Joe Byerly

The Courage to Face Where You Are

By Joe Byerly

For the second year in a row, I’ve traveled to Dallas for the Military Appreciation Bowl in an effort to talk to young men and women about the opportunities for serving in our Nation’s military. The multi-day event includes championship games and brings together young high school athletes from all over the country for a National Combine. At the Combine, over 1500 kids are evaluated by professional and collegiate-level coaches on their speed, strength, technique, and potential, and then given a grade.

Regardless of the story they believe about themselves, whether that’s the one that says they are future All-Americans, future Heisman trophy winners, future professional athletes in the NFL, they will get a score card on their abilities. 

For some this will reinforce the story. 

For others, it will shatter it. 

Once they get the feedback, it’s up to them what they do with it. The choice is theirs.  

I admire these kids. It can be scary confronting reality. 

As the Military Appreciation Bowl Director Rich McGuinness told me this weekend, “It takes courage to face where you are.”

That’s not only true for the kids participating in the combine, it’s true for all of us. 

Would You Do it in Secret?

By Joe Byerly

When I look back on a career’s worth of decisions, I can trace most of my motives to three sources: necessity, passion, and ego.

The first is straightforward. I did a lot of things because they were required of me. I moved across the country. I deployed to the Middle East. I checked the barracks on a Saturday night. Those were the costs of the job.

I also did a lot of things out of passion. I did them for the sake of doing them. I woke up early to read, write, and reflect. I fought for assignments I thought I would enjoy, even if there was a professional risk in doing so. I leaned into work that felt meaningful, even when it was hard.

The third motive, ego, was harder to spot. It had a way of hiding behind necessity and passion. Like a gold miner, I had to shake the sifter to see what was really left in the pan.

My ego was often drawn to the idea of the job, the status and respect that came with it. I enjoyed telling people what I was about to do more than actually doing the work itself.

Other times, my ego was drawn to the idea of myself, and I avoided roles I dismissed as “beneath me,” not because they lacked value, but because they didn’t fit the image I wanted to protect.

Eventually I learned that necessity and passion can carry me through bad seasons, through fumbling starts, setbacks, and dead ends. Even when the outcome isn’t what I hoped for, I can live with it if I did my duty or it fed something I genuinely cared about.

Ego decisions are different.

How to Make a Great Cup of Coffee with Carl Churchill

Alpha Coffee co-founder and retired Army lieutenant colonel Carl Churchill joins Joe for a candid conversation on leadership, resilience, and what it really takes to build something that lasts after the uniform comes off.

After serving more than two decades in the Army, Carl found himself facing an unexpected second career shaped not by careful planning, but by crisis. In the wake of the Great Recession, he and his wife Lori cashed out their savings and took an all-in leap to build Alpha Coffee from their basement—navigating years of uncertainty, near-misses, and hard-earned lessons before the business finally found its footing. Drawing on his military background, Stoic philosophy, and a refusal to quit, Carl shares how discipline, culture, and clarity of purpose carried him through nearly a decade of struggle.

In this conversation, Joe and Carl explore what leadership looks like when there’s no rank to hide behind: how military lessons translate into entrepreneurship, why culture matters more than strategy, and how leaders must adapt their style as contexts and generations change. Along the way, they reflect on stress, perspective, boundaries, and the quiet confidence that comes from having faced truly hard things before.

In this episode, Joe and Carl also explore:

  • Tips for making great coffee
  • Why Carl chose to walk away from promotion to keep leading people, not staffs
  • What “burning the boats” looks like when your family and future are on the line
  • How military hardship inoculates leaders against stress and uncertainty
  • Why culture—not strategy—is the true differentiator between great and failing teams
  • Leading younger generations without abandoning standards or expectations
  • The challenge of setting boundaries when you genuinely love your work

Whether you’re navigating life after military service, building something from scratch, or leading people through uncertainty, this episode offers a grounded reminder that the habits forged in discipline, humility, and persistence still matter—long after the mission changes.

Four Reasons to Write a Book Review

by Caleb Miller 

Have you ever met someone with a goal to write a certain number of words a week? How much quality content are they actually producing? 

Have you ever met anyone with a goal to read a certain number of pages a day or books a year? How much of what they read are they actually retaining? 

Some people find this method successful, but whenever I have set goals like these, they have led to frustration. More often than not, I’ve felt doomed to keep revising drafts and revisiting my notes, with very little to show for my efforts, because I could not commit the book’s themes to memory. That was until I began writing my own book reviews.

One day, after noticing that many of my favorite authors developed a habit of reviewing books (one example is Tom Ricks), I started attempting my own book reviews. I soon learned that they can be a sort of bridge between reading and writing, and improved both for me. 

The Need to Lead (Without Ego) with Dave Berke

Retired Marine Corps fighter pilot, Top Gun instructor, and leadership consultant Dave Berke joins Joe for an honest conversation about ego, responsibility, and what it truly means to lead—both in the arena of combat and in everyday life.

As the bestselling author of The Need to Lead, Dave pulls back the curtain on the high-pressure world of fighter aviation, the chaos of ground combat in Ramadi, and the quiet challenges of becoming a better leader at home.  He reveals how his biggest breakthroughs came not from triumphs, but from failure—from dogfights he should have won, leadership roles he wasn’t ready for, and moments where ego clouded judgment.

In this episode, Joe and Dave also explore:

  • Why ego is the most dangerous threat to good leadership—and how to recognize the voice that “loves you to death”
  • How Top Gun actually works (and why the instructors are more humble than Hollywood suggests)
  • Lessons from Ramadi—operating in chaos, fighting self-doubt, and learning fast under pressure
  • Why leaders fail when they cling to control instead of developing others
  • The danger of complacency—and how one “guaranteed win” dogfight changed Dave’s approach to preparation
  • Preparing for your own departure as a leader—why good leadership outlasts the leader
  • The hard emotional work of transition and why believing in your next mission matters more than salary, title, or prestige

Whether you’re leading in uniform, managing a team, or navigating a major life transition, this episode offers hard-earned wisdom on how to stay grounded, remain teachable, and build teams capable of enduring whatever comes next.

The View We Never Get

By Joe Byerly

It’s like looking down from a mountain top and seeing it all. 

I know everything that’s going to happen to him. As he struggles through college algebra, I know he’s going to be just fine and earn his degree. As he wrestles with the frustration of missing a war, I know he’ll pay a dear price in the next one. I know he will lose his father at one of the worst possible times. I know he and his wife will struggle after almost a decade apart, but they’ll stay committed to each other. And I know about the disease that will eventually rob him of the very things he spent a lifetime nurturing—his mind and his memory. I know the date he was born, and I know the day he took his last breath. 

Over the last year, I’ve been hard at work researching the life of a man born in 1923 who died two decades ago (you can learn more about the project here). I’ve pored over his letters, read his essays, and listened to the stories of those who knew him long ago. I’ve become familiar with details about his life at a level I don’t even have with the friends I speak to every week.

I can see it all. And sometimes, I wish I had even a fraction of that clarity in my own life.

How will it all play out for me?

One of the dangers of reading history is that it tempts us toward arrogance. We start to believe we would have done better—that we would have seen the warning signs, or acted with courage, or stood on the right side of things. But would we?

Ep 165: Fascism, Communism, and the War for Middle-Earth with Joe Loconte

Dr. Joseph Loconte joins Joe for a powerful exploration of faith, imagination, and courage in times of crisis—how two Oxford professors used story to resist the darkness of their age and inspire generations to come.

As a historian and author of The War for Middle-earth: J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933–1945, Dr. Loconte reveals how the trauma of the First World War and the rise of totalitarianism shaped the moral imagination of both Tolkien and Lewis. While fascism, communism, and nihilism were eroding meaning across Europe, these two friends responded with mythic tales that reawakened the timeless virtues of courage, friendship, sacrifice, and faith.

In this conversation, Joe and Dr. Loconte unpack what it means to lead with conviction in an age of cynicism—how to confront “the gathering storm” of fear and confusion not through force, but through imagination, integrity, and truth. They explore how literature can serve as resistance, how belief can ground moral clarity, and why cultivating the inner life is essential for any leader facing dark times.

Listeners will come away with a deeper understanding of the moral lessons behind The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia—and how these works still speak to the leaders, soldiers, and citizens called to stand in the breach today.

In this episode, Joe and Dr. Loconte also explore:

  • How the First World War shaped Tolkien and Lewis’s understanding of evil and heroism
  • Why the 1920s and 1930s created a “crisis of meaning” across the Western world
  • How their friendship became a creative alliance and a moral counteroffensive
  • Why The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia are, at their core, acts of defiance against despair
  • What “the cataract of nonsense” teaches us about propaganda and the need for historical literacy
  • The spiritual courage required to use one’s gifts—even when the world seems to be falling apart
  • How both men modeled leadership through faith, fellowship, and imagination

Whether you’re leading in the military, education, or business, this episode offers timeless lessons on how conviction, creativity, and courage can help us navigate our own modern storms—and remind us that even in the darkest times, grace and goodness still have the final word.

The Power of Panta Rei

By Joe Byerly

When I was a kid, there were a handful of professional athletes I used to idolize. They were at the top of their game. They had money, fame, and even got to ride around in limousines. I don’t know why, but that was a big deal back then. 

If you paused the story there, they were successful. To a 10-year old boy, they had it all. 

But you can’t pause the story. As the Greeks used to say, panta rei, or “All things are in flux”

Nothing stays static. The story always continues. 

And their stories continued. They continued into substance abuse, injuries, bankruptcy—and some even died too early.

They made it to the mountaintop, snapped the selfie, and then hit pause. They got stuck in their own glory and stopped paying attention to the day-to-day decisions, the ones that got them to the mountaintop in the first place. And they definitely weren’t paying attention to their own rapid descent.

They forgot, or maybe they never knew, that you can’t pause the story.

Ep 164-A Blueprint for Leading Change with Phil Gilbert

Phil Gilbert joins Joe for a masterclass on leading lasting change—how to move large organizations, overcome cultural antibodies, and build systems that make transformation stick.

As the former head of design at IBM, Phil was tasked with one of the most ambitious corporate transformations of the last decade: to reignite creativity, collaboration, and speed inside a century-old company known for its consistency. Drawing from his new book Irresistible Change: A Blueprint for Earning Buy-In and Breakout Success, he shares the playbook that helped shift IBM’s mindset from compliance to commitment—and what leaders in any field can learn from that journey.

In this conversation, Joe and Phil unpack what it really takes to drive change at scale: how to earn voluntary adoption instead of forcing compliance, why culture must evolve alongside strategy, and how language, branding, and storytelling can make or break a transformation. They explore lessons that resonate from boardrooms to battlefields—how to lead people through uncertainty, protect the integrity of a mission, and create a culture that thrives on iteration and learning.

Listeners will come away with an actionable framework for driving change—one rooted in human behavior, organizational design, and the power of intentional leadership.

In this episode, Joe and Phil also explore:

  • Why the status quo is resilient—and how great organizations learn to challenge it continuously
  • How IBM’s “Hallmark” program turned change into a desirable brand, not a mandate
  • The formula behind lasting culture: people + practices + places
  • Why forcing compliance breeds “antibodies,” and how to inspire genuine belief instead
  • How storytelling and small-team “boot camps” made transformation go viral inside a 400,000-person company
  • The role of senior leaders in rewarding behavior and reinforcing new norms
  • What the “magic people” and The Captain Class teach us about influence from within teams
  • Why great leaders think like designers—iterating, prototyping, and refining as they go

Whether you’re leading a military unit, a corporate team, or a creative project, this episode offers a field-tested blueprint for driving change that lasts—one built on empathy, clarity, and a deep respect for the craft of leadership.

The Battle of the Three Selves

By Joe Byerly

Here’s what happened this weekend:

Friday: One more drink. One more hour around the fire pit. Then I’ll head home. I’ll deal with the consequences tomorrow.

Saturday morning: What the hell was I thinking? I’m exhausted. The alcohol wrecked my sleep last night.

Saturday afternoon: I’m going to take it easy tonight—head to bed early so tomorrow I can be productive again.

We are all three different people—the past self, the present self, and the future self. And most days, it feels like a battle to keep them in balance.

Friday night Joe wasn’t thinking about Saturday morning Joe and Saturday morning Joe paid for it. So Saturday afternoon Joe made some decisions so future Joe could get back on track. 

Our present selves can make it harder on our future selves, but we can also send them gifts too.

Ep 163- The 7 Rules of Power with Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer

Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer joins Joe Byerly for a candid and provocative discussion about power—what it is, how it works, and why more good people need to learn to use it. Drawing from his influential books Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t and The 7 Rules of Power, Pfeffer challenges listeners to see the world as it really operates—not as we wish it to be.

In this conversation, Joe and Dr. Pfeffer unpack why power isn’t inherently bad, how to build influence without losing integrity, and why refusing to “play the game” guarantees you’ll lose it. They explore lessons that apply equally to military leaders, executives, and anyone who wants to make change in complex organizations—from overcoming imposter syndrome and likability traps to mastering visibility, networking, and personal branding.

Listeners will come away with a sharper understanding of human nature, organizational dynamics, and what it really takes to lead with impact and authenticity in competitive environments.

In this episode, Joe and Dr. Pfeffer also explore:

  • Why power is a skill—and how good people can learn to use it for good
  • The critical difference between power and influence
  • Why authenticity, likability, and imposter syndrome can quietly sabotage effectiveness
  • The importance of appearing powerful—and how confidence often signals competence
  • How building a personal brand and network expands your ability to lead and shape change
  • The real costs of opting out of power—and how to navigate ambition without ego
  • Why leaders need a “personal board of directors” to stay grounded once they gain power

Whether you’re leading soldiers, managing teams, or influencing from the middle, this episode offers a masterclass in understanding power—how to earn it, wield it wisely, and ensure that good people rise to positions where they can make a difference.

Two Salaries

By Joe Byerly

When we compare jobs or career fields, sometimes we tend to default to one number: salary. How much does it pay? What will our financial quality of life look like? What are the monetary perks of the job?

I hear this a lot from transitioning vets. Folks trying to find that next job that will offer more money than they were making in uniform. It’s natural. But it’s incomplete.

In Turning Pro, Steven Pressfield points to a better lens: we actually earn two salaries.

The financial salary—easy to quantify. It’s in the contract and on the pay stub. 

The psychological salary—harder to measure, but often worth more. This salary seeps into our well-being, our relationships, even how we feel about ourselves.