74: Six Words to Transform Your Culture

What if your team could recite your mission without looking it up—and actually believe in it?

In this powerful episode, Sean sits down with retired Air Force Squadron Commander and leadership expert Alex Ramos to unpack one of the most underrated tools for building high-performance culture: a six-word mission that lives in your team’s hearts, not just your handbook.

They explore how Alex used this strategy—what he calls a VisMis—to align diverse teams, inspire belief, and create buy-in from the ground up. You’ll learn why simplicity scales, how belief beats compliance, and what it means to lead as the voice of your mission.

Sean and Alex also dive into:

• Why middle managers are the most overwhelmed and under-equipped layer in your org
• The three elements every leader needs to make high-stakes decisions
• How to transform safety, innovation, and morale through culture clarity
• The difference between communicating and connecting with your team
• Why leadership is more than a role—it’s a spiritual journey

If you're ready to create a culture that actually lives your values, this episode is your blueprint.

🎧 Listen now and discover the six words that can transform your leadership—and your team.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Leadership and Background
07:02 The Role of an Aerospace Physiologist
12:11 Challenges Faced by Middle Managers
20:29 Defining Leadership and Its Spiritual Journey
27:24 The Power of Simplicity in Leadership
34:41 The Dark Side of Meaningful Leadership
44:11 Excellence in High-Pressure Environments

executive coaching, leadership development, team accountability, coaching culture, middle managers, high-performing teams, leadership communication, onboarding systems, questions for leaders, leadership podcast, self-leadership, culture-building, lead yourself first, Ken Proctor, Sean Patton, No Limits Leadership

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:15)
Welcome to the No Limits Leadership podcast. am your host, Sean Patton, and I'm very excited to have Alex Ramos, a retired Lieutenant Colonel with over 20 years of distinguished service in the U.S. Air Force. He's the founder of Lead Without Fear, a renowned keynote speaker dedicated to revitalizing leadership by fostering profound employee engagement. He's got an awesome story. He was born in a military family in Terrejon, Erebes in Madrid, Spain. I should make a note that

I almost failed at a West Point from intermediate Spanish. So I probably butchered that, you know, okay. It's, was I close Alex? Was I close?

Alex Ramos (00:51)
That was really good. You can roll your R's. That's pretty good. Yeah, there you go.

Sean Patton (00:53)
That's what, that's what like, that's about all I've got from

four and a half years of Spanish in my life. But, um, you know, your upbringing is still, uh, values of service, character, and authenticity. And I said, awesome career. Uh, he held pivotal roles as a behavioral scientist, aerospace physiologist and squadron commander providing human performance instruction to elite units, including special operations forces and air force one air crew, leveraging his extensive experience and training. Alex now empowers leaders to become.

their mission's voice, connecting teams to their mission on a personal level and reigniting the joy in leadership. Alex, welcome, bro.

Alex Ramos (01:31)
It's an honor and privilege to be on No Limits Leadership Podcast. I really appreciate the invite. I'm looking forward to diving right in. Like I said, I digest and really study your material, all your newsletters, everything you post on LinkedIn, and obviously, you know, the relationship that we've built together through our speaking programs and so forth. I'm honored to be here. And thanks for saying Torrejon. You know, because I'm Alejandro Ramos, right?

Sean Patton (01:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alex Ramos (01:57)
but when I would go to places and they can't roll their R's, I'd just like, just call me Alex and it's fine. I got all kinds of stuff. Alejandro, like I was like, all right, look, Alex is fine. so you, would, if I was your professor, I would have given you a A You definitely passed. You're welcome.

Sean Patton (02:09)
Oh, thank you, man. Thank you,

dude. It's a crazy story. was, so when I went to West Point we have to take a year of language and because my major was cultural geography, um, and believe it or not. So I had to take an extra semester and, I had taken two years, you know, sort of the obligatory two years of Spanish. And one of my biggest regrets in high school was like, I didn't take it seriously. And so, you know, I basically learned no words and just did good enough on grammar to pass.

And then four years later, I'm going into my junior year at West Point, like you have to take a language. And so I'm like, I'll take Spanish, you beginning Spanish. Like I can handle beginning Spanish. Like, well, you've already had two years of Spanish. So they put me in intermediate Spanish and I show up to, so I show up to class and I, mean, it's been four years and I literally know nothing. Right? Like I might as I'm nothing. I'm a white kid from Kansas, right? Like I have nothing. And I show up.

and I walk in and my professor is the Mexican foreign exchange officer who speaks less English than I do Spanish from day one just start talking to us. And in my case, talking at me in Spanish. And I was like, crap. Like my heart just drops. And so I, I think I got my lowest grade at West Point by far. was like a C minus I barely passed. And then I convinced them

after one semester to move me over to beginning Portuguese. And that's how I graduated from West Point, was switching from Spanish to Portuguese. So, but since then I've tried. So I appreciate, anyway, that's my journey through Spanish. And now my wife is fluent. So we travel. just, again, I just do my best and she cleans up my mess.

Alex Ramos (03:42)
Nice, okay.

You

I love it. So that's good. So you adjusted fire properly. That's good.

Sean Patton (03:58)
Exactly. And I will say that, yeah, I'm sure

if you go somewhere and it's like his name's Alex Ramos, as opposed to like, Arihara Ramos. It sounds so much more powerful, bro. my God, I love it too. And you've got such a cool story. You have a very interesting, right? From being a grunt in the army and then being in special forces, like the air force and even Navy world, I think in a lot of ways is so much more,

Alex Ramos (04:03)
Yeah. Yes. And I'm like, yes, that's right. I love it.

Sean Patton (04:27)
there are so many more members of those services are like tech. It's so much more technical, right? I mean, you've got, you know, you've got, you know, I've got as a young officer, I had like 40, just 40 dudes with machine guns, but like an officer stepping into, you know, combat and air force, like you've got a billion dollar jet, right? It's just a different like mindset and you had, so what, what was your role? Um, I guess primarily in, terms of human performance,

and executing the mission in the Air Force. Kind of explain to me more.

Alex Ramos (05:00)
No, absolutely. It actually has a lot to do with you. It has to do with the warfighter, the frontline. So for example, anybody who was going to fly an aircraft, aircrew, it doesn't matter if you're a flight attendant on presidential support missions. If you're going to be a fighter pilot, helicopter, tanker, transport, or high altitude parachutist, you've jumped from aircraft, right? And you do halo, halo operations, you're on consoles, you're on oxygen. You will go through aerospace physiology training. You will go through the altitude chamber.

or now the reduced oxygen breathing device. And all that does is it helps you get hypoxic, right? We have fun with you guys getting you hypoxic. And then we get to see you kind of try to figure out how to correct for yourselves, right? That's the most important thing. Just like when you fly on the airliner and they tell you to put the mask on first yourself so that way you can help other people. Because if not, you can be the one that's passed out depending on the situation. So that's what we would do. And then we would put you through a rapid decompression so you can experience that in the altitude chamber.

And then we would give you academics though. And I think this is where, this is where the heart in the career field for me in particular existed was that four hour course, academic course, it dealt with self-imposed stresses, mission imposed stresses. dealt with situational awareness, spatial disorientation. So you're really getting into like, you say technical, right? But you might have 40 guys with machine guns, but the...

the technical aspect, I say of what happens in your brain as you perceive, comprehend, predict, decide and act in a, a environment that continues to change and it's uncertainty. I think, I think you, you get an A on that.

Sean Patton (06:36)
Well, yeah, you're right. It is, it is all mental. You know, I'm always reminded of, I think it was in the first Rambo, right? When he's just like, you told me my number one weapon was my mind, you know, like that whole thing. And, and that's what I always like come back to is, and it's true for all of us, right. And that's why we're both so passionate about mindset. And especially when it comes, you know, comes to, leadership, but, you know, for like,

Alex Ramos (06:49)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (07:03)
for everyone else because I know already, right? But like explain to everybody else and myself like, what is a aerospace physiologist?

Alex Ramos (07:14)
Yeah, so an aerospace physiologist is one who really studies the human body at altitude. What happens when you're exposed to, you know, 10,000 feet, 50,000 feet. Also though, you're looking at lot of the human performance. So you're looking at human factors. What are some threats and errors that exist in your environment that you should be made aware of? Okay, so that you can then predict and decide how to operate in a particular environment. But we also have another responsibility, which is to investigate accidents or mishaps.

Probably the toughest part of my job was going out with a safety investigation board and investigating accidents and mishaps where there was a fatality. That's probably the hardest thing to work on. You've got 30 days to work with a team, usually led by a brigadier general. You've got your experts on board and you're just gathering information. You're using your knowledge and experience, all the data to try to figure out what went wrong, what happened.

Then of course, the most important part is to put together some recommendations that get implemented to help prevent that tragedy from happening again, or at least at a minimum inform, or even it could be engineering, it could be design structure, doesn't have to be a fatality, we're gonna investigate depending on the cost and dollar amount, we're gonna go ahead and investigate. that was a very, I would say demanding at times, but very rewarding because it gave meaning to what we did.

Sean Patton (08:34)
based on your training and experiences there as leaders of any size organization, a lot of my clients just for whatever reason tend to be, so I mean, I guess I'm being selfish here, but are in the manufacturing and the healthcare space, right? Like two spaces where what you're talking about in safety is so important. So when you talk with leaders and they start looking sort of generically at how do they balance

Alex Ramos (08:51)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (09:04)
No risk and safety mitigation versus say innovation in progress.

Alex Ramos (09:10)
Well, I think it, one of the things that we would recommend, so number one, if there's, most people think of an accident or an incident and they want to blame the individual. You know, it was Alex's fault. He made a mistake. And it ends there. No, Alejandro, no, Alejandro is, he's good, right? Alex should have listened to Alejandro. But so Alex makes this mistake.

Sean Patton (09:22)
It was Alex, not Alejandro. Alejandro doesn't make mistakes like that, you know?

Alex Ramos (09:33)
And then typically we say, that was, it could be a skill-based error, right? Or in worst case scenario, it's a violation. Like you knew you were doing something wrong and you still did it. Those are cases where you got to more than likely remove the individual because you're talking about character. You're talking about integrity, talking about some other things. So, but if it's not, it's an honest error, it's a mistake. So we have to study that. And so what we want to tell leaders is we can't stop at, at the ax level where something happened. Like you have to keep digging to understand how it happened.

like latent factors, precursors, preconditions. An example would be, our training programs were inadequate. Maybe our resources were inadequate. We didn't put enough, we were limited on how many people we had and we were putting too many demands on them. And they were telling us about it, but we didn't listen. We were pushing the bottom line. And it's hard for leaders to face that reality when they look in the mirror and say, my gosh, like that.

You mean I contributed to that?

we contributed as an organization to this by either A, we weren't aware of what was happening or we were aware and we just let it go, like we're kind of routine violations as well. We're like, hey, we always do it this way. You know, we know it's not safe, but we always do it that way. So we're gonna keep doing it this way. But ultimately, what I really appreciated about what we used, it was a human factors analysis and classification system, which allowed us to look from the incident all the way up to the organizational level of type of influences that may have contributed

to the mishap.

Sean Patton (11:03)
That's, that's, that's very interesting. And I think that's, know, it's very interesting being, coming from the military and then working with civilian companies and have my own businesses that there's this, it's just the severity in some sense, right. the military, some sense in a real sense, the severity sometimes in the military is so extreme that it leads to.

extreme training, leads to, maybe also in a good way, like a strong emphasis on SOP, a strong emphasis on, doing things the right way on analyzing it and assessing risk and, and sometimes in the business world, right. It's not necessarily maybe life or death. so we don't apply the same tools, but the consequences are just different. Like you mentioned, you know,

Would you, what percentage do you think of middle managers and any across the board you talk to would say they've got too much on their plate to do quality work? Like 90%, 80 % like, you know.

Alex Ramos (12:11)
A lot of them in

coaching middle managers is, is that to me, the reason why I really enjoy coaching middle managers, all, you know, all levels are great is they, they're in a tough position, right? So depending on the leadership. So when you look at the C-suite, you look at COOs, you look, you look at those that are pushing and trying to find more business and grow and expand. Okay. And then their middle managers like, okay, I, we're growing, we're growing fast and we're moving and they're trying to keep up.

It was interesting to me is that level of awareness of, well, they have to execute. It's hard for them to complain to their workers because they don't want to feel like they're talking bad about, we're they want it. They want to execute the vision. They want to move in that direction. Some don't even know the vision. They're just working hard. They don't even know where they're going. They just know they're growing. They're expanding. There's a lot of turnover at times because of that as well. So it is, it is very demanding on that middle manager to

to, if you want to innovate, like you were talking about earlier, and you want to really get after certain issues, sometimes they feel like they just don't have the time to do it. So, it really, this is all leadership. Safety is leadership. It's the bottom line. The way the leader thinks feels the way they, their values, their beliefs, how they speak about it, whether they act the way they act on what they actually say, like they actually do what they say is a whole nother story. They're going to adopt whatever they do. Right? What are that leader does? Right.

Sean Patton (13:34)
not what they say, right? They're gonna adopt

what they do, not what they say.

Alex Ramos (13:36)
Right. He

just, she just like, yes. Okay. Well, I guess it's cool for us to do it. Right. Or they don't really believe in it. And I think that's one of the key things here when it comes to safety or any, any leadership is can you create belief in somebody right where you're, where you are moving in the right direction and maybe you are adopting a little bit more risk, but you're mitigating it. At least you recognize it and you perceive it and you're empowering your people to mitigate it. An example would be like, we need to stop. Like I.

We need a timeout. And you as a leader, go to you and you're like, Sean, we need a timeout. Like, listen, here are the threats that exist right now. Here are the two errors that just occurred. We just need a timeout. This is what I think we can do. And you can say, okay, let's do it. Or you can be like, no, we need to push, figure it out. What's the balance there, right? So it really does. I always say this to leaders when they're like, well, how am I supposed to make this decision or what this judgment call? And I was like, there's three things you need.

You need information, knowledge and experience. Information, knowledge and experience. Do you have the right information to make the right call? Do you understand the information? Do you comprehend it? Do you have the knowledge to digest it and really know what the true threat is here? What you're actually, what you're adopting as far as the risk goes. Do you have the experience to know like, man, well, this, I've seen this before, we need to stop. And then the people that are giving you that information, right? Do they have the knowledge and experience to communicate it in a way?

where you see the severity of it, right? That gives you opportunity to act.

Sean Patton (15:05)
What's the difference between information and knowledge?

Alex Ramos (15:08)
Yeah. So information is, is, is out there. Like for example, information is, is, is, is data that's coming in. Right. So if I could take that and to turn it something useful where I could do something with it, to me, that becomes knowledge. Cause now that information is something I can actually use for something. Right. I, I'll give you an example. If you show me a bunch of like calculus or some equations that I haven't done it, you know, you may give me all this information. You may give me certain tactics, techniques, procedures. You may give me some business rules, some things that it's information for me.

But I don't really have the knowledge base to digest that. And I may not have a mentor, somebody walk me through it to turn it into knowledge so then I can use it for my team. Right? So just because we give somebody some information, it doesn't mean that A, they have the knowledge to comprehend it, or B, they may not have the ability to take that information and turn it into knowledge so they can use it. Right? So that's the big difference that I've seen.

Sean Patton (15:59)
I'm to start going like rapid fire. Cause every the last time I want to get to what, what was the biggest difference for you as a leader going from say, like in a captain level, right. With a few soldiers as a younger officer to when you stepped in as a squadron commander, which is more like an operational level leader, right? Like what, as you, you transitioned from that, yeah, like what's, what was the difference for you leading?

Alex Ramos (16:21)
Like battalion.

Sean Patton (16:27)
basically civilians be like smaller teams, maybe like manager, senior manager. And then when you moved up to that higher level, essentially middle management or junior executive level as a squadron commander.

Alex Ramos (16:38)
Well, some of the biggest, and I mean, obviously you're a commander, know, it's obviously, yeah, UCMJ, you have a lot of other heavier responsibilities and authority when you're in those types of positions. But when I was, when I was a captain, I mean, you got to think about still trying to master my craft. You're not four years in, you know, and then, of course, then you get to 10 years, maybe pin on major or what have you, but you're more of this tactical level.

You're learning to lead. You're learning a lot about yourself. You're learning a lot about other people. You're in the mix. Like you're just, you, you, you are, you're fire hose sometimes. Right. So the thing is, is I'm listening to my squadron commander. I'm listening to my group commander. I'm listening to those senior leaders give me information where I have to be in alignment with them and I have to execute at that tactical level. Right. So it's, it is, there's a big difference because now, right, I may have a small team.

I can connect with them daily. I can speak to them daily. But now I've got, you know, you've got 130 plus permanent party, right? Like in my case, I had instructors and then I had over 300 students that just got out of bootcamp and they were going through their first specialty training courses and I had 14 of them, right? So 14 courses, over 300 students on the campus at one time, plus all the other commanders that had students. So we had over a thousand students.

Plus it was at the medical education training campus in Fort Sam Houston, which is joint. So it's just, there's a lot going on there. And as a squadron commander, my job was to take this strategy, right? And you're a little bit higher up in the strategy realm and I have to know that and I have to execute that, right? I have to make sure that the team understands it, believes in it, adopts it, really engraves it in their hearts. And then that they're executing, cause I can't talk to them every day. I can't oversee that every day.

So was a big, big difference. But as a commander, no matter where you are, you do have to make time to see your people.

Sean Patton (18:34)
And so if we're, if you're, you know, people listening right now that are in that sort of senior tactical level role, again, maybe they're a senior manager, director type level where they're still focused on. Like they've got pretty clear instructions and it's about execution and they're looking at, or they recently are moving up a little higher in the org where it's more of a cross-functional role. I would, I would call more of an operational level role that's trying to.

take a larger, more like opaque or complex strategy and then be able to turn that into clear instruction to tactical level leaders. You know, cause in the military where we're lucky in the sense that we have the ability to pull people out of the line and be like, right, your next job is this. And then we're going to train you for that job. Then we can plug you back in.

virtually no one does that unless you're in a very large company where they can afford to pull you out, train you and pull you back in the next level. And so, you know, that's why people like you and I, you have jobs and can play such a big role is like helping leaders as they move up, cause they're not getting a ton of training. like, my question would be for that person who's moving from that sort of maybe just like leaders of leaders tactical level leader, and they're moving up to maybe

Well, in some cases might be like a VP, a junior VP, VP type level. And they need to, they're not getting maybe the training themselves. What sort of skill sets, mindset differences, like what would you tell them to prepare for that jump in responsibility?

Alex Ramos (20:12)
Yeah, that's, that is a great question. I think you could do a whole podcast on this because, you know, I think, I think what, this is what I believe. First off, I, I'm really big on defining the terms. Let's define terms. So, so leader leadership, right? So if we're saying that this VP is going to have this leadership role, well, what does leadership even mean?

So most I subscribe to the common definition that I'm sure you've heard many, many times over and over, which is leadership is the ability to inspire influence your oneself or individuals, right? To achieve a common goal or task. got it. But this is, this is what, what is your podcast called again? No limits, right? So let, let's not limit to that. Let's not limit it to that. In fact, just recently I was challenged on this, on this whole leadership thing, cause I do believe that leadership is influenced, but I think the seed to influence is inspiration.

Sean Patton (20:49)
Limits leadership, yeah, that's right.

Alex Ramos (21:03)
You know, I want the people to believe you got to create as a VP, any leader, in fact, in any organization, wherever you are. So all your listeners, it doesn't matter where you are, even as an informal leader. If you can create belief in the mission and it's meaningful and you feel that mission and it elicits emotion, which makes you care about it. That's your job. It's part of your job description. I don't think we talk about this a lot. Leadership is, and in fact, I.

This is no limits. We're going to go here. If it's all right with you, Sean. To me, to me, leadership, it's a spiritual journey. It's a spiritual journey. Now, cause we're defining the terms. I'm going to share this with you. Okay. What is a spiritual journey? And I'm just going to read it as I looked it up. A spiritual journey refers to a personal exploration or process of self-discovery aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of oneself.

Sean Patton (21:34)
Okay, that's done. Go wherever you want, brother.

Alex Ramos (22:00)
one's purpose in life and the world around them, often involving introspection, reflection and seeking meaning. It's a continuous process of growth and evolution focused on the inner self. To me, if you think about the toughest times you faced as a leader, Sean, the toughest times, and then the most joyous of times, was it not a personal journey for you?

Like, wasn't it something where you just felt like it's spiritual in nature? And we're not talking religion, we're just talking that energy that you feel. It's this reflection and introspection as far as like why I matter, why am I important in this role? What truly is my role as a leader? Yes, I got to deliver all these products and what have you. Yeah, that's my job. But for who and why, right? Like, does it mean something to me? And I think one of the best things that those leaders can do in those...

those positions, if you will, is go from communication, right, to connection. Start putting the meaning behind it and speak it in a way where your people believe, and now you don't have to watch anymore. You just check in, because they know why they're doing that. And I used a couple of methods in command, if you want to hear about it, one in particular, that was very, I use it now all the time. So to help people to do that. Yeah.

Sean Patton (23:14)
Yeah, please go ahead. Now you don't let

me spill your role, dude. You're crushing it. Keep going.

Alex Ramos (23:18)
All right. So listen,

so, so here, here's something that I learned as a commander, right? So when I, when I was a flight commander, so I was at the, know, as a major at the time, I was at Andrew's air force base. is where we're supporting presidential support, air force one, but also a lot of people come in for, for regional training. And I remember I was just thinking to myself like, what, what do we really do here? What do, what do we need the team to do? And so we would say, listen, I just need you to live by six simple words.

Okay, we're not gonna, we sat there whiteboarded missions and visions and you know how you do off sites and all this other stuff and here I was a major doing this, like come on man. You know, I was like no, let's just live by six simple words and it was influence the war fighter affect the fight. Okay, so as instructors, all I'm asking you to do is to use all of your strengths and challenge any weakness that you may have to get better so that you can influence the war fighter in the classroom. Given the threats and errors.

give them all the information, the mishaps, the trends, let them digest that. So when they go out, they can affect the fight. But if we don't do that job, if we don't do it right, we're missing our piece of the puzzle. So when I took command, so now you remember talking about captain major and now you're moving up. So here I am with 14 different medical specialties at a training squadron. And I'm thinking to myself, so chief Burbrick and I, superintendent, we're sitting there in the office, you know? And then of course you got a first sergeant as well.

Nancy horsey. so we're like, how do we write a mission and a vision for 14, you know, medical specialties. And we got so, so diverse biomedical equipment, technicians, radiology, you know, we've got physical therapy with laboratory medical lab, like what. And I remembered being the flight commander and I said, you know what? We're going to live by six simple words. That's all we're going to do. And so we came up with this term called the Vizmas, the vision mission.

Instead of having this long vision and long mission, we're like, you know what? Six simple words. And it was inspire warrior medics affect the fight. So inspire warrior medics, everybody on this team walks out there every single day and inspires warrior medics where that mindset is. Do you understand the role that you serve? Do you understand when you go down, down range and you're a medical laboratory, you're not, you don't think you're important. You know how quickly that doc needs those results?

Your radiology, you know how quickly that doc needs those results? So I need you to inspire warrior minded medics to affect the fight. And the thing that I absolutely love Sean about this is when you walk around campus and you see your team, and if I say inspire warrior medics, you know what they would say back? Affect the fight.

and it became our culture, it became part of our DNA, it was engraved in our hearts. And to me, that is one of the most powerful things you can do as a leader. Do you have that simple, six simple words, that simple mantra statement, that when you say it to somebody, resonates in their heart and soul, like they know why they exist, they know why they matter. Now go do the offsite and do your long mission vision stuff that nobody remembers, okay, nobody really does. But maybe you need it for other reasons, okay, at a C-suite level, that's okay.

And what we would do is if you come into the unit, you would sit down as you're onboarding and we would say, hey, you meet the commander, you meet the superintendent, we would meet them together and we'd say, hey, you live by six simple words here, inspire word medics, affect the fight. And I would ask him, do you remember your mission at your previous station location? And they'd be like, well, we, would do this and that's like, word for word. Tell me what your mission was. Like, oh, don't know. It's like, don't worry about it. We don't have that here. You don't have to memorize it. Six simple words. You think you can do that? Yes, sir. We can do it. Inspire word medics. And they say, affect the fight.

Sean Patton (26:53)
There's so much goodness there. Um, I like your, I love your emphasis on this simplicity, right? And, and that was, you know, something that I have to, I honestly kind of relearn, uh, every time I do a new effort or, know, my, my, two words that sort of guided me, uh, as my mantra last year were simplicity and focus because my own business model had gotten too complex. I was trying to do too much. I say, no, what I'm going to simple.

And when you simplify, you really flourish, right? When you simplify, you really empower, right? It gives your people that North star and that clear direction that then allow, they can sort of rally around, also can make decisions based on that. And what I loved about what you said there was at both your little, what I heard in both those six word mission statements,

It was about, you know, we all, one of our doctrinal things in military is always mission first people always. And that's what I heard, right? The first part of that mission was always about taking care of your people, inspire people or who they are. Right. It's about the individual first. And then what are you pointing that at? Like then what's the effect you're having. And I think that's a great takeaway, even if you're, know, an accounting firm or you're in manufacturing, health or whatever, it's like, if you can come up with your, you know,

Alex Ramos (27:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Sean Patton (28:19)
mission, vision statement or, Vismas. Yeah. I your Vismas and make it, and if you just think whatever we're doing with our people, you know, it's empower, inspire, whatever it's about the people. And then what are we pointing them at? you know, I love that you can sort of break it down, you know, that simple. And the last part of that I loved was the purpose piece.

Alex Ramos (28:22)
You viscous, yeah.

Sean Patton (28:49)
Right? Like if, if you, if you think that you're going to get 120 % out of your people to increase shareholder value, you're out of your mind. You're out of your mind. and, and so you've got to think in terms of like, how does this work matter and how does it impact other people? And I think a lot of business leaders struggle with that, but it doesn't have to be, it can be, how are you affecting the clients and their business outcomes? How can.

Alex Ramos (28:59)
Right. Right.

Sean Patton (29:17)
How are we impacting each other? Like how are we making each other's lives better by the work we're doing? How are we impacting the families of the people that work for us and what we're doing for them? Like there's so many other ways to create fulfillment and purpose in the work we do than strictly like a number on a financial statement.

Alex Ramos (29:35)
100%. I say this to leaders when they're asked me, how do I develop meaningful missions? You know, because there's purpose and there's And meaning drives emotions. What something means to you will drive your emotion. So I remember like when you would see, you're the height of the, I never went to combat. I never served in environments like you did.

My job was to prepare those that did in my specific small career field. Right. And I felt a lot of guilt about that many, many times. Right. I felt like, man, I, I, I've trained, I'll give, I'll give you two examples, right? Now I get, I get chills when, when I think about this and when I talk about it. But when I was in Okinawa, I'll an example. I was working with the 33rd rescue squadron, right? So HH 60s, you know, PJs and, and obviously the, air crew.

And I got to work with Captain Dave Wisniewski. He was a pilot, HH-60 rescue pilot. And he was such a go-getter. I remember I was teaching night vision goggles for them, refresher training and some initial training for some other groups. But so he comes over and he's like, hey, we got this new panoramic night vision goggles. You know what the four that got made famous with a particular operation? So anyways, so he's like, hey, we want to fly with these, but we don't have the ground training. I was like, Wiz, I got you, man.

Sean Patton (30:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Alex Ramos (30:58)
Like I will build it and you know, that you do the flying portion, I'll do this portion. And sure enough, man, we spent time, we just working and working and working and following my K I'm ready. And he's like, good, so am I. So I go over to the squadron. It's just one V one. I give them the ground training. He's like, got it. Good. Let's go fly. Right. Not that day, by the way, but so, so, just to make clear. Anyway, I'll never forget. You know, I was like, well, I'm going with you. And then, okay, you can come with us. I would fly with them anyways. And mainly at night. Cause I would do NVG training.

Sean Patton (31:17)
you

Alex Ramos (31:27)
So want to be in their environment. And then I film through a PBS 14, a monocular with a camera and I film night ops. So that way I could put it in the classroom. So it'd be more relevant to them. But it was long story short. I remember him, you know, he's going through his checks and I see the nogs up and then you go up in the air and he puts them down. I got panoramics as well and I'm just loving it. There's some gunnery work going on, know, shooting. And anyways, he come back and I don't know if you know this, but he was shot down in Afghanistan. He later passed away from his injuries.

And, and actually I have this bracelet here, you know, this remembrance bracelet that, I would wear. And, and I share this with you because like for me, it, reminded me that everything that I did, no matter whether I was in a combat zone or not, it mattered. It had deep meaning. You know, when I got into aerospace physiology, I didn't take a pilot thought out of college because I wanted to be an aerospace physiology, physiologist. I wanted to prevent mishaps because of a general Winfield S. Hark, who, was killed in F-16 crash in the eighties.

I didn't realize, I wondered as a kid, why did he bail out? So I didn't realize there was this human factors, human performance, career flow that I can get after, right? And learn to help prevent that from happening. So you can imagine like when we lose people, and like you said, the civilian sector sometimes it's not as it's life or death, but that's not the point. The point is to find the meaning behind what you do, like you said, right? Find the meaning behind what you do. And I would say this to executives, say charts don't have emotions.

They don't have feelings. Numbers don't have feelings. Now show the numbers, but then show the family that benefited from this medical device. Right? Show the person that's, you know, this vehicle is safer because of whatever widget you developed. Show that regardless of what it is that you do, find the meaning that elicits an emotion in that individual where they feel like they matter and they're a part of something. People want to feel valued. They want to feel like they belong to something.

And it's the leader's responsibility to do this. And this is how I try to get leaders to think about it. If you have a thread, I want you to thread it through all the hearts of your people. Just thread it, okay? And when times get tough or your job is to pull that thread and everybody goes, you're together now. You're together now. And nothing's gonna stop you because that thread has a lot of meaning in it. And when you inject that meaning in the hearts of your people, they will roll in together. Now there's a dark side to this we can get into if you want, but

but primarily it is such a I'd say, a tool to use is to figure out the meaning of what you do and learn to inject it and connect that with the people that you serve.

Sean Patton (34:01)
I couldn't agree more and that type of communication.

great leaders speak about that over and over and over again. And you said injecting the organization and you know, it's the first thing they talk about and make sure when, and I don't see a lot of senior leaders, right? Like, well, they know, right? That's on the website or whatever, right? Like we're talking, it's not, it's like not, it's not that they're not championing it and making sure like you mentioned it's in the hearts of.

Alex Ramos (34:25)
Exactly.

Sean Patton (34:34)
Everyone and everyone is reciting it and they're thinking about it and connecting with that higher mission. Cause I agree with you that, you know, I was actually thinking about some reflection about last year and being able to really define even more like the North star. I have a North star for my life and this is like for the work I'm doing right from my own, my work. And what I came to was.

this underlying belief that everyone deserves inspiring leadership. It's almost a human right that everyone deserves to feel fulfillment in whatever, we can call it work, call it play, call it raising a family, just our lives in general. And that can come from, and in some ways has to come from,

leadership of others, right? We're tribal creatures and we're designed at a genetic level in our brains and our hearts and our spirits and everything to be a part of that community. And we, I firm belief that we only experience fulfillment by having a sense that we are impacting other people, not self-serving gratification. And so I love how you articulated that. it speaks to even, you know, work that, that I

Alex Ramos (35:31)
Yes.

Sean Patton (35:56)
continue to do as I continue to try to improve my own mindset and perspective. Now you mentioned there's a dark side to that. What's that?

Alex Ramos (36:03)
Yeah. So the dark side is using it to, where it can lead to burnout where now what you're doing is you're saying, Hey, we, we've got this meaningful mission and you push your people too far. And you're, you're basically saying like, you're using that for, for, like I said, it's the dark side. It's like, no, you're supposed to use it for good. there are, there are times where you can say to your people is like, Hey, look, you know, people are depending on us and we need to know they're like, my God, but we don't have the resources that we don't have this or we're trying like.

You know, it's, it, is someone's going to get hurt. Someone's going to, or their turnover rate is too, we're not, we don't have the systems in place and the processes to really support what we, the push, right? The, the surge, the accelerated way of doing business. So meaning is important to get people through those tough times, but it can also be used by a leader. Right? And this is why it's a spiritual journey. You got to know why you're using that. Are you using it for good? Are you even aware that you're using it for good? Are you unaware that we're using that meaning to

you know, maybe push somebody too far. Maybe you know what matters to somebody and you're going to have to give them more projects because they're really good at it and you don't want to have someone else a little bit slower and you overload their plate now. Right. And you say, Hey, you're the one keeping us going. Like these people are, are, are getting this product and you're leading the way. And now their family life is all, you know, at, at a sort. So it, this is why I really believe in that self reflection introspection for a leader. gotta take time out.

to think about how your leadership is impacting, not just yourself, right? You gotta take care of self, but others. that has to be, that intentionality has to be followed by a deliberate practice in order to do that.

Sean Patton (37:41)
Absolutely. And it takes a commitment, which is to slow down, which I'm, you know, you know, I'm looking at the man in the mirror right now. That's my struggle, right? That's I'm an Enneagram three. I have a driver. I'm a man. And so the, you know, it's like my work is to sometimes do nothing or just to sit and like, and if you're wondering, you're like, wait a minute, is that me too? Just sitting down and doing nothing, give you, your skin crawl because

Alex Ramos (38:10)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (38:10)
for me, really does. Like the thought, like

just sitting there and like, all right, this, I'm not, I'm not reading a book. I'm not, I'm just like, I'm just going to sit and be for a moment. Like is one of the harder things to do for me, which is an indicator. And if that's you, that's an indicator. That's where you need to be. You know, like that, that's the indicator that that's, that's a space you need to be. And I find a lot of leaders, uh, high achievers, whatever you want to call them are in that space. And then I hear that mission and I see that

Alex Ramos (38:18)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sean Patton (38:40)
all the time. especially with senior leaders, especially with servant leader minded people, especially with people that are in, some sort of caregiver service role light, like, you know, whether that's clergy, mentioned healthcare workers, coaches, parents, like just, you just go on like anyone whose focus is, you know, usually in a good place, right? They're, they, it's, it's, it's about

they are passionate about what they're doing and the impact and people are, you know, are dependent on our success. it's just like, but you're to your point, they often will over or, you know, drive too hard on their people on that mission. Or I think you mentioned too that self leadership is like, they're the one, they're the first ones that don't take care of themselves. You know, like aren't there, mean,

how many doctors or nurses and they're in healthcare and they're, you know, 50 pounds overweight or 60 pounds overweight and they're overstressed and they're not taking care of themselves. They're not eating right. And they're all the things they know are wrong, but they just have this like higher calling and self this, not putting themselves first. And we can't lead others if we're not, if we're not in a healthy space, right? Like our, we're never, we're never going to lead our team better than we can lead ourselves.

Alex Ramos (40:02)
Yeah, it's interesting because we sometimes I've seen where you put so much emphasis on others because that's what leadership has been taught, right? It's been, you're taking care of the team, you're taking care of others and then you can risk losing yourself. This is why I go back to the spiritual journey. This is more than that definition of inspire others and influence others, but it's influence and inspire yourself,

And the way you feel about things, the way you feel about yourself, your history, your traumas, your values, your beliefs, your narratives, your story that you tell yourself every single day. Those matter as, as how you feel as a human being. You can go out there and put your leader mask on all day and you go home and you know why you're eating that, you know, like I remember when I used to, if I was down and out and there's a bag of chips in the house, guess what's going to happen.

Right? I'm going to cookie monster those things. You know what I mean? Like it's, just it knowing your, but knowing where that came from, doing the work, right? Having coaches, having therapists, having the courage to step into the arena where you're going to have to dig deep into your own heart and soul as far as why you are the way you are and who you are. That's where I think one of the best things the leader can do is, is you have to learn about you.

And the more you learn about you, the more empathy you're going to have for others too. Cause you, you'll meet people where they are and maybe you were there once and you're not going to say, well, I was there once and I did this. You're just getting back, man, I remember that emotion. I remember when I felt like I didn't want to get up. I remember what I just want to lay in my bed for, hours upon hours. Right. Maybe not green Berets, but I'm from, but you know what I'm saying? Like, but there are people who do. And then you just meet them there and you can have a little bit more empathy than just to get after it. You know, let's go.

Sean Patton (41:47)
Yeah.

Alex Ramos (41:54)
and I'll share this with you. You have, read extreme ownership, right? Jocko willing. Right. He came out with a dichotomy of leadership. Why did he come out with that other book? Because you can't just be like extreme ownership. Let's go. like, wait, wait, time out. out. We this there's a dichotomy, right? There's we there's, there's two sides to this. And so I think the more you look at yourself and within the better, you can be that type of leader for everyone else.

Sean Patton (42:16)
I think you have to, right? think you're the limiting, you know, my, my business coach, one of his famous phrases works entrepreneurs is income improvement follows self-improvement. and, but I think the same, you know, concept applies, right? That you never, like I said, you're never going to lead your team better than you lead yourself. Like you're as a leader or whatever, whether that's, know, your family, your community, your small team or

you know, a 5,000 or 20,000 person company, that you are the limiting variable for your company, for your organization, for whoever you're trying to lead. And so we've got to put time into that. And I think that's a key part of leadership. And I'm wondering, you know, before we, we started recording, we talking, we were talking about how you worked with air force one and you know, how, how that unit in particular was like such a high performing, like in cultural environment. Can you tell me what that was like?

Alex Ramos (43:12)
Yeah. So I'm sitting in my office and I get this phone call and it's like, Hey, uh, you teach crew resource management? And I was like, yes, I do. And I said, okay, what, do you need? I was like, well, we need training this week. And I'm like, okay, well, we don't have a class this week, but, I can see what other dates we have available. And you tell me, and there's like, oh no, no, uh, this is with the air force one crew out here. And I was like, oh, so

Wait, what? Who? So I knew, I knew they were there. you know, you see them fly, you know, you're at Andrews and I, and I'd work with the presidential support, you know, aircraft over there and do some training. That's, that's how the word got out for our CRM, program crew resource management. And I said, okay, however, like I like to tailor our training and I want to know like, Hey, make sure we're providing something that's not generic. So I would require a visit. So, so I was like, can I bring a couple of people with me?

So they're like, sure, why not? So we go over there, we go through the whole process and, you know, we get, we get to learn a little bit about get a tour of Air Force One, where, the air crew are sitting, the flight attendants, and it's, it's an incredible operation. But the thing that, that stands out to me the most, one is, the level of discipline and commitment to excellence. Because if you think about the mission, and this is, this is where I go, I just keep going back to the meaningful mission.

If you go back to Air Force One and it's like, okay, so you're going to go provide some human factors, CRM stuff to Air Force One, where do you even get info from that? Like, where do you even get trends and analysis from? It's not like they're reporting everything that happens. You know, it's just, so, so you have to look at human performance in general, other civil aviation type of, of, um, proactive safety information that you can use. But ultimately you go there and you just see the professionalism, the commitment, the desire to be the very best because they know what they represent.

God forbid we ever lose in Air Force One. Think about the level of responsibility. The missions that they would have, the short missions were the toughest ones for them, wheels up, wheels down type of things. It wasn't the long haul ones, right? So we had to learn and understand their environment so we can provide the best information that we had available to them. It wasn't, check the box off, okay, CRM. Some places are like that, fast or funny or let's go, I'm out, right? But this is where that meaning comes in.

So just the honor to have that opportunity to witness the excellence, right? From every single person to meeting the commander, right? They treated you like one of their own. To me, when you walk into an organization and your people, regardless from the front office, the front staff, all the way to a commander or a C-suite leader, treats you like one of their own and welcomes you that way, that's culture, right?

That takes time to build and I'm sure they built it over the time, but over the years. But to me, that was one of my favorite memories is working with the crew there.

Sean Patton (46:06)
And this has been awesome. Um, you know, you and I have in the past and could go for, know, another hour or two, but, you're just, you're doing fantastic work speaker coaching, all that. Like what

We haven't even gone into the work you did or work you do. So tell me a little bit more about your business and how you're helping leaders.

Alex Ramos (46:28)
Yeah. So lead without fear. I think it's not about not having fear. Fear exists. It's just not leading with it at the forefront. Right? So, so what I do when I coach or even when I speak, my, the way, the way that I do the speaking engagements is, you know, see the gladiator helmet behind me. That's the actual helmet that I bring when we go out and speak and, know, people come up on stage and they have to raise that helmet. You know, they'll be like, and

What I found is we talk a lot about this lead without fear, but there are people who are afraid to get up on stage. There's this inner voice. There's something telling them, no, I can't. I'm not a look this certain way. People will think they'll think that. And as a coach and as a speaker, I want to break down those barriers. I want them to practice courage. Everything great in this world that's ever occurred is due to courage. Tell me anything that isn't.

that isn't something that has changed someone's life or changed the world in some way. It started with the courage to do something, the courage to speak up, the courage to act. And so when we go out there and we speak, it really is about breaking those barriers and understanding who you are, this inner voice, the things that are stopping you from doing the things that you want to do with your life, becoming the person that you desire and you imagine every single day.

We're going to learn to break down those barriers, to bring meaning into your life, into your mission, to inject that into your people. And when they go up there, I promise you that you watch some videos. They go in there kind of shy, kind of, you know, this is crazy. What am I doing? And then they raise that helmet and their whole physiology changes. Now they're smiling. Now they walk proud. And it's like, that's the level of leadership that people want and are looking for. And that's what you need to deliver as a leader. And so when we coach, we teach leaders how to do that. Right. But

It's not really how to teach it. It's they already know, or there's already something existing within them that inner critic or that, you know, you have the inner critic, inner coach, you have the ego, you have all these things that are involved. And through questioning, right? Through the self-awareness exercise, we break those down so they can figure out, wow, I do have this ability. I have this ability to do this, or I should find somebody within my organization who has the ability and wants to do this and is excited to do it. And I'm going to have them lead that effort. Right? So, so the speaking, the coaching goes hand in hand, but to me,

You mentioned something earlier and I can, I think this is really powerful. used to tell leaders this, that everybody deserves the opportunity to experience the joy of leadership. Everyone deserves the opportunity to experience the joy of leadership and everyone deserves the opportunity to experience the joy of being led by a great leader. That's how it works.

And whenever I promise you this, anybody who's listening, and I'm sure in your career and in your the great work you do now as a speaker and a coach, right? That there are leaders in your life that you remember, because you experienced that joy. And there are units that you led, and you remember and they remember you because they experienced that joy. That's the meaning. That's what I'm talking about. When we talk about meaningful missions, becoming the mission's voice, it's you can have all the processes, all the

SOPs, you can have everything in place, but if it doesn't have meaning, what are you really going to feel?

Sean Patton (49:40)
Yeah. What's the point? It's a point man. Jeez. Alex is awesome, dude. I love the work you're doing and you're so great. We'll put all the links to, you want to get ahold of Alex and talk more about his coaching and lead without fear or, know, definitely, uh, grab him up for your next event with your team, whether it's a retreat or a conference, uh, the message and the delivery is just, you know, second to none. So awesome work. Alex is great talk with you today, bro. Thanks for being on.

Alex Ramos (50:07)
Hey, it was honor. I got told you, I follow you and you know what's interesting? The motto, you know what it was for the three to second training squad when I was a commander? Second to none. Yeah.

Sean Patton (50:14)
What's that? Second to nothing, hell yeah. Awesome,

brother. All right, man, will you take care of it? You keep up your good work.

Alex Ramos (50:22)
I appreciate you. Thanks, brother.