chief Sohn.

So Air Force Reserve command, recruiting service.

And leave a message.

And I'm like, hey, Chief, this is me.

And this is what I want to do.

And I think I'd be a good fit.

You know, if you're interested in any kind of air show sponsorship,

I'm already doing shows and blah, blah, blah.

And leave a voicemail.

One of about, you know, 10 that day and 30 for the week.

And then Monday morning, my phone rings.

And it's, hey, Ed Hammond, yeah, this is Chief.

You know, you left me a voicemail on Friday, I'm like, yeah,

you know, we are just talking about doing something similar to this.

And I literally got out of the meeting.

And the first thing I heard was your voicemail.

So tell me more.

And then three, four days later,

he and the advertising executive manager that had the advertising contract for

Air Force Reserve recruiting service came out.

And over a cardboard table next to the biplane and the hangar.

And my kinkos produced, you know, proposal.

They looked at it and said, let's do a deal.

We don't have much money, but let's do something.

So it was Fallout money.

Imagine that.

Oh, yeah.

Imagine how that works in the military.

Yeah.

We just happen to have this extra money.

It's not always that case.

But man, we zero out those one programs to the 10th of an hour.

That's right.

And so the first year was X number of dollars.

And then the next year was double that.

And the third year was almost double that.

And then we went from 2003 to 2009 with a very successful

partnership sponsorship deal.

And I was a subcontractor to Air Force Reserve

recruiting service.

And I helped with recruiting.

And the fact that I was a part-time reserve was awesome.

And oh, by the way, everything in the background was I got hired by the airline.

But I went on military leave to do some orders.

And then I got furloughed.

And so lo and behold, I did this full time.

And then part time in the reserve while it was furloughed.

And being furloughed from the airline,

it's not that bad of a deal if you have other options.

Yeah, if you have options.

But if you don't have any other options,

that can be devastating for yourself.

Sure.

Yeah, no income, no job.

No income, no job.

Oh, hey, we'll call you when we can, you know, employ you again.

So that's how the the air show side of it.

Happened to then in 2009.

That ended.

It was a seven-year run.

They decided they wanted to do something else with the money.

So I tried to stay in the circuit 2010, 11, and even 12.

And it just wasn't happening.

So we sold the airplane.

Got out and I said, okay, this was a great chapter in my life.

Stop performing.

Stayed as an evaluator helped run some shows.

And I was done.

Until now.

And now I'm back.

And there's only one reason why I'm back.

And it's on my shirt.

Yeah.

And it's the mission it falls of honor is the main reason.

I wouldn't say the only reason, but it's the main reason why I'm back.

So very, very fortunate.

It's a very different arrangement now.

Everything that I do in the in the biplane and everything I do on the golf course

and with all my burrows and with family and everywhere

is to promote the mission of fault of honor, which is to give

educational scholarships to the family members a fallen disabled military

and first responders.

Yeah.

And we know the guy that founded it, Dan Rooney back in 2007 is when he founded it.

I first met him.

I believe it was 2001 when he came through the B course at Luke Air Force Base in the 63rd

Fighter Squadron.

And that's what I met him.

And that was well before he he started Voles of Honor.

But now, you know, about the airplane back, because I always know I would

with no intention flying shows and I had people call me and go,

are you getting back in the circuit?

I'm like, absolutely not.

That was it.

That was a chapter in my life and that chapter is done.

And I know by the way, if I can digress one second on chapters,

I got to say this because this took me several years.

When I lost my, I don't want to say lost.

When my partnership with the Air Force Reserve ended in 2009,

I had a seven-year marketing sponsorship that was very successful.

I had three full-time employees.

We did very well in the industry.

You know, I had what I think is a positive impact.

Left it better than we, and we got it.

So we, you know, we still believe that.

But it was a couple of years where we thought we we we never got the next big deal to continue.

And we thought that, you know, we failed.

Yeah.

So to those out there that are that are doing something really cool,

just realize it's not going to last forever.

There will be an end point and that's okay.

And so the way I got through it was I realized that this was a chapter

in the book of life, the book of your life.

And it's okay.

That was a great chapter.

Now I'm in a new chapter.

And that was, but it took me two, you know,

one to two years to realize that.

And once you realize that and you look at it as a successful chapter,

and now I'm on to the next chapter, i.e.

my next set of goals.

And I'm going to make that as good or better.

It made it, I was content.

Yeah.

And then fast forward 10 years.

I buy my airplane back.

I'm not going to fly shows again.

And I have people go, I know that you're real passionate about Fault of Honour.

I wear this, this is well before I, you know,

at the Fault of Honour on the by plane.

People thought I was a walking advertisement for Faults and I go,

that's because I personally know people.

We personally know people that's the families have benefited from it.

They were killed in action.

Their kids have gotten scholarships,

life changing scholarships.

And so I had several private donors call and go,

hey, why don't we just brand your airplane,

the Faults of Honour by plane and just, you know,

can I make a donation to Faults of Honour and have them restrict that to the

by plane?

Let's just make it the Faults of Honour by plane.

And just use social media, just, it'll be cool.

Just put some images out there.

And that's what we did.

And then it started to get a lot more attention.

And I had show organizers from shows that I've flown before.

And they're like, hey, we'd love to have you back.

I go, nope, nope, not doing it, not doing it.

But meanwhile, in the back of my mind,

the entire 10 years that I was out of performing,

I maintained my qualifications because I was new.

I'm about options.

I'm all about options.

You know, you always want to keep options open.

And so I always knew that if I ever decided to get back into it,

man, it's a heck of a lot easier if you are current.

Sure.

Now, so, you know, fast forward to now, I had several conversations with Dan Rooney,

Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney, who's the founder of Faults of Honour.

And it had to be the right fit.

And so this was, I wanted to be a no-cost to Faults.

I wanted to benefit Faults and with private donations and show fees.

And who knows, maybe I'll get a partnership.

We're working on that now to have maybe some corporate backing so that I can go out and

reach more people, spread the word of what Faults is doing.

And so that's kind of where we're at, you know, to now.

And I'm back on the circuit.

We had a very light schedule this last year was the first year doing it.

So, I linked it a few shows this next year.

I've got tentative six shows scheduled.

And it's growing.

So, you know, the Faults of Honour since 2007, like you mentioned in the very beginning,

they're up to 51,000 scholarships worth nearly 240 million.

That's awesome.

But things that I like coming from the business side of it is that their average is 10% overhead.

So, you know that 90 cents out of every dollar goes directly to the scholarships.

And a year ago, August, they expanded to the families of first responders, not just military.

And so, this last year alone, in one year, they awarded 39 million dollars in scholarships

just in one year.

That's cool.

And this is an organization that Dan started over his garage.

And I think the first year was he brought in a couple hundred thousand.

Yeah.

And he's got a real big golf connection because he grew up in a golfing family and he's a PGA professional.

So, there's a lot of cool things there.

I'm not sure at this point what I like more, flying air shows in the biplane or working on my handicap.

Yeah.

I am absolutely obsessed with the game of golf.

As I told you coming in here,

I try to play three, four times a week and I'm always trying to get better.

And I started working with a PGA professional a few years ago, which I highly recommend.

People asked, you know, I tell people all the time, I finally

sought professional help.

People telling me my whole life, you need to seek professional help.

That's funny.

So, that's, you know, I don't want to say the nutshell because that was kind of a long

winded answer to a short question about how did you get started in air shows.

But I love flying air shows.

And I told you the main reason I'm back in is because of folds of honor.

Everything that I do is to promote folds.

If the show's not good, if what I'm doing is not good,

it's just a no pressure situation where before I was making my living at it.

And it was always, you know, you're always trying to justify your existing deal and you're always

trying to seek out the next deal.

Now, if I do zero shows, life is good.

If I do six shows, life is good.

It's no pressure, but I had to sit down with my family, my wife,

and my two kids, and basically about two years ago and say, hey, I'm getting the airplane back.

And I'm thinking about getting back into your shows.

But there's no way I'm doing this unless you guys are all in on it.

And my kids, I couldn't even finish my sentence.

And my kids were like, absolutely, we want to see you back in the circuit.

I'm like, why?

And they said they just miss hanging out at the hanger and helping to clean the airplane.

Yeah, that's cool, man.

So I'll leave that answer with, I've got nothing to prove, but everything to give back.

Yeah.

And that's where I'm at in life.

So, uh, so the show celebrates the American family, which I think is a foundation of

this great country of ours.

And that's that's kind of like my, uh, my ending tagline.

Right on.

Oh, we're not done.

No, on to the next.

That was, that was good.

But I have questions.

I'm sure Cass has questions.

All right, I'm ready.

So there was a point early on where you were talking about

you knew at a very young age.

What you thought you wanted to do with rest of your life.

Mm-hmm.

One of the things that we talk about in our podcast, in fact, we say in our opener and we talk about

if you could go back and talk to your younger self, what would you tell that guy?

Well, my question to you would be, you knew what you wanted to do very early on.

And sounds like you had at least a decent enough road map and the bumpers were up on how to get

there.

What would you tell to a kid who maybe doesn't have that?

Who maybe has an idea or he has something he's kind of interested in.

How can he turn that corner and turn that into a passion and then pursue that passion?

Well, the key is finding the right people to talk to about it, you know, and hopefully,

hopefully you had a family, um, whether it's a mother, father, sister, brother that you can talk

to about that.

And if you don't, there are great organizations out there that have people you can talk to about

here in Phoenix.

And this would be my, uh, my shameless plug for elevate Phoenix because I was just at a,

a dinner, um, and a good, good friend of mine, uh, that I met a couple years ago, um, invited me

out to this, um, dinner for this organization called elevatefenix.org.

And there are several organizations like that, um, you know, church youth group was a,

was a big part of it for me growing up and it was people that were, uh, not just, um, older people

that were wiser that you could talk to and bounce ideas off of it, but it, but then I see my peers

there as well, um, and people my age and, and just engaging people in conversation.

But elevatefenix provides the mentors and the leaders, um, and gives kids a cell number to call

24 seven if they have questions, if they're about to get in a bad situation or maybe go out with,

you know, they're not sure if they got an opportunity and they're not sure if it's a good deal or a

bad deal. And, uh, so that's one organization and I've seen what they've, they've taken the kids

that they work with, um, they take them from a 52% high school graduation rate to any kid that's

involved with the organization is, is a 98% graduation rate high school. So they're, so, um,

but there are a lot of, a lot of organizations and, uh, you know, I don't know a lot, uh,

more off the top of my head, but they're out there whether it's boys and girls clubs or YCAs or

any kind of organization. So I would say get involved in some, uh, activity group sports is a great

way because I grew up playing soccer and I hung out a lot with, with, uh, the other two mates and

then I played not just school, but, you know, outside of school, I know there's a lot of good sports

leagues here in the Phoenix area. So sport, sport, and you have your coach there. Yeah, they're the

coach of the sports, but they're also a lot, most of the coaches I know are also good people to

ask life questions too. And so if it's not the, you know, you, you don't have an media family to turn

to, there are, uh, several other options. So I don't know, that's, that's what I would say. Talk

to somebody about it. Now we talk about a lot of the same stuff and, and Cass, I know benefited

at an early age from mentor and kind of set up those left and right boundaries. It sounds like

you had a lot of mentors in your life and I grew up on a cotton farm down south. I didn't have that.

So I enlisted in the Air Force. I liked airplanes. I thought the idea of going fast was cool.

And my advice to them is everything you just said, plus just never give up, man. Look at the

horizon, see what's next and don't be afraid to pivot. Yeah. And I think back to your one of the

things that you talked about at the beginning, Hampshire, too, is be mindful of who you circle

yourself with. You know, be mindful of the group of a friend you carry and the people that you

absolutely have around you. That's a whole circle of five that we talk about, right? Because

that's going to have those people are going to have a big influence in your life and it can go

good or it can go sideways. And that's you've got to you have to be very intentional about that.

And it's very important in my air show business when we're out doing shows, I have kind of long-term

guidance for my team. I have daily guidance. Like, is it safe? Is it good for the industry?

Should we do it? First two answers the third, right? But I also have the long-term guidance.

Stay alive. That's that's the first that's always always the top. Take care of your sponsor.

Surround yourself with good people. And then about three years into my business, I had to add a

fourth, which was listen to them. Yeah, that's important. You can surround yourself with all the great

people you want. But try this on for size and see how it goes over. I don't recommend it because

I've done it, but this is what happened to me. I had a really good person and I asked

them for their advice on how to do a particular thing. And then I completely disregarded the advice

and did it my way and failed at it. And that person found out that I completely disregarded what

they said. And guess what? That person wasn't available to me anymore. They're like, well, if

you're going to ask for my advice and then go do some stupid. I think there's balance to be had

there. There isn't balance. You asked people for their input. That doesn't mean that you're

going to take their input. Yeah, that's for sure. Maybe I needed validation or maybe I needed

another set of eyes or something. I agree with you. I'm just giving that one spoon. That can happen.

That can happen. But surround yourself with good people and then listen to them. Listen does not

mean obediently do what they say, but listen to them. And if you do disagree, then you need to have

that conversation with that person and tell them, I really appreciate your advice. But this is

the way I see it. And this is why there's a good point there, though, from the other person's point

of view, was there an opportunity after the fact after you tried it your way and you failed?

Was there an opportunity to go back to that person and find out, hey, man, so I tried it my way

and it failed. Now the eggs on my face, I should have listened to you. But how did you see it the

way that you saw it? Can I learn from this situation so that maybe you're not available to me

next time, but maybe I can debrief this and maybe I can take away a good lesson learned from it.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it was probably a little bit of a fighter pilot in me. Yeah.

Thinking, no, I got this. You single see guys. I got this. That's right. I got this. I just need

a DTC. Come on. I don't like life as a team sport guys. Sorry. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Go there. No, I agree with you. I totally agree with you. But that was a little bit of a

joke. It takes a little bit of humble pie sometimes. Absolutely. But I think the point of that is

is like it is, it's important to seek out advice like we talk about, you know, gather information.

You know, but then at some point you got to take that information and you got to make your

own decision around it and move out, you know, and well, you have to live with that consequence,

though. But you do. Yeah. Then you have to be accountable for it. That's right. And you've got

to own up to it. But the lesson part's important because I think and I'm sure that's true for all

of us here at the different times in our life. We've had advice that we didn't listen to or we

sought out advice that we didn't listen to. And sometimes it worked out. I probably venture that

most of the time it doesn't. But, you know, especially if it's from a trusted source who's

older and wiser. But yeah, try to listen as much as you can, right? Because you never know

it's so easy. I think to get focused at how we view the world to the lens that we view it through,

that we start to disregard the fact or maybe not even recognize or acknowledge the fact that some

people see it completely differently. And the way that they see it may have value added to whatever

it is that you're trying to do. So we tend to be looking at things. We tend to be a little bit

headstrong and very sure of ourselves in our career field. There is a there's a certain level of

confidence that you that is required to be able to do the things that we've done. And with that,

there's some downfalls. You know, maybe you're there's times that you're overconfident and there's

times that maybe you need to lean on somebody who has more essay or more experience or more knowledge

in a certain area. Yeah, for sure. You got any other questions, Josh? I got a ton. Yeah, go ahead.

All I don't want to do all the talk keep going. Cool. So there was a lot of there were there were

probably 10 or 15 or more points in your story where you were talking about maybe something didn't

work out the way that you thought it was or that you had I'm going to use the word planned. I don't

know if you did full planning or not or you just kind of took an idea and ran with it or you met

somebody that changed your vector. But it really all came down to the opportunities presented in there.

There was I mean, quite a few of them. I wrote down a bunch of them in here and we had a show a

while back where we talked about opportunities and we talked about opportunity being where luck

meets timing and then breaking down luck. What is that? And it comes down to a lot of preparation

and stuff. So on the back end or on the front end of everything, what was some of the preparation

that you had to do so that those opportunities presented itself themselves? I'm not words are hard.

Sorry. Yeah, I'm not exactly. I think the preparation is just seeking out other people that

are doing what you want to do and finding out how they got there. Ask questions. Asking they're

asking the questions of how they got there. And it depends on preparation. In doing that,

you're going to find out how to prepare. So specifically, whether it's being good shape,

because you know, you're going to have to go do a physical fitness test going through RTC and into

pilot training or go get your pilot license because that's going to look good on your resume when

you apply for that particular pilot training slot or study hard, you know, get the best grades you

can or show up to work on time and don't be late because you want to have good reference when you go

to get the next job. You want to be able to have this person the current supervisor as a reference.

So preparation, you know, also, you know, personally, a strong faith is it help you be prepared for

a lot of stuff because it humbles you and it gives you a inner self confidence. I'm not sure where

the rest of the self confidence comes from, but I think once you decide what you want to do and

you're very sure that you think you have a good chance of doing it and you're not going to give up

that is that whole never give up mindset gives you a preparation and a confidence that you

can't get it anywhere else. Yeah, there's there's something about being able to see the possibility

and and if you can just see the door cracked open even a little bit, then I think that's probably

where a lot of the confidence comes in. I mean, you got to build that stuff over time, experience and

and try new things and whatnot. But for me personally, anytime, like I can tell you my whole story

and you would see some of those same lines in the sand, those demarcations, but anytime that door

even cracked open a little bit, I think you have to you just have to have that you have to jump off

that ledge and kick that door open just like you were talking about your example of going to Vegas

and like, dude, I'm not leaving here until I talk to this guy. Right. And also you have to reach a certain

point and Dan, Dan talks about this. He calls it go before you're ready and he he tells a story about

his first f16 solo, you know, we've all been there. First time you ever sold an airplane,

first time you ever drive the car for the first time that that kind of stuff. You kind of have to

just go for it and you tell yourself, I've done everything I can to prepare myself. And you know

what, at this point, I got to take that chance. I got to go try to execute. We did that with this

freaking podcast, man. Yeah, we got to just take the leap and sometimes taking that leap, you're doing

that when you, if you're waiting until you feel like you're 100.0% prepared, you're never going to

take that leap. And you know, that's that's what happened about my airplane and started shoveling

all this money out the door to go do something. You're taking that leap. Yeah, you're trying to

seize that opportunity. Right. And so, you know, you're signing on the dotted. How'd you feel the

first time you had to sign something that, that committed, you know, five, six, eight,

10 years of your life to the military. Yeah. To, you know, to sign that piece of paper,

a lot of people didn't want to do that. That was taking a leap right there. Yeah. And we had to do

that back in college. I'm not sure, you know, when you enlisted, you're signing the dotted line.

When you take your, your oath of commission, you're signing the dotted line. And once you're a

little more familiar, it's easier to do. But when you first get in, that's a, that's a leap of

faith right there. Well, I'll do you one better. I did all of my schooling while I was enlisted. And

then got an opportunity to go to OTS. And I could have said no. So that's, I mean, that's a big pivot

point in my life where I had to actually sit down and pros and cons things and talk it over. I had

three kids at the time and talk it over with the wife. And is this the best decision for the family?

I already had a data separation to get out of the air force. So yeah, I mean, we'll do a show on

decisiveness coming up. Yeah. But that's a big part of it, man. Sometimes you just got to jump off

the freaking waterfall, you know, it might be cool. And you can always pivot. And go into that

location where you want to get a job and knock on the door and not have no idea who you're going

to talk to or who's going to answer that door. That's a little bit of a leap of faith too. So

that's persistent. Yeah. You've got to be willing to hang it out there just a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's not just persistence. That's also seeking opportunity too, right?

It is. Like it's creating opportunity for yourself to a certain extent. But you're not

able to do that unless you do the preparation. Yeah. And you can't be afraid to know, right?

You can't be afraid of, I wrote that down here. Yeah. Because you used to be in told no.

Yeah. You're going to, people are going to tell you no. People are going to tell you you're not

good enough. People are going to tell you enough. You know, you're not smart enough. You're not

capable enough. Don't listen to any of it, man. Well, no. I know Cass has a story and I have

several stories. But do you have a story of, did anybody ever along the way say, and that's a

dumb idea? Um, if they did, I didn't hear him. Okay. That's okay. That's foul. Yeah. That's

that. Well, I did have I had several go. Oh, sorry. You're not qualified. You're out.

Am I quiet? Yeah. I think you're different though. It's different. Yeah. That's a little bit

different. Not not being qualified. You can fix that. But, you know, having that negativity around

you, like, you know, you're, you're first instructor at Imperial. Yeah. My first instructor at

Imperial told me I'd never be anything better recreational pilot. Yeah. Yeah. That's got to,

it's due, uh, you know, that probably wasn't very good for your confidence. That's for sure. But

yeah, but I didn't let it stop me. Right. I didn't let it affect me because I've ended up becoming

much more than just a recreational G.A. pilot in my, my career. So yeah. Yeah. I, um,

uh, maybe on the sports side, uh, in the soccer world, I heard that a lot, you know,

grown up in sports because I was always one of the shortest guys in the team. Did it,

did it surprise you when you went to college and like you said, your dad's kind of a brainiac

big, huge brain kind of guy. Did it surprise you when you didn't perform to the level that you

maybe anticipated that you were going to? Oh, yeah. I think I was surprised. I thought it was

going to be easier. Yeah. I was in shock, but I also looked back on it and went, well, okay, I

lived, uh, I've been trying a lot of time at the beach. I didn't, I didn't prioritize. Yeah.

I thought it would just be, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go take this test. Yeah.

My first college experience was kind of like that. They say go to college. I did not

associate that would go to class. Yeah. So now I realized I was not a very good test taker

and then high school is very different. Um, uh, so yeah. I mean, I, I had that, you know, on the

first day of ROTC, I went in to fill out the pre-screening paperwork and I filled this one, uh,

piece of paper that had to do moving violations. And I, I just, you know, if you had to move

violations, yeah, I've had six of them. The first two I got on this, on the same day in high school.

Nice. Two speeding tickets in one day. My parents were not very happy. So I put that on, you know,

and then he's the, uh, sergeant whose last name was Captain. Try that for being confusing when

you're trying to learn the ranks. Yeah. And getting in the military. And it was tech sergeant

captain. And I was like, what is going on here? This is a new one. And he goes, uh, okay. Oh,

you had six movement. Yeah, I guess six speeding tickets. I'm sorry. It's, that's over the,

the max. You cannot enter ROTC. You only can't get a commission with six moving violations.

And he handed me my stack of papers and went, good luck. And I literally turned around and

walked out of there, went home. I was devastated. So what I do, I called somebody. Would I call

my parents? What do they say? What do you think they said? Go right back in there and say,

how do I, how do I fix this? How do I fix this? How do I get around this? So I went back the next

day and said, uh, he goes, Hey, how are you doing? I go eight sergeant captain sergeant sergeant

captain. I wasn't sure yet whether to call him sir or yeah, whether he's enlisted. I didn't know.

Yeah. And uh, I said, you know, you know, you told me I was disqualified for this. And he goes,

yeah, and I go, well, is, is there a, you know, waiver? I get through it. And he goes, oh,

the local detachment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Loots can sign a waiver or and I go, what

did you tell me that yesterday? And he goes, because you didn't ask. And if that's all it took to

make you turn around and walk out of here and never come back, I don't want you in my hair force

anyways. That's valid. That's valid. That's 100% valid. Yeah. And there it began. Yeah. Well,

that point for don't ask the answers always know, right? That's right. Wayne Grisky. You miss

100% of the shots. You don't think all that good stuff. Yeah. So by the way, it was Wayne

Grisky who said, uh, please thank you. Excuse me. Awesome. He's the one who I couldn't write that one

down. That's a good one. Raisin's kids. I had, I took my kids up for Wheeling from here up to

the crown king several summers ago. Uh, old Jeep. Uh, remember that old white one. They used to

drive that didn't have an air condition. I drove it during the summertime. Yeah. Yeah. That's

odd. Anyways, for all you spoiled kids out there, thinking that you have to have air condition,

drive a Jeep and Phoenix. Every time you pull it to a red light, it's like having a dog just

breathe in and you're like, yeah, no doubt. So anyways, I take my kids up the crown king and I've

been teaching my kids since they were very little man manners are so easy and they're free and

they'll open so many doors for you. We get up to the little country store up in crown king

and we go in, we go to the bathroom and we go get our soda and our candy bar or whatnot and

we're checking out. One of my boys said something like, oh, thank you, ma'am or something,

something very simple like that. And she says, oh, my goodness, so it's such good manners.

And she took them around behind the counter and let them each pick their own little sample of

fudge up there as a reward for being good kids. And I was like, really? And she goes, oh, you,

she said, some of the people she said, you wouldn't believe how uncommon that is with people

just generally nowadays. So man, there's a lot of validity to what you just said. Totally.

It's free and it's too easy. It's way too easy. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. All right. What else

you got? I can go on. All right. I can go on. I'm good. I'll leave it. I'll leave it up to you

guys to close it out. No, I'm good. We've we've talked a lot about you. A lot of stuff. Yeah, well,

hamster. I just I just want to thank you personally, man, for taking the time to come out

and to be on the podcast because I think it's really good for our listeners to hear from other men

besides Roscoe and I who have been successful in life who have done some really

cool and extraordinary things, but not offset by a ton of adversity, having to show a ton of

persistence, a ton of resiliency, you know, all the things seeking opportunity, all the things

that we talk about on the podcast about how to get there because they were, you know, in your

the stories that you shared with us today, there's so many times that I can see where you could have

just gone, you know, what's free this? This is just that's too much. It's too hard or I'm getting

too many knows or you know, whatever. And you didn't do that and you were able to achieve all

those things that you set out to do because you were setting goals and you were being persistent

doing, you know, seeking mentors. I don't know what the steps were and then just moving out

and pressing, man. And that's awesome because that's what we're trying to teach, you know, those

are the things that we're trying to get across to guys. You know, whatever it is, men, you can do it,

but there's a process to it. And if you stay true to the process, it'll work out. You'll get

there at the end. It's easy to get discouraged. It's so easy to do. I mean, nobody likes to be told

no. No, I mean, I'm old enough to know better and I still don't like being told no sometimes.

You're going to have failures along the way. It's going to happen, man. And how you deal with

those failures, I think is what we'll make you or break you a lot of times. So, yeah, so thanks a

lot, man. Things are coming out. It was a great day. Yeah, I appreciate it. The chance to talk

about bolts of honor and a little bit of the air show passed and people want to learn a little bit

more about you. Where can they find you? So if you go to edhamble.com, I've got on my homepage,

spell it for them. It's EDHAMIL.com. I've got a lot of videos linked on my homepage.

My air show schedule is on there. A little bit about what we're doing.

Foldsofhonor.org is where you go if you want to help change lives with the educational

scholarships. Elevatefenix.org is the local organization here that does great things.

Exactly what you guys are doing with this podcast. So I'd love to introduce you to Tony Montgomery.

Yeah, Elevatefenix. We'll talk about that offline. He's on the board.

But if I've also got, you know, I was not on social media till I got back in the air shows.

So my son, welcome to the pit. Yeah, I was done by so the media because I didn't know

a story or a tag or a tag anybody or a real or opposed. That is a steep learning curve.

So he does that, you know, and also, you know, you didn't really talk about that today. You

can do a whole other segment segment on that. But be careful. Social media is a great avenue for

information for somebody seeking ways. But you also got to be extremely careful.

So go to edahamel.com and check out the videos.

Put my name in YouTube or Instagram. And I've got a lot of videos. We have onboard videos.

Really cool onboard videos with 360 cameras. And that's how we've really reached a lot

with the mission of folds. And just, you know, just barnstorm across America and the biplane is awesome.

Yeah. It's all about the kids. The kids get inspired. They look up. Yeah.

That's what they want to do when they see you do it. So we do it safely. And that's all the

matters at the end of the day. We're here talking about it. I don't think so. That's awesome.

Because that's one of the main missions of this podcast is to reach back to the younger generations.

And hopefully help them suck a little less at life. And be able to learn some of those lesson wisdom.

Yeah. So folds. And provides them encouragement.

Folds awesome. Awesome service. Awesome. Doing great things for the community. Dan Rooney's book,

flying into the wind is highly recommended. It's on at the top of my reading list for anyone.

Lots of good nuggets to take away out of that book. And then check out edahamel.com.

Watch a few videos. Check them out on the socials. Thanks for being here.

Yeah. Thanks. All right. Appreciate you, man.

It's good to see you.

Thanks for asking us, man. Excuse the change to the one.

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