Dr. Thom Mayer
Appearances
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
You fly in and you think, oh my God, these are the gates of hell. I mean, you see the Pentagon of all things burning. Couldn't even see that there was any remnants of a plane and the Southwest wall was completely on fire. But the gates of hell take you to some pretty interesting places.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
You quickly develop those bonds of trust. You talk about team, how are we going to react in this situation? I can tell you, when I was dealing with those patients, They're right there working with me and I almost never had to ask them to do anything.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
you know dreams of playing in the nfl and aside from i did play in college uh was a all-conference linebacker and you know the old saying as you know the longer ago we played the better we were did have a chance i'd broken my leg my or i didn't break it somebody broke it for me in my junior year a pretty bad fracture so i couldn't play my senior year
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
You know, it's like in the midst of an emergency resuscitation, I put my hand out when the nurse puts a chest tube in because she knows what I'm thinking. And the same thing occurred there. So, you know, from great teamwork comes great preparation. great trust, a great sense of the ability of people to work across boundaries. You develop that very quickly.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And I think the more we understand that the work begins within, but it turns very quickly towards teamwork.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Wherever we're leading, whether we're leading our family, our kids, you know, whether we're leading a large organization, we have to learn to tell the story of the people we serve. Tell a story about the people. that you represent. Too many organizations, too many teams are so bogged down in statistics and data instead of telling the story of the people that we serve.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Mark Twain was very good at this, as most things, when he said, if you want to rise to the meteoric heights of literary greatness, don't write about man, write about a man. Tell the story of the person who's doing it.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Yeah, obviously, I think failure has to be our fuel. But driving failure is curiosity. That, huh, I wonder why. Why, why not? Why did we do it this way and why not do it a different way? Why are we doing it this way? We hear that all the time and the most common answer to that, because we've always done it that way.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Because we've always done it that way, that doesn't show curiosity, that doesn't show, you know, hey, why couldn't it be done another way? So, the question, you know, why should be, it adds value to the people we serve. But the bigger question is why not? Why couldn't we do it another way?
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Because I ask people to think about leading in a radically different way, to act on those thoughts within a week because if the people who listen to this don't, in some small way, do something differently if they don't act on it within a week, they're not going to act. And the third is to innovate. Think, act, and innovate.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And to innovate takes that curiosity to say, why couldn't it have been done another way? Why couldn't this, the play that we drew up, why couldn't that have been done in a different way? Why the strategic plan that we laid out? How did it fail? To what extent did it fail? Sure, it's nice to have stats to show, data to show, you know, the delta between what we aspired to and that which we achieved.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
But again, that human story that's behind that. So, to me, it's read to lead. Read to lead. Read the lives of great men, great women. Those who've been through it. I just got back from Normandy. I had the great privilege working with Donnie Edwards, a former NFL player, Best Defense Foundation. We took 60 World War II veterans back to the Normandy beaches. Wow. Unbelievable.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
But I was invited to training camps with the Vikings and the Bears and thought, hey, let's give this a shot. And discovered that, what did they tell me? They said, aside from my side speed, strength, and talent, they said I had no talent. Other than that, I would have been a perfect linebacker in the NFL. So- How nice.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Cold chills just thinking, talking about it, listening to those men, what they went through, how they faced it. You know, you can't do better than to see the people who've been through it before and hear their experiences, read their lives. How did they make decisions? What guided them? What went right? What went wrong?
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
It's just that curiosity, as you so correctly say, is the only thing that we can do to fuel our failure to understand how did we fail.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
anytime i put myself in front of those i serve i feel like you know i'm too old to be making that mistake i made that mistake so many times and i just made it over again and whenever i've you know answered a reporter uh given the talk i've been in a meeting and i've let my ego get in the way as opposed to thinking first last and always and in between
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
about the people I serve, then I've regretted it. You know, I can give you an example of what I said once, and there was a shooting at the CIA, and I was the chairman of the emergency department at the time. And I tell this story with the permission of the patient and his family. This guy named Nick Starr worked at the CIA, waiting to turn in, was shot at close range with an AK-47 and
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And he came into our trauma center, flown in by my police paramedics that are the police helicopter unit, got 28 units of O negative blood. For some reason, they determined that I was the only person that was going to talk to the press. This was a national story. So I walk outside the emergency department. Reporters are all there.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And as you know, often you can hear the question go into their earpiece. lately before they asked the question. So, they're peppering me with questions and, you know, Dr. Mayer, everybody was interested in donating blood to help because they knew he'd had so much blood. They said, you know, patient had 28 units of O negative blood. What blood type is he?
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And before I could think, I said, I don't know what he was before, but he's O negative now. And I thought, oh, my God, I can't believe I just said that. And I thought, well, this has been a good job. You know, I'll pick up back up the office. Got a phone call from the chief of police. I thought, well, this is it.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
You know, and he said, Doc, I just want to tell you, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard a real human being say. So. You know, just trust your heart, as I said earlier. You know, keep the patient in front, the people we serve in front, the team, and yourself way, way back. C.S.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Lewis, as you know, said, you know, humility consists not of thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. Don't be so humble. You're not that great. Good advice to keep in mind.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Yeah, decided to go to, I was in at Duke's Medical School and I thought no matter how nasty the professors at Duke were, they couldn't be any worse than the guys trying to take my head off with the Vikings and the Bears. So became an emergency physician.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Well, it's a corollary question deeply related to, you know, deep joy, which my deep joy is helping others find and fully express their deep joy. So understandably, my definition of success is the extent to which I've been able to help them understand they are all leading because leadership is worthless because it's just what you say. Anybody can say anything.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
But leading is priceless because it's what you do all day, every day. And are you in the course of what you do all day, every day, consistent to your deep joy? That to me is success.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Well, the first thing I'd probably say because I couldn't restrain myself would be, are you out of your mind? You know what I'm saying? But when I was 11, I was on an all-star baseball team, Meadowbrook Little League, and ended up winning the city title, which in effect was the county title, the regional title at that time. It was a big deal.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
We had two things that happened to us as a result of that. The first of which I thought was the best thing that could ever happen to a person in their life. which is they put us on the top of fire engines, sirens blazing, lights flashing, and drove us all around the town with people waving. And I thought, it just doesn't get any better than that. You know, just put me to sleep.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
This is not going to get any better. Well, it turned out I was wrong because we had a banquet. And at the banquet, a guy named Carl Erskine. Carl was from Anderson, Indiana. And he had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers and was the World Series strikeout record holder until Sandy Kovacs broke it. And he said something I'll never, ever forget, which was, gentlemen, you can't do everything in life.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
No one can. But he paused for a fact, and I can see him saying it and hear the tone in his voice. He said, but any of you can do anything you choose to do. And I never forgot that, you know, particularly when failure was looming, when, you know, it was like, okay, it can be done, you know. And that's why I say, you know, reach the lead.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
I trained in surgery at Salt Lake City and we worked a deal out so that the surgical residents covered the park doctor role at Yellowstone National Park. Wow. And we've been going back ever since. So 25 years ago, we we bit the bullet and bought a place and have enjoyed it ever since. It's still a small town atmosphere. A lot more people have moved in from other places, but we love it.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
curiosity, as you so correctly said, that ability to see, yeah, it can be done. You know, Mandela said, it's always impossible until it's done. The one great Mandela line of many is being resentful about failing or being resentful towards other, blaming failure on others. He said, resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it'll kill your enemies. Yeah, a shocker doesn't work, kills you.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
The book is Leadership is Worthless, but Leading is Priceless. It's available on Amazon and all major sites. If you enjoy it, then please leave a review. I'm told that helps. If you don't enjoy it, reach out to me because you can reach me at T-H-O-M-M-A-Y-E-R-M-D, so tommayormd at gmail.com. If I can help you in any way, I will. If you need a phone call, we need a Zoom, happy to do that.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
My deep joy is helping others find their deep joy and fully express that. If there's anything I can do to be helpful in that regard, it would be an honor.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Well played.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
It's been my honor entirely.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Well, I was actually a theology major when I was in college. And it wasn't that I was particularly cerebral or reflective. It was because you didn't have to take tests. You just wrote papers.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
At the end of my sophomore year, my two professors, my theology professor and a biology professor, his name was Dr. Prey, you can't make that stuff up, said, have you ever thought about going into medicine instead of being a theology professor? After Duke, I was very clear I wanted to go west. I decided I was either going to go to Colorado or Utah. So I ranked Salt Lake number one and loved it.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Met my wife Maureen there. She was a newborn ICU flight nurse. I was a pediatric trauma fellow. Just a magical series of serendipitous circumstances.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
People ask me all the time, how do I build my resume to get a job like yours as the medical director of the NFL Players Association? And my answer is, I became the medical director on August 1st, 2001. Corey Stringer, a tackle for the Vikings, died inexplicably of heat stroke. And I got a phone call. The phone call was from Gene Upshaw, then the executive director of the NFLPA.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And he called me not because he had done a resume search, but he called me because we were best friends. And we were best friends because his youngest and my youngest were best friends. Our families had had countless dinners. We coached tee ball together. We coached football together. And so he called me because he knew me and he trusted me.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
So I always tell people, don't build resumes, build relationships. And I think that's the key, particularly as we move forward. And so I've been doing that for the last 23 plus years. And it's been an honor and a privilege to be a part of guiding the health and safety of our 2,500 players per year.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
You know, when our boys were younger, I used to take them to school every day I was in town. When I dropped them off, I always said precisely the same thing. One more step in the journey of discovering where your deep joy intersects the world's deep needs. I swear I said this to them. You have to start with your deep joy, not the world's deep needs. The world's There's no bottom to that well.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
But if you start with your deep joy, with passion that drives you, why you do what you do. And that has been a constant in the job because, you know, Lord Acton said, as you know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. NFL is now, was then in 2001. the most powerful sports organization in their business in the world.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And keeping in mind that the deep joy of representing the health and safety needs of our 2,500 player patients, that's not the same interest as the NFL, which represents the interest of 32 billionaires who are the owners of the clubs. And so, you know, you just have to be willing to stay constant to that.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
It was true in the concussion crisis when we recognized there was a problem that had to be fixed. We, the NFLPA, Sean Sansevieria, our attorney at the time, and I wrote the original concussion protocols. And there was significant pushback from the NFL, different commissioner and different medical director and chair of what was then called the MTBI committee. We stayed constant to that.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And now, you know, we're at a place where the league takes great pride in calling them the NFL concussion protocols. That's great, as long as it's for the good of my player patients. But having the courage, the integrity to stand up and say, no, we are going to have guidelines. And these are the scientific protocols that are our best knowledge at this time.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
The book, as you know, is kind of a litany, very brief, 176 pages of contrarian types of statements, starting with the title, Leadership is Worthless, but Leading is Priceless. What I learned at 9-11, the NFL, and Ukraine. You know, when I was called to the Pentagon on 9-11, I was a command physician at the And I got there.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
First of all, you fly in and you think, my God, these are the gates of hell. I mean, you see the Pentagon of all things burning. You know, couldn't even see that there was any remnants of a plane and the southwest wall was completely on fire. But the gates of hell take you to some pretty interesting places. And so what I learned was that, first of all, it was a civilian operation.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
I was the medical director of the local EMS agency and the chairman of the emergency department. But I had 32 generals standing behind me, facing the Pentagon, willing to help in any way. Good men, good women who were there to help me any way they could. But I realized I'm not going to get anywhere by sucking up to these generals.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
I have to suck down to the people actually doing the work, to the structural engineers, to the Army Corps of Engineers, to the paramedics, to the firefighters, to the suppressant folks, to the FBI evidence recovery team, in order to secure that building so we could safely, they could safely get into the building.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
To help rescue those who were in there or recover those who had not made it through the horrific crash. And I think that's true in all of our lives. We kind of suck up guests. I always say the boss is someone who thinks that he's the most important person in the room, whereas the leader.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
knows that her job is to make sure that everyone else feels that they're the most important person in the room. No need to suck up. We need to suck down and discover the answers within us.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Yeah, shortly after I first started my job, I had a very difficult issue with the NFL. And I laid the issue out. And I knew that I can't just say, hey, boss, solve this problem for me. I had to come in with solutions. So I had three solutions. And I laid out the solutions and said, here they are. One, two, three. I said, what do you want me to do? And he said, he thought for a second.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And he looked at me and he said, just go be Tom Mayer. That's why you are Tom Mayer. That's why I hired Tom Mayer. I realized what he was saying is, I trust you, trust yourself to be able to make the right decision and I'll support you all the way. You know, the leader we're looking for, the leader you're looking for is you. You are the one.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Well, that's true. Definitely. You know, I always talk about innovation at the speed of not genius, intelligence, creativity, but of trust. Because if people don't trust you, they're not going to step outside the lines and try something that might fail. We have to make failure our fuel. We have to understand that if you're not failing, you're not innovating.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
You know, you're only adopting best practices, adopting what has already been identified maybe as the next phase, but it's something that's clearly there. You know, we want people to be able to think we're really completely outside the box. Most of the time when the boss says, think outside the box, they don't mean that. They mean think inside my box. Mm-hmm.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
The way I'm thinking, guess what I'm thinking. So, that's like sucking up. So, the answers are not in, you know, they're not in the C-suite, they're in the we-suite. The people who do the work, the team of people who do the work in the trenches on a daily basis. And that's where innovation should come from.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Well, first of all, I always hired people not only who were better than me but were much better than me. People would say, what's it like working for you? And the answer is I have zero idea because no one's ever worked for me. They've worked with me. I started almost every statement that I made to my folks, my team, by saying two things. One is, I need your help. Instead of, you've got a problem.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Starting with, I need your help. I mean, even if the person you're working with is a difficult person, you know, egocentric, whatever it might be, locked into the boss mentality instead of the leader mentality. When you say, I need your help, most people are going to say, okay, I'm going to try to help you. And two is I like saying, what would have to be true?
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Well, I grew up in a small town, Indiana, Midwestern, classic Midwest way to be raised. One of those factory towns that feeds or fed General Motors, 70 miles northeast of Indianapolis. And a football player, a lot of people play football in order to go to college. I went to college in order to continue playing football. And
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
My point being, what would have to be true in order for us as a team to be able to deliver what it is you've just told me is something, a desired state we need? You know, here's where we are, here's where we want to be. What would have to be true in order to get there? Yeah. There's a difference. There's a fundamental paradox between a team of experts, a very smart, talented group of people.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And that's not the same as an expert team, people who work seamlessly across boundaries, who understand what the goal is, the ability to trust each other, to come up with ideas. The Kansas City Chiefs, you know, famously are a very innovative team.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Well, that starts at the top with Andy Reid, who sits down with his entire staff, his entire team on the whiteboard and looks at ideas about different plays that they could run. How could we exploit in this situation, this down in distance, they're going to be in cover one, they're going to be in cover three. That's an expert team, a group of people saying, let's take creative chemistry.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
That's a great question. First of all, I didn't get a phone call. I made a phone call. Wow. I picked up the, you know, I saw what was happening. I thought, you know, I've been very fortunate, as you know, to have led in some of the most prominent crises of our generation. It's an honor to serve others in the course of that and to have been asked to have done so.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
But to me, I thought this is an injustice that can't stand. I'm an emergency physician, so I'm uniquely trained. and have a mentality, you know, we have this weird thing of, you know, explosions, fire, you know, gunfire. We run into that, not away from it. You know, we're just not normal. And so I made phone calls connected with Team Rubicon, a group of former Marines.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
And so literally within three weeks of the invasion, We were there, boots on the ground in Ukraine in order to take care of patients. So having been at the tip of that sphere, exposed to air raids literally every day and every night, you know, I saw the results.
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
People blown out of their homes, blown out of their apartments in the middle of the night, having to get on a train and go 900 miles west and hope someone would be there to take care of them. But you see, it's hard not to think about what kind of mentality
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
results in men doing that i think your point is extremely well taken that authoritarian way of dealing with things does not in my opinion have the right results
The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
You know, how does a team operate as an expert team? Certainly you recruit smart people. But Bill Belichick said, talent sets the floor of a team, but character sets the ceiling of a team. And I think that's true in any team. So our group came together and bonded. I mean, serious badasses. And that's the highest compliment I can give somebody in an emergency situation.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
You know, when I was called to the Pentagon on 9-11, I was a command physician at the Pentagon and I got there. First of all, you fly in and you think, my God, these are the gates of hell. I mean, you see the Pentagon of all things burning, you know, couldn't even see that there was any remnants of a plane and the southwest wall was completely on fire.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
It is hard, right? You step into a leadership role at times if you are the leader and you have people reporting and sometimes they're sucking up to you. But when you reframe and say, it really is about, hey, I'm not here to be the most important person. I'm here to serve the people that pay my salary, really, that actually put me in this position to begin with.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
When you got a phone call to go help Ukraine at the start of this war, what went through your mind? Were you concerned? How did you make this decision?
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
That's a great question. First of all, I didn't get a phone call. I made a phone call. Wow. I picked up the phone. I saw what was happening. I thought, you know, I've been very fortunate, as you know. to have led in some of the most prominent crises of our generation. It's an honor to serve others in the course of that and to have been asked to have done so.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
But to me, I thought this is an injustice that can't stand. I'm an emergency physician, so I'm uniquely trained and have a mentality. We have this weird thing of explosions, fire, gunfire. We run into that. not away from it. They're, you know, we're just not normal. And so, I made phone calls connected with Team Rubicon, a group of former Marines.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
And so, literally within three weeks of the invasion, we were there, boots on the ground in Ukraine, in order to take care of patients. So, having been at the tip of that sphere, exposed to air raids literally every day and every night, you know, I saw the results, people blown out of their
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
homes blown out of their apartments in the middle of the night, having to get on a train and go 900 miles west and hope someone would be there to take care of them. But you see, it's hard not to think about what kind of mentality results in men doing that. I think your point is extremely well taken. That authoritarian way of dealing with things does not, in my opinion, have the right results.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
But the gates of hell take you to some pretty interesting places. And so what I learned was that, first of all, it was a civilian operation. I was the medical director of the local EMS agency and the chairman of the emergency department. But I had 32 generals standing behind me, facing the Pentagon, willing to help in any way. Good men, good women. who were there to help me any way they could.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
But I realized I'm not going to get anywhere by sucking up to these generals. I have to suck down to the people actually doing the work, to the structural engineers, to the Army Corps of Engineers, to the paramedics, to the firefighters, to the suppressant folks, to the FBI evidence recovery team, in order to secure that building so we could safely—they could safely—
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
get into the building to help rescue those who were in there or recover those who had not made it through the horrific crash. And I think that's true in all of our lives. We kind of suck up guests. I always say the boss is someone who thinks that he's the most important person in the room.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: At the Pentagon on 9/11, On the Ground in Ukraine
Whereas the leader knows that her job is to make sure that everyone else feels that they're the most important person in the room. No need to suck up. We need to suck down and discover the answers within us.