Jason Leduc on Veteran Wisdom, Startup Grit, and the Power of Community

What if military precision could solve your biggest business challenges?

In this episode of Pursue Vegas, we sit down with Jason Leduc, founder of Leduc Leadership, to unpack what real leadership looks like beyond the buzzwords. With a decorated career in the U.S. Air Force, Jason didn’t just learn discipline—he lived it. Now, he’s bringing those same principles to Las Vegas’s entrepreneurial and tech ecosystems.

"We do a great job training people for leadership in the military. We don't always realize that when we're getting trained at the time," Jason shares. That training laid the foundation for his second act as a leadership consultant, speaker, and champion for veteran entrepreneurs.

We talk about what separates a boss from a leader, why culture starts on day one, and how veterans navigate the identity shift from command structures to startup chaos.

"If you want your team to perform at the highest level," Jason says, "you need to start doing some of these culture things on day one." It’s not about ping pong tables or perks—it’s about intentional systems that bring out the best in your people.

Jason also brings sharp insight into Las Vegas’s current business landscape, especially how community events like Tech Alley are quietly becoming the connective tissue of our startup scene.

"The biggest challenge is we have a lot of folks who are all doing their own thing… we need to show up to each other's events, we need to play each other's songs."

From chain of command to radical ownership, this episode shows how military principles can reshape how we lead, collaborate, and grow in business.

Key Takeaways:

• Military leadership training is one of the best underutilized assets in business.
• Great cultures don’t happen by accident—they’re built early, on purpose.
• Veteran hiring programs work best when they go beyond surface-level DEI.
• Las Vegas needs more collaboration and cross-pollination between its leaders.
• Entrepreneurial leadership is about expanding trust, not just managing tasks.

Resources:

• Leduc Leadership Website
• Leduc Leadership Facebook and Instagram
• Leaders Mindset Podcast on YouTube
• Tech Alley Las Vegas

This episode is for anyone who knows leadership isn’t about being in charge—it’s about being in service.

Thanks for tuning in to The Pursue Vegas Podcast!

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📍 Website: www.pursue.vegas

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Jason LeDuc): Hi, this is Jason leduc from leduc Leadership, and you're listening to the Pursue Vegas podcast.

0:00:08 - (Dave Burlin): The idea of Pursue Vegas was to really highlight the local people that really make Vegas Vegas.

0:00:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): I love that aspect of how these visionaries are actually bringing people together.

0:00:19 - (Dave Burlin): When we hit record, our responsibility is to connect the people of our city so we can show the world who we really are. All right, welcome to the Pursue Vegas podcast. I'm your host, Dave Berlin.

0:00:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I'm your co host, Toawyy.

0:00:32 - (Dave Burlin): And we are excited, but also I'm a little confused and discombobulated today because when you have three people on the same podcast who used to have other podcasts or currently do have other podcasts, you get mixed up in your intros.

0:00:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): And you totally're having an identity crisis.

0:00:52 - (Jason LeDuc): Right?

0:00:52 - (Dave Burlin): It's a little bit of an identity crisis.

0:00:54 - (Jason LeDuc): I don't see what could possibly go wrong.

0:00:56 - (Tawni Nguyen): Welcome to your intervention, Dave Burley.

0:00:58 - (Dave Burlin): No, man.

0:00:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): Jason, thank you for being here too.

0:01:00 - (Jason LeDuc): Are we doing another intervention on Dave? We are.

0:01:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): Sounds like we are.

0:01:04 - (Jason LeDuc): I feel like we just did this over the weekend.

0:01:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): I was gonna text you, but I wanted it to be a surprise.

0:01:09 - (Dave Burlin): All a su.

0:01:10 - (Jason LeDuc): All the best interventions are.

0:01:11 - (Dave Burlin): Hang on. That would be the greatest show in the world is if people did podcasts as an intervention. Hey, we wanna have you come in this studio in have this.

0:01:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): Dave, we really have to talk about.

0:01:24 - (Jason LeDuc): Your shoes, but only if it's an intervention for you every time and you fall for it every time. Time.

0:01:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): I so good see that being a de move.

0:01:33 - (Dave Burlin): All right, Intervention.

0:01:34 - (Jason LeDuc): We're gonna do a podcast today.

0:01:36 - (Dave Burlin): This.

0:01:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Welcome back to the intervention with Dave Berlin Today.

0:01:40 - (Jason LeDuc): Did one. Why would we need to do another intervention on you?

0:01:42 - (Dave Burlin): You're right. You're right. Let's do the podcast and then people start walking in.

0:01:45 - (Jason LeDuc): Dave, we need to start about. Talk about all these businesses you're starting all the time.

0:01:49 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. As entrepreneurs, I promise I will not start another business today.

0:01:56 - (Jason LeDuc): Is this the worst? Thank you for taking Poast.

0:01:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): No, this is actually intro.

0:02:00 - (Dave Burlin): This is the best intro. No, I'm on a more serious note. No, definitely glad to have you here. It's long overdue. You came by for the launch party that we had. I did. But you and I have been doing some serious mobile podcast broadcast stuff across multiple events for quite some time now. You have so many things that you're passionate about. I'd love having veteran entrepreneurs on the show. But also we do a lot of stuff with veter and tech. There's just so much synergy so much synchronicity of what we're all trying to work towards and build in the ecosystem here in Vegas.

0:02:39 - (Dave Burlin): That's why it's very important that you're here. So please tell us all things, Jason, and what are you excited about?

0:02:47 - (Jason LeDuc): Yeah, well, thanks for having me. And I agree, the synergies are what make it fantastic. And that was, to be honest, the first few years I was in business, I didn't have that until I got kind of reestablished with the veterans community. When I left active duty from the Air Force in 2015, I kind of said, I want a little break from all of this. And when I started getting back involved in the veterans community and deeper into the entrepreneur community, I found these are my people. And this is where all of our interests are aligning. And it's so much better when you find people whose interests are aligned with yours and you can start collaborating on working things together justuse you think they're cool things to do as opposed to, I gotta find a strategic partner and I gotta go find clients and I gotta go find vendors. And when you find people who are interested in the things you're interested in. And my big thing is after 20 years in the Air Force, I'm really interested in leadership. And not just leadership in business, not just leadership in the military, but leadership in our communities.

0:03:46 - (Jason LeDuc): And we do a great job training people for leadership in the military. We don't always realize that when we're getting trained at the time, and I'm trying to bring some of that culture out here. We're always talking and thinking about leadership and all our discussions that we're having so that we are building our communities and building our leadership in our commun. We build the leadership, the rest of it will come.

0:04:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): So you and I have that in common, is the leadership aspects, both from an organizational perspective and secondly, from an interpersonal perspective. I always have like a streetai angle because that's what we like to joke. It's like the hood raised me, the streets raised me. But how do you actually apply leadership into an organization level on a culture within how we run our businesses and how we talk to each other and how we kind of lead by example in this town with a lot of people that are just mainly talks, but no one really steps up. Especially something that you said previously. Everyone wants to be the first in this town. No, nobody wants to be first in this town, but everybody wants to be next. And that's something that has sat with me since, I don't know, 10 minutes before the show.

0:04:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): I know we're not gonna discuss the specifics of it, but I think I love that topic of leaning into what this town is really made of on the leadership side.

0:04:58 - (Jason LeDuc): Yeah. And to be fair, I stole that from Dave. He said that many, many times and I finally stuck in my brain. But I think you're right. And so there is like many things that are arts and sciences, like leadership is. There's the theory and then there's the practice. Right. There's the lofty goals and then there's the practical. And I'm interested in how do we use the practical to achieve our lofty goals.

0:05:23 - (Jason LeDuc): And that's a lot of what we do at the frontline level in the military is that practical day to day leadership. But that's only good if you have a strategic understanding of the big picture. And I think one of the things that happens in this community is we don't have a lot of practical leadership experience. And we often have competing interests for the strategic level. We don't have everyone, all the stakeholders on the same page for what do we want this community to be. And that's not unique to Vegas.

0:05:58 - (Jason LeDuc): But there are communities that do that very well, that say, what's the big picture now? How do we go off and do our own thing? Contributing to the big picture.

0:06:05 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. Even though this is the Pursue Vegas podcast, I look at the very specific example of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, while they have really transformed in the last six to eight years, I remember 20 years ago they had the Vision 2025 project, which is hilarious because here we are, it's 2025. It is not exactly what that vision was, but it's well beyond in some areas because there's technologies that we couldn't have, like, predicted or planned for. But the idea was, is that we're going to do something.

0:06:43 - (Dave Burlin): Let's all go together. And I think it can be challenging in communities like Las Vegas because you do have transients that come in from different places. One of the other challenges that we have sometimes is we have charlatans that come in and mix things up and create more challenges where there should be collaboration. So what I love about you too is like, we've had so many different people on the show from different experience, but also different times in Las Vegas set the stage.

0:07:16 - (Dave Burlin): When did you get here? Cause you left and came back.

0:07:19 - (Jason LeDuc): Yeah, I've been e out for 20 years. My. So as a child. Let's go way back. As a child growing up in the 1980s, I grew up on the East Coast. So I had never been to the West Coast. I was fully 19 years old, 18 year, 19 years old, I think, by the first time I came to the West Coast. But as a child growing up in Connecticut, which is a place that is not very much like Las Vegas. It's very, very beautiful, very quiet, very boring.

0:07:50 - (Jason LeDuc): But I was fascinated with Las Vegas. So. And in the 80s, there was this thing where TV shows like the A Team or who's the Boss or Full House, they would go to Las Vegas, right? I was always fascinated by this place, Las Vegas, with the lights and the sounds and the slot machines, the gambling and the shows and the magic. And just as a small child, like under 10 years old, I was always fascinated by this place.

0:08:16 - (Jason LeDuc): As I got older and got more into science and engineering and getting ready to go into the Air Force and focusing on that, I didn't think about Las Vegas that much. And then when I was graduating college, got my first assignment in the Air Force, getting commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force. My first assignment was Edwards Air Force Base in California, which is just down the road from here.

0:08:40 - (Jason LeDuc): If you're not familiar, Edwards Air Force Base is where they do a lot of the. Basically the flight testing of the Air Force that they don't do here or at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. They do at Edwards Air Force Base. And it's really the early stages of flight testing for everything. Like the first flights of a lot of Air Force stuff is at Edwards. It's where in the old days they used to land the space shuttle in the beginning. And then when they couldn't land it in Florida, it's where they would land the space shuttle. I got to see that land when I was stationed. Edwards. That was cool.

0:09:06 - (Jason LeDuc): But all that said when I was driving from Connecticut or from Boston to. Cause that's where I went to college. When I was driving from there, when I was planning my route to drive out to Edwards, I saw that it took me right through Las Vegas. And all of that came back to me. All of that fascination with Las Vegas and Las Vegas now is very different from Las Vegas in the mid-1990s. Las Vegas in the mid-1990s was very much the 2 do99 shrimp cocktail, the 499 Prime Ribbon Lobster.

0:09:35 - (Jason LeDuc): We were using the shows and the buffets and all of that as lead magnets and things to keep people in the casinos, to keep them gambling, as opposed to amenities that are actually drawing people to the city now. And the gambling is almost Secondary, right. So very different time. But I said I get to stay in Las Vegas. I get to see Las Vegas. So I plan my route. Edwards is only three hours down the road.

0:10:02 - (Jason LeDuc): I planned my route. So I would get here at like 10 clock in the morning one day and I would spend a night in Las Vegas before I went on to Edwards the next day. So I spent all day. I went to Hoover Dam, checked out a couple of casinos. And this was the mid-90s. So like Luxor was brand new. Luxor was maybe not even a year old. So it was. And it's not like today where we have all these tall buildings.

0:10:23 - (Jason LeDuc): Luxor was probably the biggest thing you could see for miles and miles around. And it was this giant black Pyra Allegian.

0:10:28 - (Dave Burlin): It was the Allegiance Stadium.

0:10:30 - (Jason LeDuc): It kind of was. Remember how that looked on the skyline? And was so unique. That's what that was back then. So I checked out all these Casss. It was like, this is amazing. So when I was stationed in California, I would come back almost every other month for a weekend in Las Vegas. And it was again, it was a different time, right? You could show up with 200 bucks in your pocket, cash, go through, do all your gambling, eat, drink, whatever you're gonna do. And if you weren't lucky, you left with enough, enough money in your pocket for gas.

0:10:59 - (Jason LeDuc): And you got gas on the way out of town and drove back home. And if you were lucky, Maybe you had $200 or more when you left town. So it was a very different place. Still fun town. I still love living here. I still don't want to live anywhere else. But that was my first experiences with Las Vegas. And then went off and did a couple more Air Force assignments and got the opportunity to have an assignment here doing flight testing.

0:11:21 - (Jason LeDuc): And so I was here for five years doing flight testing on really important stuff. So did that went on to do some other assignments. I had bought a house here. Didn't never really plan on coming back. And then when I started thinking about getting out of the Air Force, seven or eight years later, still had my house here, thinking about starting a business, said, why don't I just go back to Las Vegas? And that was 2015, and I've been here ever since.

0:11:43 - (Dave Burlin): Love it. I love it. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, you have the different spectrum because there's a lot of military people that do end up retiring here or getting out and coming here because there's a lot of different opportunities. And of course we're also in the path now here we are 2025 trying to create some of those opportunities with some of the philanthropy and the work that we do with vets and tech.

0:12:08 - (Dave Burlin): But all of that also plays into the ecosystem, the startup ecosystem, the overall entrepreneurship ecosystem. But you're also in that niche of leadership. And how do you take the corporate leadership models that are out there and how do you implement some of those practices which has become very common, more common in the last 10 years. People understand how the military leadership can cross over into that world.

0:12:37 - (Dave Burlin): I think one piece that's different about military leadership is the leadership is the highest level because we always are also factoring the bonus. I say bonus level. The highest level of leadership is leadership during conflict and war. That's a totally different gear that most companies will never have to take. But because we do have that throttle that is capable, we're chaos capable. And when I say that, it's like the best leadership really comes at the highest decision making. Things come when lives are at stake.

0:13:15 - (Dave Burlin): And sometimes it's harder for companies to really one embrace that cause they have stigmas about what they think veteran leadership is. But there is value that people can get from that. What do you think the biggest challenges are for corporate entities to understand that and what do you think the solution might be?

0:13:38 - (Jason LeDuc): Yeah, I think there's two things. I think the idea, because I've talked to my own clients and other folks about this, the idea of stakes and leadership, it's very ingrained in us in the military. Putting together a team to clean up the parking lot cause the generals come to visit is low stakes. Putting together a team to go capture some bad guys and make sure they come to justice is much higher stakes. Right.

0:14:06 - (Jason LeDuc): So we kind of. And like a lot of things in the military, this is ingrained in us. It actually is very hard for a lot of military people who experience expl the leadership principles involved. Because when you go. You went to basic training in the Marine Corps, I went to officer training in the Air Force. So you do all these things, right? You're getting taught leadership from the moment you show up. You've got the yellow footprints, right?

0:14:28 - (Jason LeDuc): You've got the. In the Air Force, we have to stand like exactly toes on the line and report in. Right? You have to fold your socks a certain way. You have to roll your socks a certain way. You have to make your bed a certain way. We're not doing these things because we like torturing people and we just like to see beds made a certain way or socks fold a certain way. All right. We're teaching you attention to detail. We're teaching you to look out for each other.

0:14:50 - (Jason LeDuc): Your squad mates, your platoon mates, your flight mates. We're teaching you to look out for each other and say, hey, your socks aren't quite right. Me, let me show you how to do that the right way. And then we'll make sure you know.

0:14:59 - (Dave Burlin): How to don't get in trouble.

0:15:00 - (Jason LeDuc): Right? For us at 18 or 19 years old, it so we don't get in trouble for our folks who are instructing us as they're starting to come together as a team, they're working together, their understanding attention to detail is important. No one cares how your socks are folded. No one cares. In basic training right now, sometimes you get into a combat situation and how your ruck is set up matters. Right. Cause someone may need to grab something off of your ruck. It'better be in the place.

0:15:26 - (Jason LeDuc): It is still attention to detail. Right. We've built that skill in you from literally day zero of you arriving at training. And so it can be hard for military folks to explain military leadership principles. And that one of stakes to go all the way back to that, a really long way around to that is one we all innately understand. This is a bigger deal than that. But we still always do things in an excellent way and we do things that are appropriate to the stakes.

0:15:52 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, yeah, it really is. You nailed it. And it's funny because you did go to officer training school for the Air Force. I was enlisted for the Marine Corps. Two totally different places. It's not like, hey, we're goingn get in trouble. It's like, I think they're going to hit us if we don't have our socks the right way. But that creates a different level of camaraderie. It creates different opportunities and modalities for communication.

0:16:20 - (Dave Burlin): And I think what's interesting for companies is that if you can understand what's capable for people to work together at the highest level, then companies, organization teams within those organizations are going to operate at a higher level. Is there an example where you've seen that in the work that you've done with companies? Or just like one that's a general one that people might not realize?

0:16:45 - (Jason LeDuc): I'm trying to think of a specific example, but what we're getting at here is that if you want your team to perform with the highest level, you need to start doing some of these culture things on day one. Right. You need to have your company's equivalent of full holding the socks.

0:17:00 - (Dave Burlin): Right.

0:17:01 - (Jason LeDuc): If attention to detail is important to you, in your company, you need to have the equivalent of folding socks in your company. I'm trying to think of a good example we've ever come up with with a client of, in a simple version.

0:17:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): Sops.

0:17:16 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, sops. I was gonna say it starts with like a pre flight checklist, right. There's a whole list of things that needs to happen to create a certain result. Or that result then starts to become a habit and that habit starts to form the culture.

0:17:32 - (Jason LeDuc): And you know it's starting to work in your company when the folks on the front line are given a new task and they say, why isn't there a checklist for this? And you really know what's working when they go, I'm gonna create a checklist for this. Right? That's when you know it's really working when they go, there should be a checklist for this. And I'm not gonna ask anybody for it, I'm just gonna create it.

0:17:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. I think on that side, if you're talking to leaders that can lead themselves is a different story with being able to take SOPs and run with it and get creative with it and actually be resilient enough to push through. But I want to ask you something. For me, leadership always starts from within and it starts with one. Right? So what makes Jason an effective leader?

0:18:17 - (Jason LeDuc): It's gonna sound like a hokey core values thing, but integrity, accountability, doing things in an excellent way, according to the stakes. Rightuse. Sometimes good enough is good enough. And then communicating, communicating and understanding other people. Right? So always that integrity. What is our purpose here? What is it we are here to do? And is everything we're doing contributing to that? Right. Integrity is not just telling the truth.

0:18:45 - (Jason LeDuc): Right. Integrity is being honest with ourselves and saying, is what we're doing here worthwhile? Is it contributing to the bigger picture we all agree that we are contributing to? If that's not the bigger picture we want to be contributing to anymore, let's have an honest conversation about that. So it all does start with integrity. It all does start internally. And then you get into the excellence pieces you get. If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it well.

0:19:14 - (Jason LeDuc): Yes, we are limited on resources. Yes, we are limited on time. But I'm gonna do it well. I'm goingna do it to the best of my ability. Right. And again, sometimes good enough is good enough, but the wisdom is knowing the difference. Right? The wisdom. And that just comes with time and experience of, okay, this is good enough for today, guys. Let's move on. We've got the immediate problem solved. We need to have a conversation with the longer term later.

0:19:36 - (Jason LeDuc): And then that communicating and was one of the things as you grow from being a young officer to being a senior officer or a young leader, being a senior leader, you really do need to be spending more of your time communicating, listening and watching to what's going on and then communicating to folks, not how to do things, why we're doing them and what the point is. What's that bigger picture. Right. If you want to grow leaders, you want them to have that internal drive for integrity and excellence and you want to start communicating them and growing them of let's have a conversation about the big picture.

0:20:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. No, I agree with you because the reason I asked that is for me, leadership speaks differently on how other people view leadership, especially coming from being a woman. For me, introspection is the best time you have for self reflection and being, building self awareness. Because if you cannot clearly communicate and I think a lot of businesses owners, entrepreneurs, community leaders that call themselves leaders lack the ability to think clearly and then communicate clearly. So I just wanted to understand that us at this table understand and have a definitive understanding of what leadership really is. It's not just somebody barking orders and painting a big picture with this is how we're going to get there. I need you to do X, Y and Z versus the person that's just doing the thing that's X, Y, Z and then shifting the focus away from Let me tell you what to do.

0:21:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): And then leadership to me is empowering the people that they're leading to do, like to be the best version of what they can be and providing them a safe space to have the capabilities of making their own decisions, being creative, being resourceful without just kind of like pulling them along. Because I think that's a managerial line of work rather than like a leadership position. So it's fantastic that those are the core values that we seem to have at this table.

0:21:33 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, yeah. I take a really interesting approach when it comes to leadership. And this was there's been multiple lessons learned and then there was one critical aha for me. And to me, leadership is about fear. It's about fear. And it's not like, will I make the right decisions in the face of fear, adversity. This isn't a battlefield thing. I've never been to combat. I've been in situations of conflict.

0:22:00 - (Dave Burlin): But I've also been in multiple leadership roles where I've built large teams and large organizations. And there was an aha that I had and it was actually in the setting of growing the DJ business in the Midwest. In the world of DJing weddings, what's the worst thing that could happen?

0:22:22 - (Jason LeDuc): Somebody comes and requests Cotton Eye Joe.

0:22:24 - (Dave Burlin): That's the second worst thing. I love that.

0:22:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): And now I can't unhear it. Ye.

0:22:32 - (Jason LeDuc): You can't unear it.

0:22:33 - (Dave Burlin): No thing. The worst thing is.

0:22:35 - (Jason LeDuc): I really hope you guys can play that under the next 100%, the next.

0:22:39 - (Dave Burlin): Two minutes of PO Brillian. Where did you come from? Where did you. No. The worst thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is we can ruin somebody's wedding. And there's so many ways that you can ruin somebody's wedding. But then if you really take that to the next level, it's like then that starts what could be unhealthy relationship that they never get past because it's something that they say they stuck on. And it creates problems at the very beginning foundation of a relationship. And over time we have another statistic.

0:23:10 - (Dave Burlin): So I remember when I took the responsibility of that, that event, my fear was what made me do the best job I could possibly do now. Yes. It came from the experience of the military. It came from the experience of really good training. That that company I went to work for had already been in business for 10 years. They had already figured out what a great ##ding was and how to avoid that. But for me to learn that skill, that's easy when it really came to leadership because I helped build a whole office in Dallas, Kansas City, Denver, Indianapolis.

0:23:46 - (Dave Burlin): When I say leadership is about fear, it's about passing on that fear to the next generation. So they lead with the same integrity, it comes back to the integrity that you have. And sometimes you can tell people what leadership is, but it's really once you pass on that fear and they have the same fear that you have, that it's their willingness to do a great job is what outweighs that fear.

0:24:14 - (Jason LeDuc): Yeah. I don't look at that as fear. And I think that may, that may get you a different result than you're getting for. But I do like the idea of looking at the responsibility. Right. It comes back to stakes.

0:24:25 - (Dave Burlin): Right.

0:24:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): Accountability.

0:24:26 - (Jason LeDuc): The accountability and responsibility. The stakes in that DJ business are you could ruin somebody's wedding. And I actually had friends whose wedding was ruined due to an unfortunate slip and fall incident during a bachelor party the night before a wedding. This is why you never do a bachelor party the night before a wedding.

0:24:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): But dam that is bad.

0:24:46 - (Jason LeDuc): A big cut all over his face in all the Wedding pictures and that wedding, that caused enough discord and they went through the wedding and all that, that had caused enough discord in the marriage that that marriage was not together after six months.

0:24:59 - (Dave Burlin): Wow.

0:25:00 - (Jason LeDuc): So one, don't have a bachelor party the night before the wedding.

0:25:04 - (Dave Burlin): Two, Coton.

0:25:06 - (Jason LeDuc): It's about right. You don't wanna ruin anybody's wedding. And the way your company handled that was you very much instilled in that in all of your DJs. We don't ruin people's weddings. You are gonna make choices when you are on the stage dj you need to be cognizant of. And we all do this every day. We interact with people every day and the choices we make and the things we say have impacts on other people.

0:25:31 - (Jason LeDuc): You were gonna have an impact on not just this wedding, not just the guests, not just the music, not just how much a good time people has. You're gonna have an impact on this marriage going forward of what is supposed to be the best day of these two people's lives. So you have that responsibility. Don't let that paralyze you, but keep that in mind. Now, I imagine in the DJ business, when someone's an experienced dj, they give you a lot of leeway.

0:25:54 - (Jason LeDuc): When someone's a new DJA in the company, they say, you have a responsibility to not ruin this wedding. You stick with the playlist we gave you.

0:26:02 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, exactly.

0:26:02 - (Jason LeDuc): Ye no cotton Eye Joe.

0:26:03 - (Dave Burlin): Yeaheah no cotton Ey Joe.

0:26:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): I came from the other side of the wedding industry, the planner of a couple. I couldn't do more than like 10. And I was the bartender. So I was responsible for getting everybody to enjoy the music that DJs would be playing.

0:26:17 - (Dave Burlin): Well, now, the quick aside here, because the music playlist is always one of the most critical things. There's people that absolutely want Cotton Eyed Joe. And as painful as it might be to play, they've requested it because it's a memory that they're tapping into. And this is the difference between Club DJs and Wedding DJsus. Club DJ will be like, dude, I hate playing Cupid Shuffle. I'm like, you know how much money people have paid me to play the Cupid Shuffle?

0:26:47 - (Dave Burlin): A lot.

0:26:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm looking at you like, what the.

0:26:50 - (Dave Burlin): Fuck'Happen and it's like they want that because they believe that's gonna be what gets people going. Sometimes they leave it up to us, but sometimes they're like, I want to hear this. And there's been times where I've never even heard the song I would never played at a wedding. But it's a memory from when their aunt used to get them all singing together as kids. And she's passed away and they want everybody out there and it's like this whole moment and I'm just like, I'm adding that song to my playlist. Cause now it's like part of my whole life.

0:27:15 - (Jason LeDuc): Sure. The couple, the customer ask for a song, you're gonna play the.

0:27:18 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, exact. Exactly.

0:27:20 - (Jason LeDuc): And drunk uncle comes up and is like, cotton, I'll give you 50 bucks to La Cotton Night Jo.

0:27:26 - (Dave Burlin): Exactly. Yes.

0:27:27 - (Jason LeDuc): And if you are the type of.

0:27:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): Person that's my favorite person at the wedding.

0:27:30 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. Psa, last one, I promise. But if you go to somebody else's wedding and you request to play a song and the DJ politly tells you that they have a playlist to stick to, leave them alone or her alone.

0:27:41 - (Tawni Nguyen): Or pay them $1,000.

0:27:42 - (Dave Burlin): You can pay them $1,000 and they're still not gonna do it.

0:27:44 - (Jason LeDuc): That's entrepreneurship.

0:27:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): You gotta pay to play, baby. See, I'm telling you, street leadership works money toss.

0:27:51 - (Dave Burlin): But no. So I love what you said to me. Where? And again, the way I explained, when I talk about fear, it's not that I put that fear onto somebody else. I ask somebody like, what is the worst that can go wrong? And let them paint the picture of the fiery car going off the bridge. Because if I just tell them that you'll ruin somebody's wedding, it doesn't stick. But it's like, if they're like, oh, well, this could happen. And that could happen. And it's like, all right, cool.

0:28:17 - (Dave Burlin): You now have the tools to do a great job. And you have just enough fear in your back pocket that makes sure that.

0:28:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): You like, well, hopefully your team is good too. Because on the logistics side, we check AV's, we check everything. On the production side, every single speaker, we run it the night before, we run the stage, we make sure nobody trips, we make sure the height of the stairs for them to step up, where the cake'gonna be. So all of that kind of leaned on me. And then that's why sometimes I'm still a type a type of person. Just because that's what it takes. It's like every single step has to be accounted for from where they walk in to where the carpet is, to where the cord is, where we lay the tape, where we lay the outlets. So things like that, that comes back to leadership. People don't see these things that kind of lay behind the scenes. People not just the person that's like obviously on the day of I get to be the drunk one behind the bar. Being drunk with not being drunk, but being around drunk people because it keeps an orderly fashion of like the bottlenecks and the satellite bars and where people are flowing in and out of and so they don't trip on each other, trip on all the chdss that's gonna take you out and pull the entire two speaker systems, you know what I mean? So things like this don' you would be a, a great wedding planner. Like if we got into.

0:29:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): Sorry, we're not starting another business.

0:29:29 - (Jason LeDuc): My first five didn't go greatah. I've never been married well, so it's.

0:29:35 - (Dave Burlin): Interesting because all of that, that's leadership in events. Then you've got leadership in the corporate setting or just in business in general, that's a lot more consistent. There's a lot more complacency that can happen. There's a lot of communication that cannot go down the way that it needs to you. So in that world, what are a few things where people can start to kind of understand do they have good leadership and communication and then what actions can they take to move that needle?

0:30:06 - (Jason LeDuc): Yeah, and it's all part and parcel. Events is a great example. Right. If you've been to an event and it went really smoothly and you had a great time, chances are there was some great leadership behind that, both at the top level and being practiced all the way down. With the big picture of we're gonna make this a great event for everybody. Right. In the corporate world, the biggest thing that you can do is develop those future leaders, right?

0:30:30 - (Jason LeDuc): Make sure they understand this idea of stakes. Make sure they understand their role in things. We always wanna be developing future leaders. That's our most important job as leaders. Getting the job done. Getting the job done is for the folks on the front line. Wenna empower them, wen toa enable them. We wanna make sure they have all the tools they do, but that's still not enough because someday we're all gonna move on.

0:30:48 - (Jason LeDuc): Whether that's our own choice, which we hope it is, or for whatever reason, we move on. Right. And one of the things that drives me crazy in the corporate world is someone moves on, they get a better job offer somewhere else or they get promoted. And the thing that drives me really crazy is like the best candidate for a job to get promoted internally can't get that job that they really should and they deserve to get and are re gonna be great at because if they Take that person out of that team, that team falls apart, right?

0:31:19 - (Dave Burlin): So man, the key man, key man.

0:31:21 - (Jason LeDuc): You never wantn to be the key man. You wanna have a team where if anybody gets pulled out for some reason, hopefully for a good opportunity, not because of some tragedy, that the team looks at each other and goes, we know how to do this. We know how to function without the boss. We know how to funct. This is why a lot of entrepreneurs and corporate executives can't ever really go on vacation, right? They go on vacation and they're tied to their laptop or they're tied to their phone because they're always getting calls. Because A they haven't delegated properly to anybody on the team and B the team isn't confident making decisions without them.

0:31:58 - (Jason LeDuc): And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to develop leaders that are confident making decisions on their own. They know the box they need to live in. There's a whole longer conversation about delegation. But what we're doing is we're starting people with a real small box, right? That could be because they're new and they don't know as much or because the stakes are high. The example I always like to use is there's the nuclear missile mission, the nuclear attack mission in the military, right?

0:32:23 - (Jason LeDuc): When people go in, even though they'highly capable, highly trained, very knowledgeable, very educated, when those missile guys and girls go into that missile silo, there is a procedure for everything. They follow every procedure, the letter, they get tested on it. Actually every month. I think it is, I think it's still every month they have to go take a test on all their procedures.

0:32:41 - (Dave Burlin): ###E what are the stakes there? I mean, that's kind of important.

0:32:43 - (Jason LeDuc): It's only the survival of the world.

0:32:46 - (Dave Burlin): Exactly.

0:32:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Sign me up, Jason.

0:32:50 - (Jason LeDuc): I don't care how, and rightly so. We don't care how smart you are, how you think things might be done better. When you are down in that hole, you do everything according to the book every time. Cause the stakes are so high. The time for the conversation how do we do things better? Is back out of the squadron bar talking about, you know, I think there's a way we could do this better or in some after action review or something, right?

0:33:17 - (Jason LeDuc): And then there's like what most of us are involved in every day, and especially in the entrepreneurial community and the tech community where we want to encourage innovation, right? Where we want people to try things. And so what we do is we give people a very small box to try things. In no. And then when they try something and it works, we talk with them about, how did that go? Why do you think that works?

0:33:41 - (Jason LeDuc): And why do you think this is a good thing for our big picture? Cause sometimes something works and it's not a good thing for the big picture. Right. Good idea. Doesn't fit our strategy. But you learn something about this, right? You're a little more confident that you can get something done. And then we expand that box, right? Maybe it doesn't go so well, right? What did you learn from this? Okay, I learned.

0:34:00 - (Jason LeDuc): I learned I need to not run the power through the main area that the servers are coming in to serve dinner. Right? Oay. We learn something from that. We gradually grow that box. We give people more responsibility. We give them more authority to achieve that responsibility as they go. And we primarily decide that on how much initiative they are showing ye.

0:34:23 - (Dave Burlin): It's funny because now I've got those two different extremes, right? You've got therm global nuclear war, and you've got a wedding. And it's like you push the wrong button at the wedding. You accidentally play Cotton Eye Joe on.

0:34:38 - (Tawni Nguyen): Purpose for a thousand dollars a and.

0:34:42 - (Dave Burlin): You immediately switch back to pit bull, but then you push the wrong button in that bunker and like, the world is over. So, yeah, definitely. Definitely a spectrum. Here's what I'm really curious about as, because this is really setting some pillars to not only what you are capable of and what we've worked on and things like vets and tech. Why is it that people are so excited at the idea of hiring veterans within their organizations?

0:35:14 - (Dave Burlin): Because of their leadership. And then also, why do you think some people look at it the wrong way?

0:35:21 - (Jason LeDuc): I think people get excited. So I haven't seen this survey come out in a while, but traditionally, as long as I've been involved with the military, they do a survey on public institutions in America. And the military is by far the most trusted public institution in America because people understand what goes into basic training. They understand that people are out there putting their lives in line, that they are good teammates, are they show initiative when they need to show initiative. They show discipline and focus when they need to show discipline and focus. The military is really great at doing all of that.

0:35:52 - (Jason LeDuc): So they see the uniforms and they see this is a really great person and they're a hero. Right? A lot of people view military focus as American heroes. I'd love to have some heroes working for me. And that comes with heroics. But when you bring a hero in, you bring a hero in. When you bring a military person in and the team's not gelling together, the team can't count on each other. You can bet that military person is gonna start taking steps to get that team to count on each other.

0:36:25 - (Dave Burlin): Right?

0:36:28 - (Jason LeDuc): Like, one of my biggest pet peeves is being on time. Right? And there are times to be on time, and there are times that it's okay to be a few minutes late, and then there. There are times it's never okay to be, like, four hours late. Right? Yeah. That's why I'm not dating that girl anymore.

0:36:41 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. Weddings. You should never be four hours late to a wedding to your own Asian time.

0:36:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): O. I've been trained on Asian sign this whole time. I don't know. Is there something else you wanna unpack, Jason?

0:36:56 - (Jason LeDuc): I don't know. Welcome to Wedding Chat.

0:36:59 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, my bad, bad. I know I said I was gonna stop.

0:37:04 - (Jason LeDuc): Psa. Dave will do at least one more PSA before the end of the podcast.

0:37:08 - (Tawni Nguyen): At least he's not crying today.

0:37:09 - (Jason LeDuc): No. What you're bringing in, when you bring in a veteran, you are bringing in someone who will see deficiencies and will take the initiative to change them. Right? And if you tell them this is the box you live in, don't make change change on this, they will come to you before they do that. But if they see the team'not coming in on time and being on time is important, Right. Most of us work in jobs where it'like you're five minutes late, it's okay, Right? But some folks work in jobs where I'm handing a thing to you, and if you're not there to catch it, the whole thing falls apart.

0:37:40 - (Dave Burlin): Right?

0:37:41 - (Jason LeDuc): So veterans will come in and they will not because they wanna make jobs like the military, because they understand the importance of teamwork. They understand the importance of being with each other. They understand the import of attention to detail. They understand the importance of meeting the big picture. Right. One of the biggest things a veteran will ask when they come into a company to work is, well, I thought we were doing that.

0:38:04 - (Jason LeDuc): Why do we do this? Cause it doesn't help that. Right. And so I think a lot of employers aren't really prepared when they get a veteran in that these the things that come with it. And they are, in my opinion. I mean, I'm biased as a veteran, but these are net positive things. But a lot of corporate leaders, a lot of civilian leaders aren't ready for the pure motivations that come behind what to them looks like insubordinate behavior.

0:38:29 - (Dave Burlin): You nailed it.

0:38:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): Love that.

0:38:31 - (Dave Burlin): Like Copy it, paste it, repurpose that 400 times, you nailed it. They don't, like you get excited about the heroics, but they don't understand that it comes with conditioning. And like a lot of times when it's like if we see something, we say something, because we do come from. Not all veterans come from combat, not all veterans have been. But most of us do come from a condition, a conditioned atmosphere where lives are at stake.

0:39:02 - (Dave Burlin): At the end of thedy, even the paperwork guy back to the office can be conditioned to believe that the forms that he fills out will result in lives. Lives are at stake. So there is a lot at stake. And a lot of times it's like, wait, like you said, what? Why does the missions say this? Why are we doing this if it doesn't align? And that can be viewed as conflict. And conflict in the workplace, especially in the corporate workplace, opens up a whole can of worms and challenges and all stuff.

0:39:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): Something on the humanities side with conflicts and being structured. And you call it conditionings, we just call it. I call it structure. Right. Like just having a certain set of orders so that you follow, so that we can communicate clearly. But I think on the personal side, sometimes a lot of those structures you can easily identify those people that has either been through combat or through military training is that there's a certain set of chaos that they're addicted to. So they act, I wouldn't say with urgency, but sometimes on impulse because there's a certain mechanism in like the nervous system and how they're able to regulate emotions that does not allow them to connect with other people on a one on one setting.

0:40:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): So yes, I think they do make great leaders in terms of structural support. But sometimes it kind of bleeds into the ability to just have emotional intelligence, to carry a conversation, to lead with compassion, with empathy. Not that they're soft. I think having vulnerability and having the ability to communicate and regulate your own emotions speaks volume to you being a good leader. Because I think that's the two boxes that I can kind of see. And I've worked with business owners that are heavily involved in their businesses, both in the entrepreneur space and both in the community.

0:40:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): And that's literally like, it's hard to find someone that's integrated and whole with the soft side, the vulnerability side, and then the structure of the execution side. Can you speak to that?

0:41:10 - (Jason LeDuc): No, I agree. I think that is a real challenge for veterans and that is something that is not on the employer, that they're getting something they didn't sign up for. I know when you came in and when you came out, mental health was not something we talked about. If you had to get referred to mental health, you were on your way out the door. I think it's better now. But I left in 2015 and it was still, if we're talking about mental health, you're on your way out the door.

0:41:35 - (Jason LeDuc): So hopefully it's better now. But we don't give people a lot of tools for dealing with emotional intelligence in the military. And now the best leaders I had were the ones who were emotionally intelligent. Whether they came by that naturally, whether that was part of their upbringing, whether it was s just something they acquired, they were the best ones. They were by far the best leaders. Whoew how to balance that.

0:42:00 - (Jason LeDuc): Well, that is difficult for us coming out. One of the other challenges there is when you're in a rifle platoon, everybody knows the big picture. Everybody knows how to take apart their rifle. Everybody know how to put together their right. Like in the military, when you are part of that cohesive a team, whether it's a rifleman platoon, whether it's a flight test squadron in the Air force, we all know what each other are doing because we've all been trained the same way, we've all been taught the same way.

0:42:29 - (Jason LeDuc): We all are doing the same job every day. And so we have that innate communication. Doing that's something I think you are right. I think veterans need to understand when. When I take the uniform off and I get outside the military environment and now I'm working for that events company or a tech company or whatever it is, people don't know my intentions and don't know. They don't know my purpose just from my actions. Just by observing my actions and me interact, you and that's something that we could probably do better as veterans coming out is to talk with each other about. Make sure you're communicating what you're really doing here. Right.

0:43:12 - (Jason LeDuc): I'm gonna move this. I'm just gonna walk over here and move this over here. Rightuse. If we're in a military unit and I see something's gonna fall over you, I'm gonna get. I'm gonna walk over. I'm gonna move it over there. I'm gonna move your light. Right. Well, now the light's not where I want it to be. Yeah. But it's also not falling on you right now. Right. So really bad example came up with on the fly, but that's something we can do. Say, hey, I'm gonna. I'm doing this because.

0:43:37 - (Jason LeDuc): Right. I'M doing this because I'm trying to help you. The other thing we can often do is we often come in and start helping and we don't often ask, how can I help?

0:43:46 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:43:49 - (Jason LeDuc): We guilty, guilty, guilty. Same. We see a problem, we see a solution, and we're so conditioned. Either see something, say something, or see something, go fix it. Right? Don't sit on that like, if you see a problem, go fix it. That we just start doing stuff. And if we're new or we're not paying attention to the big picture because we should be too, as veterans, we may be breaking something apart of the big picture by doing something tactically that we are looking, we are responding.

0:44:25 - (Jason LeDuc): I don't know if I'd use the word impulse, but we were seeing a problem, we're solving a problem, right? And if we don't have that sense of how things fit into the big picture, we may be creating a bigger problem.

0:44:34 - (Dave Burlin): Well, and that'it's interesting because you. So that's the challenge that we see across corporate, right, Is there's people that say, we want heroes, but they may not be prepared for what that understands. Like when it comes to you and the clients that you work with and the organizations that you generally can be very helpful. Would it make more sense or I guess if you can wave the magic wand, would you think that companies that already have some sort of an existing veteran inclusion program or understanding of what that is would be a better fit for kind of the work in consulting that you do, or would it be more the companies that, that I've used this poll before, where, in a room full of 100 business owners. Hey, who hires veterans? Of course they raise, they raise their hands. No one's going to say we do not hire veterans, right?

0:45:25 - (Dave Burlin): But do people actually have a plan in a program for what that means? So would it be more valuable for organizations that know the power and they've learned something from this that would be more open to starting some sort of a veteran leadership or inclusion program within their organization?

0:45:42 - (Jason LeDuc): I think there are two answers to that question. If you have a veteran inclusion program, a really well defined veteran inclusion program, and you're preparing these veterans for what they're gonna come into, that's great, but that's half the equation, right? Prepare the non veterans for what's coming in as well, right? And this is the equivalent of the folding of the socks, right? What is everybody getting themselves into? Are we, what are we all getting ready to do? What are the big pictures?

0:46:11 - (Jason LeDuc): How do we all work together? As a team. Right. And that will evolve over time. So for companies that don't have any kind of veteran inclusion program, I think that's great to have, but you also be. Would be well served by doing the. What's the equivalent of how we fold our socks? Yeah, right.

0:46:28 - (Dave Burlin): Get to that core. Get to that core standard. Whether. And it's not folding socks. It could be.

0:46:34 - (Jason LeDuc): Yeah, it could be whatever.

0:46:35 - (Dave Burlin): Whatever the SOP or the process.

0:46:37 - (Jason LeDuc): Running power cables, right? Yeah, right. We always run power cables so that they're not in main walkways. Like you and I run power cables all the time where we go. Well, this isn't our favorite thing to do, but it's the only thing we can do, right?

0:46:46 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, but it's one of those things where you do everything sounds so funny. And power cable people know this. Right. You either loop them, or a lot of people that come and try to help will start to wind it around their elbow. And it. Something like that causes a kink in the cords, and over time, it will create a trip hazard. I know. It sounds so minimal.

0:47:08 - (Tawni Nguyen): Velcro tapes are my favorite.

0:47:09 - (Dave Burlin): There you go.

0:47:10 - (Tawni Nguyen): Color codes. Depending on which wire.

0:47:12 - (Jason LeDuc): Right. You might get a short in the cable.

0:47:14 - (Dave Burlin): Exactly.

0:47:15 - (Jason LeDuc): And that's an expense, but who cares? Cables aren't that expensive. You replace cables for wear and tear anyway. But more importantly, when you get into that situation where you've been asked to do some kind of unique setup and you really need that power cable now, maybe you don't have that power cable because it's shorted out. Right.

0:47:31 - (Dave Burlin): Exactly. Now, with that being said, that's a great example, but to the point of your work, because now that. I really hope there's people that are hearing this that now. I never looked at it that way. Right. That's always. Oh, open to. You've been spending a lot of time over the last year because we work together in a lot of circles and a lot of projects, like the book club mastermindsd, stuff that we do.

0:47:56 - (Dave Burlin): Like, you've been working on a course, and you've been working on a way to communicate different aspects of that. So tell us a little bit about the course and what are the real roots of what led you to do that specifically? And like, who's it for? Who's it not for? Like, what does that really look like?

0:48:14 - (Jason LeDuc): Yeah. So we have a digital course. It's called the be the boss you always wish you had program. It's 16 modules. You get a module a week. There's short videos there. I try to keep in between five and 10 minutes. I think this is one that might be 12 or 13 minutes. But this is for anyone who is a manager, anyone who wants to be a manager. This is even kind of a re caging on the fundamentals for folks who have been managers or leaders for a long time.

0:48:43 - (Jason LeDuc): And it really is the how do we fold our socks of things? And not just the how do we fold our socks. The why do we. Why do we have a way we fold our socks? Right. The very first module we talk about what it means to be a leader. Y that's where we start. We don't start with communication skills. We don't start with negotiation skills. We don't start with delegating. The whole first four modules are very much in the vein of what does it mean to be a leader?

0:49:11 - (Jason LeDuc): Why were we chosen as leaders? How did we become leaders? Why is all of that important? Once we have that internalized, then we can start talking about. Let's talk about how you'd use some negotiation skills to achieve the why you became a leader. The how you became a leader. The what does it mean to be a leader? So it's. Yeah, we talk about those things. What does it mean to be a leader? Why were you chosen to be a leader? Right.

0:49:41 - (Jason LeDuc): Many people were chose to be a leader. Cause the last guy or girl left and they'd been there the next longest. Right. But I don't want you to think of yourself that even if that's why you were chosen in the military, in an ideal situation, we choose leaders. When you get a promotion order to the military, when you get promoted to the next rank, you get an order. And as an officer, it's signed by the President of the United States.

0:50:04 - (Jason LeDuc): I mean, not like without auto pen ye.

0:50:06 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, yeah.

0:50:07 - (Jason LeDuc): But that's where your authority comes from. From the Constitution through the President of the United States, chain of command, et cetera. But the President of the United States has the authority to appoint officers in the military. Right. That's just a fun constitutional fact. Welcome to Constitution Chat.

0:50:23 - (Dave Burlin): Don't tell the President that he has that authority right now.

0:50:26 - (Jason LeDuc): I think he knows. I think he knows.

0:50:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's a different tangent that we don't want you to go down right now.

0:50:34 - (Jason LeDuc): That's a different podcast.

0:50:37 - (Tawni Nguyen): Dave's been looking for ways to get canceled, man.

0:50:39 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, clearly.

0:50:41 - (Jason LeDuc): Where was I? Oh, yes, Promotion order. So in your promotion order, and this is. It's kind of an overlooked thing, but as I looked back on it, I found this to be really important. Know when you get promoted you take the oath of office and all that. You do a ceremony and they read the promotion order. And in the promotion order it says, jason Leduc, having having been found by the president of the United States to have special trust and confidence, is now appointed to a higher grade because of the capacity to. I'm butchering it. But because you have a capacity to serve in a higher grade, because we have special trust and confidence in you. And we talk about what it means to be a leader, whether you were promoted to be the leader because the last guy or girl was gone and you were the one who's next there the longest, they still have special trust and confidence in you to do the job.

0:51:31 - (Jason LeDuc): They still see that you can do more than what you were doing. And that's really kind of the core of what we're talking about in the course. We're trying to get people to think about what do I do now? What more can I do? And how can I prepare myself to serve in a higher capacity? And you start that with yourself. And then when you've got people on your team, how am I preparing them to serve in a higher capacity as well?

0:52:00 - (Jason LeDuc): How am I developing special trust and confidence with them? So when I have to go to jury duty for four weeks and gets the question on a murder trial, how do I know that they're all ready to handle that? And so we do that by building trust and confidence in each other. And we do that by preparing people to serve in a higher capacity than they're serving in now. And that's what the whole course is about.

0:52:25 - (Jason LeDuc): All 16 modules are really about that. The first four are really focused on those thought pieces. And then we get into all the nuts and bolt skills that help you do that.

0:52:35 - (Tawni Nguyen): I love that. Because every entrepreneur that started their own business is because they probably once had a boss that they can't stand or never want to become, like ever again.

0:52:45 - (Jason LeDuc): All three of us are entrepreneurs. We know what it's like to get caught up in the day to day. We know what it's like to get caught up and we got toa deliver this today. We're behind got, we gotta go get that new sale, that new contract or whatever it is. And when you are so caught up on the day to day, it's really easy to forget how am I developing my team. And so that's why this course is so important to me is even for entrepreneurs, even if you're not working in corporate, this is a great course because it starts getting. You internalize this thinking of how Am I preparing myself to serve in a higher capacity?

0:53:19 - (Jason LeDuc): How am I building trust and confidence with people? How am I preparing people to serve in a higher capacity? The best time to start developing your leadership as an entrepreneur is when it's just you before you make that first hire. So you can have these conversations. Whether it's a veteran or not, you can have these conversations with that person when you first sit them down and say, let's talk about hiring you.

0:53:41 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, yeah. No, I love what you brought up about how you manage your, your time and energy is how I look at the calendar. So something I've been working on is just looking at how am I spending it. Is it effective? Because I am responsible for my partner and the rest of my team and I just can't be fixated on my day to day because it. That means that anytime I'm bleeding attention, I take focus away from building something that I've already previously committed to.

0:54:08 - (Tawni Nguyen): You know, I think as entrepreneurs, I think personally, people feel that they're going around reacting to life and adding more and more and more because they feel like they're more valuable. But I think for me, in the last month and a half, six weeks, I've been taking stuff off of my plate so that I can contribute even like on a higher capacity to the people that matters most of me, which is the people that I've committed to, which is my partners know.

0:54:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): So how are you going to lead a team if you're like, you know.

0:54:37 - (Jason LeDuc): Strip it down, flattered, Strip it down, Focus on the mission, focus on how you're setting the people up for success to achieve the mission. If you do that, you actually will have some time in your day to go spend some time with your family, to go take your family on that vacation to go get a little downtime for yourself to read that book or to meditate or whatever. But if you're always chasing and you're not thinking about how you're building that team around you, you're always gonna be chasing.

0:55:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): The think tank on the weekends is where clarity and focus comes in.

0:55:08 - (Dave Burlin): Well, that rolls into kind of the challenges that we have in the community and the ecosystem is that we have a lot of different people that see different end goals and are all working towards the different variations that they see. Sometimes there isn't that united vision or front. And I will say this because I had this conversation with somebody the other day. It's like when you talk about entrepreneurs as leaders also, there's two.

0:55:39 - (Dave Burlin): You can go into the vocabulary of the different Stages of an entrepreneur. Some people don't realize you have solopreneneur, entrepreneur, CEO, business owner. And like a lot of times people, it happens. I did it when I first started my first LLC. You go get a business card that says CEO, and it's like real CEOs. A true CEO under a certain matrix is somebody that has not just made the first critical hire, they've made three or four critical hires that now independently hire their own teams.

0:56:11 - (Dave Burlin): So leadership from that level is very different than leadership at a solopreneur level. Yes, they are leading themselves, but, like, it does change as they get. I watch a lot of. I'm gonna be very specific when I say this. Solopreneurs who read all of these leadership books, and they have no people on their team, nor will they have anyone on their team. And they wonder why they're not growing their business. Because. Because they're reading, it's like they don't have a business. Exactly.

0:56:41 - (Tawni Nguyen): They have different jobs that does not pay that.

0:56:44 - (Jason LeDuc): I think that's the more fundamental problem.

0:56:46 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, exactly.

0:56:47 - (Jason LeDuc): Cause I don't wanna discourage anyone from. From reading leadership books or taking an online leadership course.

0:56:53 - (Dave Burlin): Exactly.

0:56:54 - (Jason LeDuc): I don't discourage anyone from that. But apply the principles in the way that makes sense.

0:56:59 - (Dave Burlin): Exactly. Yep.

0:57:00 - (Jason LeDuc): And why did you become an entrepreneur? Let's change the question a little bit from why did you? What does it mean to be a leader? To what does it mean to be an entrepreneur? Right. I'm serving the public in some way. Yes. I'm getting money, but I'm serving the public in some way. And whatever it is you do to serve the public, whether you're thinking of it as solving a problem or providing a solution, however you think of that, those are both great ways to think about it. I solve a problem for people, I provide a solution to solve that problem.

0:57:29 - (Jason LeDuc): That's your strategy. And if you want to think and act like a CEO, then everything you do, we're back to internal leadership. Right. We're back to leading ourselves. Everything you do when it comes to the business needs to serve that purpose, achieve that mission of I solve this problem for people with this solution. Absolute. And if you are doing stuff that doesn't do that, one of my big pet peeves is the entrepreneur who talks about hustling and grinding so hard because they are spending two or three hours every night adjusting the margins and adjusting the colors on their logo. Right now you need a logo.

0:58:14 - (Jason LeDuc): I'm not saying you don't need a logo. I'm not saying you don't need marketing. I'm not saying you don't need branding. You need all that as an entrepreneur. But is adjusting the colors on this over and over again for hours, Is that serving the big picture strategy of I solve this problem with the solution for your business? Maybe. Maybe that color on that logo is really important. I'm not gonna judge that. But that's the question I have for you, right?

0:58:40 - (Jason LeDuc): The events I attend, am I meeting my target audience? Am I actually able to ask a hundred people if this is a solution? They'd be interested. Do they have this problem and is this a solution they'd be interested in? Right? Am I attending events where I am able to do that, or are I attending events where I'm not even meeting my target market? Right.

0:59:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): That I call creative avoidance and creative distraction. Because I think people live in that box for so long that they get familiarized with keeping busy just to keep busy. And they're chasing their tail. They're going in circles, and it's not really going anywhere.

0:59:18 - (Jason LeDuc): You know, it's the dark side of hustle. It's hustle porn, right? I post Instagram pictures. I'm gonna post Instagram pictures from an event later today. So don't judge me.

0:59:26 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, I'm judging you right now.

0:59:28 - (Dave Burlin): I'mnn text ro do what I say, not what I do.

0:59:30 - (Jason LeDuc): But I'm very careful about the events I go to.

0:59:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): We talked about this.

0:59:34 - (Jason LeDuc): But that's hustle porn, right? Event. I go to four networking events a day, and I post pictures at me meeting people from all of them. Well, did you get any feedback on your solution? Are any of these people your target market? Are any of them good, strategic partners who can give them real good referrals to you? If the answer to those is yes, great. But if the answer that is no, that may be an event you want to scratch off your calendar in the future.

0:59:59 - (Dave Burlin): All these videos are going through my head because I'm like, oh, we could create this video, which, like, you're sitting there going through the whole problem solution matrix with a potential client. And they're like, absolutely, this is great. Here's my credit card. And you're like, oh, did you know I have a logo? It'or? If the thing was like. Or the thing is like, hey, I'm ready to give you my credit card. I just need to go to your website and make sure you have a log go first.

1:00:24 - (Dave Burlin): And it's like, that never happens. Well, but some people stay really focused on that. I can't start and tell my Websites or whatever. And it's like it doesn't definitely.

1:00:34 - (Tawni Nguyen): Money is a byproduct of the value you're able to create. That's it in five words. And most people don't have a value. They have a speech around the things that they might be able to do to see if there's a test market. I'm like, you shouldn't be out beta testing yourself and just selling a bunch of stuff you don't have the value to offer. So I think that's where most people get stuck when you, they feel frustrated and they're like, well, I'm not getting any.

1:01:01 - (Jason LeDuc): That's a perfect example. I can't take your money because I haven't built the website because I haven't decided on my logo yet.

1:01:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): I haven't sat down and put in the.

1:01:11 - (Jason LeDuc): And I haven't sat down and got signed up for. And it's easier than ever to get signed up for a payment process, right? I mean you can even do itice to any entrepreneur right out there right now. If someone says to you, I want to give you my credit card right now, show them your cash app.

1:01:31 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, right.

1:01:33 - (Jason LeDuc): If you don't have a cash app, go get whatever your payment method of choice is. If someone wants to give you money to do something, let them. And unless you have a real moral problem with it or you don't think you're going to be able to do it, do it right. I mean, this is a mistake I made very early on in my business of that's not really what I do. And I learned very quickly if people are willing to pay you for something, that's kind of what you do, right. This may be a new revenue stream for you.

1:02:09 - (Jason LeDuc): Don't get real moral and idealistic about your business, right? If you're helping people solve the problem you wanna help them solve and they just are asking you to do it in a different way. We're still solving the problem, right?

1:02:22 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, it boils down to that. Are you focused on the solution, which is the thing that you have, or are you focused on the problem, which is what people need? And it's like a lot of times people don't go back to that. It's like you can't have both. But if you're only focused on the solution, well, that's not ready yet or whatever. It'll hold people back. And it's like, well, I'm ready to pay you right now. You've already done this thing.

1:02:45 - (Dave Burlin): It's kinda what you do and you're.

1:02:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like, yeah, but, but there are some entrepreneurs that I love the jumping out of the plane method. Like build parachute on the way down. Yeah, fantastic. Unless you actually can't execute on the thing that you say you'renna do. Yeah, this is my mistake. Cost of learning. Hiring people that says they can do all the things that's supposed to fix my pain. And then when it comes down to it, I pay them.

1:03:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): And that's, you know.

1:03:10 - (Jason LeDuc): Yep.

1:03:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm paying for their tuition to figure out how to build the business as they go.

1:03:15 - (Jason LeDuc): What's the saying? Chargeaut, Charge it to the game. Swipe the card, charge it to the game.

1:03:18 - (Tawni Nguyen): Cause I've been on that end of the person paying these people too. And I'm like, you can't even do the thing you offered me.

1:03:25 - (Jason LeDuc): Well, and there are solutions to everything. Right. If someone's offering you money to do something you're not sure you can do, negotiate with them, I say, look, I'll take half now. Cause I need some money to get started. You don't have to pay me the second half until I've got it done to the satisfaction degree that we both said we would get it done. Right. And if I don't get it done, I'll give your money back. Right.

1:03:54 - (Jason LeDuc): There's all ways to handle this stuff. Right. But yeah, I mean there are a lot of folks out there who will just say yes to everything as well. Like you don't wanna be the person who says yes to everything with no idea how you're gonna do it and then say, well, I put in 70 hours on this, I'm keeping your money anyway, even though I didn't deliver anything.

1:04:10 - (Tawni Nguyen): And then burn your own reputation to the ground.

1:04:12 - (Jason LeDuc): And that's again, charge it to the game. Right. How much is your reputation worth to youah?

1:04:17 - (Dave Burlin): Well, this is great insight. Especially Ono, yet another incredible character in the whole valley of Las Vegas and the changes in evolutions that are happening right now. So great. Look under the hood because of all that you're working, you're always actively growing, building. And a lot of us are doing that together. Plugged into the ecosystem. Vets in tech with Tech Alley with Global Entrepreneurship Week. All of the things that are helping move this community forward so as it comes to that part of what we're talking about. And this is going to create a lot more series and opportunities for people to come back. But what do you see as the biggest challenge now in the ecosystem of Las Vegas as we continue to grow so now into a new year into a new administration, just not politically, but more like locally with new mayor and thing like that.

1:05:20 - (Dave Burlin): What challenges do you see in the near future and then what do you see as the big opportunities as well?

1:05:25 - (Jason LeDuc): I think the biggest challenge I see, and it's the same challenge that I've seen since I moved back here. When I was here the first time I was in the Air Force and mostly focused on that opened my aperture much more since I've gotten here in 2015 to be more tuned into the community here. The biggest challenge we've got is we all do kind of have the same goal, right? Especially the entrepreneur community. We want more entrepreneurs, we want more startups, we want more businesses, we want more of that. And there's a lot of players in the game who want that. We all kind of have the same goal.

1:05:56 - (Jason LeDuc): The challenge is we have a lot of folks who are all doing their own thing and it's hard to do your own thing. I'm not saying it's not hard and you shouldn't be focused on it, but remember the movie School ofack? In the movie School ofaqk, the main character kid is like noodling around on a guitar and he's messing around with one of the other kids, They've got a sheet of paper and Jack Black comes over and he says, what are you guys doing?

1:06:25 - (Jason LeDuc): And he's like, nothing. And he's says, no, you're doing something. What are you doing? And he says, oh, we'just we're playing this dumb song I wrote. And Jack Black grabs a sheet of paper, he says, you wrote a song? I was like, yeah. Looks at, he says, we got toa play this. The kid says, you want to play my song? And Jack Black says, the kid, we're in a band. That's what we do. We play each other's songs.

1:06:52 - (Jason LeDuc): And that's what we need to do if we want this community to be successful, is we need to show up to each other's events, we need to play each other's songs. There's plenty of room to compete, right? We can compete with each other if we're in the same space, the same industry, but there's plenty, also plenty of room for us to play each other's songs. And especially for the institutional folks who are focused on their own institution and what they're gonna get out of a new ecosystem in this city, that's really where it's important, is we show up to each other's events, we support each other, we play each other's songs, and that's what I think the biggest challengees and that's what I'd like to see. And we're starting to see some of that with things like Tech Alley. Right. We're starting to see people come around centrally around one thing and build relationships and get to know each other and start to say, how can I help?

1:07:41 - (Jason LeDuc): Instead of saying, that's competitor.

1:07:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Boom. Is that traumatizing.

1:07:53 - (Jason LeDuc): School of Rock?

1:07:56 - (Dave Burlin): No, you're 100% right. And we have made leaps and bounds in the last post. Covid, I think has really post pandemic, whatever you call it, it has all really changed what people are now open to. And change does take time. Like, I have to remind myself that often. You have to remind me of that often.

1:08:19 - (Jason LeDuc): And to be fair, you have to.

1:08:20 - (Dave Burlin): Remind me of that ofteneah.

1:08:23 - (Jason LeDuc): And you have to remind me of that ofteneah.

1:08:25 - (Dave Burlin): Right.

1:08:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I do. Viat text.

1:08:27 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. Te.

1:08:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): Through a meme.

1:08:28 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, through meme. Yeah. It's my love language. And now I think we do have some great things on the horizon. I do see the responsibility for us as veterans to lead those things and lead those in a very. In a way that is conducive to the way people need to be led. Like, we have to lead with a velvet hammer, not an iron fist.

1:08:52 - (Jason LeDuc): We have to set the example.

1:08:53 - (Dave Burlin): Exactly.

1:08:56 - (Jason LeDuc): Everything I just said about playing each other's songs would mean nothing. If I didn't show up to events.

1:09:01 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

1:09:01 - (Jason LeDuc): If I didn't show up for people, if I didn't say, how can I support you? How can I what? Or say, like, we met a couple months ago and I immediately said, we're doing this thing, this angel investing group. You sound like a person who should be at this. Right. I couldn't let you find that on your own. Right.

1:09:18 - (Tawni Nguyen): And then I show up.

1:09:20 - (Jason LeDuc): We have to set the example. If we talk about it, but don't do it, it's not going to happen.

1:09:25 - (Dave Burlin): As we allude to some of those things, which we'll dive deeper in on the next segment. We have the opportunity of Freedom Week coming up for Global Entrepreneurship Week coming up for programs and projects with vets and tech, we have some stuff that we didn't really dive into. You. We've got some great leaders that ``nna host workshops and things out here from other communities where they've reached out to us to help lead those initiatives.

1:09:52 - (Dave Burlin): So it's all coming, it's all moving forward. But in the meantime, we'll continue to show up to other people's events, play Other people's songs. And you should too.

1:10:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's gonna be like the new buzz phase of today. Playing each other's song.

1:10:08 - (Jason LeDuc): God, finally. I've been trying this for like three years.

1:10:10 - (Dave Burlin): My God, I've heard you say. And it just stuck.

1:10:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): This is what I told him. Like sometimes when you talk about leadership and he's so serious and the whole vets thing, and then once you lighten up, I'm like, I can get jigg with this guy. And that's about human connection, you know.

1:10:27 - (Jason LeDuc): That'S why I showed up drunk.

1:10:28 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, that's right.

1:10:31 - (Jason LeDuc): Not really.

1:10:32 - (Dave Burlin): Not really.

1:10:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): Let me smell your breath.

1:10:34 - (Dave Burlin): What's good?

1:10:34 - (Tawni Nguyen): Blow into this.

1:10:35 - (Dave Burlin): Right? So where can people find you? Where can people. Where can people get connected and start that conversation to you? Learn more about what you're doing, learn about your podcast, all of those things. Where do people go?

1:10:52 - (Jason LeDuc): Okay. LeDucleade. Leadership.com is the website. You can kind of get to everything from there. Leduc leadership on all the social medias, I should say Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. I still have a TikTok. I haven't posted much on it lately, but those are the social medias. I primarily spend time on Meerkat, Meerkat Clubhouse.

1:11:20 - (Dave Burlin): Meerkat Clubhouse.

1:11:21 - (Jason LeDuc): I was on meerkat a lot in the beginning. I was not expecting that diversion.

1:11:28 - (Dave Burlin): Me neither.

1:11:29 - (Jason LeDuc): And check out the leaders Mindset podcast. Basically look for J. Jason Led Duke Leadership Consultants on YouTube and you'll find that we do an interview every week and I'm trying to get to where I do a short educational video on what we call in the military we have this term called tactics, techniques and procedures. And so it's short little mostly technique kind of stuff. And you'll have to watch the video about tactics, techniques and procedures if you wanna know the difference.

1:11:55 - (Jason LeDuc): But mostly techniques. But we'll get into some tactics. We'll get into some procedures as well. I like people to figure out their owner procedures though. So we do that. And then one of the things I'm most proud of is the live streaming from Tech Alley. We have really told a lot of stories of folks at Tech Alley who we probably a would not have known about and be would not have gotten to tell their stories in a podcast kind of format without being there at Tech Alley every month doing that podcast.

1:12:26 - (Jason LeDuc): I'm really proud of that that you are part of as well. Quite frequently. I'm really proud of what that if I'm being 100% Hon is that started as me. I want to get more opportunities to Create content. And it has grown into an incredible opportunity to tell the story of the Las Vegas entrepreneur ecosystem.

1:12:49 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. And it's not just exclusive or it's not just too open to people that are at Tech Alley that day. It's like we had people last month, month that actually came just to talk about other events that they have going on in the community. So we're very inclusive. We want to make sure that people know that they can get that out. And that's again, part of our responsibility as ecosystem builders, which is definitely important.

1:13:16 - (Jason LeDuc): We have to set the example right. If you see something is missing and you have the ability and the authority to go do it, go do it.

1:13:26 - (Dave Burlin): See something, say something.

1:13:29 - (Tawni Nguyen): What's the word? You have our blessing.

1:13:31 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, you have our blessing.

1:13:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): I don t know why this wedding.

1:13:33 - (Jason LeDuc): Thinge, this is all your faultone tells you. If anyone tells you not to do it, just tell them we said it's okay.

1:13:39 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you need permission, you have our permission slip.

1:13:42 - (Tawni Nguyen): Make have your Lawyers talk to JC personallyeah.

1:13:45 - (Jason LeDuc): Make this a YouTube short people can put on their phones.

1:13:47 - (Dave Burlin): And there it is.

1:13:48 - (Jason LeDuc): We said it's okayeah.

1:13:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): It's okay. You have permission. Well, guys, that's it for us today. Thank you for tuning in. Please slide into our DMs, Davei or Jason's. You find us all over social media. If there's any way we can help you with your business or in life, meet some friends to hang out with what events we're connected to, please feel free. Dave, any last famous last word beside Cotton Eye Joke? I could see it on the tip of your mind, man.

1:14:10 - (Dave Burlin): Right There it is. Cotton ey Joke.

1:14:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): Tune in to the next time for Dave Berlin's intervention. And we're out.

1:14:20 - (Dave Burlin): The idea of pursue Vegas was to really highlight the local people that really make Vegas Vegas.

1:14:26 - (Tawni Nguyen): I love that aspect of how these visionaries are actually bringing people together.

1:14:31 - (Dave Burlin): When we hit record, our responsibility is to connect the people of our city so we can show the world who we really are.