Episode Transcript
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and I'm excited to get into today's conversation. We're gonna be looking at a lot of different things, talking about, of course, military mental health, talking about moral injury, suicide, and then of course, wayfi nding. What is wayfi nding? What is Wayward purpose, and why should we check it out? So excited to get into this conversation. It's always great to connect with people. We're gonna talk about what it means to be disconnected, what it means to be successful, and, uh, just a whole bunch of other things, life advice, self-improvement. So Mr. Will Paulson, so great to have you here to have this conversation with me, and I'd love for you to just tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah. Hi there. Um, yeah, thanks for the, the intro there. Um, and thanks for having me on really. It's always a, a, a loaded question on where, where to start, but, uh, I think the, the best f- best place to start is, so, um, right now, like you said, I'm still active duty service member. I'm actually in the, in the process of making those big life decisions on transferring over to becoming a, a veteran citizen, coming up on 20 years of military service. I started my, my military service in the Air Force as a weapons loader, um, working on F-16s, A-10s, working on the fl ight line. Ended up cross-training about halfway through the Air Force career, got into geospatial intelligence. Bounced around a lot, ended up in Europe. Hung out there for a little bit, ended up having, uh the wife and I had four kids. Um, w- stayed, stayed in Europe for quite a while, and then I got picked up to kinda do, um, defense attaché, and I, I came back to the States and ch- chased, um, COVID out of, out of, out of Europe and landed back in the States in 2020. Ended up going to school, learning, uh, Ukrainian, and on the, on, on our way out the door, we, we ended up, the, the assignment ended up getting, getting canceled, and I got diverted to a different unit, and that started where, or that started my journey into the Space Force because as soon as I joined up, uh, that unit, they said, "Welcome aboard. The Space Force is new. This is now a Space Force unit," and ultimately led to either you can, you can go back to the Air Force, or hey, you can sit around, uh, or you can, you can, you can join us. Ended up, ended up joining the Space Force, and then fast-forward, and here I am now, so. For sure. And you know, when the Space Force was fi rst being announced, a lot of people in the nuclear operator fi eld in the Navy were talking about, you know, would we join after we got out of the Navy? Would we try to request paperwork to transfer? And the big conversation we had, at least my perspective on it, I said, "Well, listen, guys. There's two things we can look at here. It's brand-new, so that either means it's gonna be very easy to rank up, to kinda get up top and help shape things, and it's gonna be great, or nothing's ever gonna be fi gured out, and so you're gonna get screwed over, over and over again as the guinea pig in the trial run, and then everything is gonna be great as soon as you leave." And so we were like, do we wanna take the chance? And, uh, you know, you and I can talk about that in a minute here, but I wanna go back to kind of your childhood and what led you ultimately to joining the
service in the fi rst place. Yeah. Um, I, I had no intention originally of, of joining the service, um, to be com- completely honest. I think it was my, my senior year, and I ended up doing a whole bunch of tours of, of colleges in Minnesota where I grew up. And at one point during the, the end of my senior year and, um, going into the summer there I decided basically I needed to move away from the, the area that I was, was in, and kind of my, my upbringing and, and I decided, you know what? I need structure, and I need to, to go do something else. Um, I actually had, had no intentions of... I didn't even look into the Navy. I went and did a stay, like, uh, the Army National Guard had like a, like a come hang out with the Army for like a weekend thing. I did that, and that was my, my um, my appreciation tour of, of not joining the Army at, at, at, at 18. Um, the Marines, I fi lled out a, a postcard saying I would like more information about the Marine Corps, and almost a week later, two full service dressed up Marines showed up- Right ... at my house in the middle of nowhere, and they just knocked on the door and was like, "I heard you wanted to join the Marine Corps." And I was like, "Well, that was intimidating." And- ... and my, my father was in the, in the Air Force at, at, at one point in his life, and he's like, "Why don't you just go join the Air Force?" Um, and I went and saw the recruiter, and within just, uh, within a few weeks, I was, I, I was signed up, and then within like a month or two I was, I was down at basic training. So, and it's been a journey ever since. Um, there's, there's been lots, lots of great times. There's been low times. There's been high times and, but all around the almost entire 20 years has, through the stretch of it, it's been great, so. Of course, and you know, I've interviewed o- over hundreds of episodes, a lot of veterans and service members. All of them have shared some really tragic stories, and others have shared some great points. Uh, when you're in for as long as, you know, even fi ve years or seven years, let alone, you know, 20 years, you experience both of those quite a bit. So what would you say are some of the highlights for both tragic and, and good? And we'll, and we'll start with the awful. With the awful, right off the bat. Um, I think the, the, I think the biggest thing was, was probably in a awful and great at the same, same time. Um, it, it's kind of where, um, I, I get the... That you've heard it. You, you've probably heard it and a lot of your audience has probably heard it a lot. In the, in the military we always hear like, "I just need a body." Um, and over the years, I, I've kind of turned that and I'm like, "No, we don't need a body. We need a, we need a person," 'cause I'm pretty sure there's, there's lots of bodies over in the morgue that we could go grab and, and you know, we can, we can throw one of those at whatever you're trying to do at. Um, that, just that mindset shift. But- Um, I think one of the, the, the most tragic things early on in my career was, was personally related to my, my, my oldest daughter. Um, I was overseas, and it was my, my, my wife and I, we were young in our, uh, very early 20s, and, uh, we were waiting on our fi rst, fi rstborn to, to come, and she came very, very early. Um, she was born at, um, 23 weeks or just over 23 weeks, like 24 weeks and like a few, uh, a few hours, and that led to her being in a German neonatal or, uh, uh, a, a German
hospital for almost, I think it was four and a half, fi ve months. Um, so that was just shocking to us as, as parents, but I think what the original part of that story was, um, and I think we've gotten a lot better in the military with giving people a lot more time for, um, childbirth and, and, and extending a lot of those different entitlements. But back, back then, almost 16, 17 years ago, um, I think I got the, the, the 10 days, and then I burned all of my leave. And when I came back to work, I mean, my daughter was still in the hospital about an hour away, and I, I'm pretty sure I, I, I suffered in silence for about two... About, yeah, about two weeks, three weeks, and, um, everybody just assumed that I was, I was, I was back at, I was back at work, and my daughter was at home, and everything was fi ne. And nobody really understood what I was carrying even though, um, I, I explained to everybody as a, as a young airman. And then it, it, it ultimately took my fl ight chief at the time, my, uh, my master sergeant just stopped me, and we had a conversation for about fi ve, 10 minutes, and he's like, "No." And then within like a day, somebody who fi nally just saw me as a person in that moment, um- helped my family more so than probably anybody else in, in my entire career, and I, I, I credit, uh, my, my friend now, Chris, a lot of how he was a leader in that moment that has shaped kind of how I've been throughout, throughout my career. But it, but it's a good reminder that during that time, like, if we don't understand where the human meets the system and the system meets the human, that's where we lose a lot of people, I believe. Um, and it's ultimately in those moments and... that, that are probably the most important for just us as human beings and us as service members, um, a- a- and, and the things that service members and other service workers from law enforcements to police to ER nurses, um, you, you name it, people who are in high, high-performing, high-capacity, um, positions that experience a lot more than the, the, the average individual not in those... in, in those roles. Um, if we, if we lose focus of that connection and where humans meet the system and the system meets the humans, then I think it's where we get a lot of moral injury, and we get a lot of people who end up getting lost, um, the people who lose their autonomy and their relatedness and, um, the- their competence, and I'm sure we'll get into it. But yeah, that's probably... I- it, it's, it's a twofold story there, so, um- Right For sure. And you know, I- it's funny 'cause I was just joking the other day about this. I was talking to a military spouse, and she was talking about, you know, uh, quite a while ago, one of her pregnancies, and how it really shocked her, you know, as a civilian without much military knowledge, how little, uh, maternity support she got as expected. Like, "Oh, my husband can't come to these appointments or be here even though they're really important." And you know, I kinda was joking with her that, "Yeah, you know, unless you're actually giving birth, then they might give you a, you know, early liberty and let you leave work to go take care of it," because I've seen situations like that. I've seen times... And again, things have changed a lot, and they've made new rules and policies. Every branch is different, and every chain of command is kinda different, 'cause I've seen
people where their chain of command was like, "Oh, be gone for the next three months." And I've seen other people say, uh, "I expect to see you on Monday," you know? And I've heard, uh, some people unfortunately missing the birth of their children. Um, and there's certainly a time and place where, where the mission takes priority, but a lotta times it's not that situation. It's just leadership. And I, I really like you talked about where the human meets the system. I had a person I served with in the Navy, and he was a single father. And he was like, "Hey, you know, Senior Chief," to his senior chief, "uh, is it possible to accommodate? I have the paperwork fi lled out to come to work where we're in shipyards, uh, about maybe 20, 30 minutes later because I need to drop my kid off at daycare. They don't open till this time," X, Y, Z, A, B, C. And senior chief said, "Don't worry about all this stuff. You know, you're, you're, you're trying to see your kid and be a single dad. Well, I'm your daddy now, so you're gonna be here every day, and you're not gonna worry about your kid." Uh, you know, to see people like that, I mean, just absolutely terrible leadership. And so, but on the other hand, I've seen single moms in some cases who they gotta, uh, come in an hour late and, and take their kid to daycare and whatnot. So again, it depends on your chain of command and stuff, but it can be very diffi cult. I've interviewed a lot of veterans, and a lot of them shared they had to miss birthday parties, holidays, you know, births, all this stuff. And so I think that is one of the diffi cult parts, of course, on top of the moving around and, and all this and that. And then your children and, and, and wife or husband are missing out on stuff in back home or wherever it is as well. And so you talk about how it can be both awful and good in your situation because you had a leader who stepped up, and that's really important. And I've had leaders who, as I've shared on the show a lot, uh, called us government property, said we didn't have rights if we weren't a certain rank. That a certain rank meant they were God, and they were justice, and they were in charge of morality. And, you know, so leadership is, is pivotal, is very vital. And so what for you was the most important thing you did as a leader? Because you served, you know, for so long, and I know people as soon as boot camp who are put in a leadership position, not always volunteered, but voluntold. So, uh, was there a time where you were leading, and if so, what was kind of what you learned from it or what you feel like you did the best? Yeah. Wow. Um- I do, uh, the fi rst thing I'd, that I'd even, e- even touch on, on, on that question is that, is that word itself, leadership, right? Um, like it's- Leadership is, is ultimately not anything that we individually can, can say about ourselves. It's one of the- Mm-hmm ... one of the, one of the few things that is, is given to you by other people. Like, we have leadership roles that people can go into and they can develop themselves in those roles, but nobody in those roles can say like, like, "I am the, the leader." Because that is given to you by the people that you lead. Um- Mm. More, more or less, I think it's, it's, it's stewardship and, and, and responsibility that people are, are in those roles. But like you said, you ... There's, there's leaders that we know have been great, there's leaders that have been horrible, and I think we learn, um,
we, we, we learn a lot from, from both of them. But the only, the only ones that were great, great leaders, that, that title was given to them for, by other people, um, and, and how they showed up and, and, and how they led. And I think a lot of times we just get managers or we get, get people who have been given some type of way forward on how they're supposed to be leading in those positions, and that gets into a whole other conversation, uh, uh, about, about culture and what, what culture actually is, and kind of your, your f- your different levers that you can pull to create a culture of, of shared actions and behaviors and beliefs, um, to, to either drive a, a culture where you have somebody coming in and, and saying the things that they've, they've said to you and, um, or on the, on, on the fl ip side, treating you like a human being and seeing you as a person fi rst, and then understanding how you fi t into the system I had a really early... Or so to go back to, to your question, um, I think my My biggest lessons ever learned was across my entire career so far have been the ones where I failed the, the, the, the largest, I w- I, I would say. Mm. Um, I think the very fi rst fl ight that I was given as a young, uh, E6 actually, um, so a technical sergeant in the, in, in the Air Force, I was, I was a, a, a high performer. And, and w- y- there's, there's always a, a hit-and-miss when you have high performers and then you take them out of their performing role, and you, you put them into a management or leadership role, and you think it's going to, um, through osmosis they're gonna be a, a great performer. Now they're gonna be a great leader, but then don't give them the tools to, to make that transition and understand what being in a leadership position actually means now. And I believe my very fi rst fl ight, I went into that position, and I held myself to the standard that I held myself to at that moment. And by doing that, I ended up then projecting and holding everybody in my fl ight to the standard that I held myself to, and I think there, there's a lot of good stuff that we did as a fl ight, but I, through a lot of refl ection and a few years later, realizing that through that high performing and holding everybody to my standard, I, I, I destroyed some people. Like, I, I didn't see them as human beings, um, fi rst. I saw them as we are a unit that has a mission to do, and I'm performing it at this level. You all should be performing it at this level. And in that instance in, early in my career, I didn't understand why these people didn't wanna do as much as I did, or work as long as I did, or connect all the dots as, as much as I did, and I defi nitely projected that on, on a lot of people. And it wasn't until I had some good friends that found me, and just like every young, um, NCO, I mean, you, you hung out in the smoke pit, and it took a few of them to- Right ... be yeah, it took a few of them to be like, "Hey, Will. Um, yeah, you, you, you, you were a great person to run that team, but you are, you are a horrible leader." And I mean, that hit. Uh, and it took me, uh, probably two, three years to really understand early on in my career like, "Oh, I don't need to stand up here and hold everybody to the standard that I hold myself to, especially when I'm leading a team and there's other, other people, um, that are... " I like to use the, the Roosevelt speech, right? The, there's other people in the arena with me,
and we're all in this together, so I should go down to them- Find out where they're at and we should all kind of rise together, or I can set standards and hold people to those standards and if they don't meet those expectations, then either we work corrective measures or we, we fi gure out what's next and, and, and we go from there rather than just trying to hold everybody to the standard that I hold myself to. Um, I think that's, that, that's the, that's the fi rst story that, that comes to mind there Right. Now, we mentioned early on in the beginning episode Wayward Purpose, which is what you're doing now. At what point did that start? Was it kind of intersected with your military career, or was that much later on in life? Is it kind of the setup for the civilian life? Where is that journey lining up with everything? Yeah. So Wayward Purpose is relatively new, within the last, last two years or so. Um, uh, but it, it, it took root probably about fi ve years ago when, when the idea started coming about. And I did, I started, I started looking at w- what I look like outside of uniform and what does life 2.0 look like. And it was mainly because of, I had a lot of friends that were starting to retire. I had a lot of, um, groups that I was in that I was listening to other veterans talk about their basically existential, like, life crisis that happened between taking the uniform off and, and becoming a veteran citizen. And a lot of their advice was, "Go to TAPS and start fi guring things out." And oddly enough, I, I don't know if that was, like, a, a, a, a God wink at the time, because as, as soon as I started just fi guring out what that meant, everything in my life pretty much domino effected and, and collapsed in the last, like, four years here. Um, from lots of deaths in the families and, and, um, some suicides that were close to me to, to, to include my mother's. Um, it just, uh, e- everything that you could possibly do with every relationship that you could possibly have started happening at the same exact time. And the, the fi rst step coming out of that was a, was a trip, um, to Lourdes, France from, by the, by the Knights of Columbus. It was a Wounded Warriors to Colum- or, uh, Wounded, blah. Wounded Warriors to Lourdes, um, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, and it was for moral injury healing. Um, basically at the lowest point in my life, I found my- myself, uh, who was a self-proclaimed agnostic in a, in, in a chapel on base in, in, in a room with a priest, and he basically put me on my path that ultimately led to me reclaiming my, my faith, uh, reaffi rming my Lutheran faith, and then ultimately coming home to the, the, the Catholic face, faith here just a, just a year ago. And going through all of that- Ultimately led to what is Wayward Purpose. Um, I, I started fi guring out what I kinda wanted to do in life 2.0. Um, I, I, I used some of my credentialing and, and my Air Force cool money to go get a, a coaching credential, and I ended up going, going the route and getting my International Coaching Federation, my, my ACC coaching credential. Um, I, I, I started doing a lot of coaching. I do coaching in the, the Department of War, um, for any member that wants a, w- wants a coach. And then I ended up realizing through everything that I'd gone through, creating Wayward Purpose was, was my way of not only reconnecting with myself and reconnecting with others and
reconnecting with communities that I was, that I was part of, and it's grown into this social impact business with that mission right there of, of restoring togetherness and, and trying to help, help anybody that's gone through similar things that I have, uh, along the way. And, and, and that's where I'm at with it now, so. Right. And so can you kind of break down for us what it is, how it works, and kind of who should interact with it? Yeah. So re- it, it's a project right now. Um, and as, as I continue to build it out and what will end up hopefully being my... will, will be my full-time business when I, when I do decide to take the, the uniform off, is right now I'm, I, I'm focusing on the, the newsletter piece of it, which I, I call Waymarkers, which are, uh, every week on, on Saturday or Sunday, I release just one, one newsletter that has one, one theme, one problem, one story, uh, one something that my, my daughter talked about in in the car taking her to, to school or something that came up in a coaching session, or just something that I've learned along the way that I want to share with anybody who has, has, has found it, or anybody that has found themself drawn to some of the, the, the types of coaching that I have, I've started to, to, to lean into here. Um, and it... All, all of it is, is, is based off of everything that I have researched and done through- throughout my career, gone through from Adlerian psychology principles, to self-determination theory, to the decision-making process by using the, the four cardinal virtues to kind of help through decision-making. And a lot of it's going to build into doing more community events and doing more coaching and group coaching sessions and helping everything from moral injury to existential crisises, to, um, anybody that fi nds me and, and is the, is, uh, the... someone that I can help with, with what I do. Right. So it tackles a lot of different problems, a broad range of topics, but who would be the best person to, you know, kind of get into this to either work with you one-on-one with coaching or to, you know, just take up reading the newsletters? Yeah, so the overall mission is, is, is to restore togetherness, um- Mm ... w- with ourselves, with others, um, with the, with the life that we, we wish our, w- wish we had or, or the- Right ... communities that we're in. Um, so a lot of the people that are drawn to, to me that I've had the privilege of, of coaching are, are high capacity individuals, um, high performing individuals, um, who There's been something that has happened in their life, um, where they either have felt like no matter what's going on, they're still feel disconnected or they wanna fi nd their way back or their, what I've called, come to call are extraordinary gifts from either that, that come with high performing and high capacity from connecting, connecting dots to being able to do extensive problem-solving to systems thinkings to the brain that's always on, uh, and can never shut off, the one that's always fi guring out all the problems. And at, at the end of the day, those, those gifts end up controlling that individual and either they go spiraling down or they're not where they think that they should be at in, in their life are, are kind of the people that end up fi nding me. A- and through a lot of the coaching that I've done, we've, we've helped them, um, helped them fi nd or, or fi nd themselves again, fi nd their
communities and, and, and reconnect with not only themselves, but the people they love and their communities that they're, that they're in. 'Cause, like, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a clinician, a- a- and coaching is, is, is a lot different than anything that you'll fi nd in therapy. Um, it, the- Yeah ... therapy is amazing to, to, to help us go back and, and, and work on a lot of things that have happened to us throughout our lives. And normally I always suggest to fi nd a coach as well because a, a, a coach is future-focused and is focused on helping you as the individual basically evoke awareness and help you drive towards where you need to be. Um, so I think the, the two work very, very well with, with each other, so. 100%. I, I love that perspective that, you know, therapy is to go back and take care of what we need to and, you know, coaching is the moving forward and also taking care of what we need to, setting up. And a huge part of setting up is making sure we don't leave, as I call them, remnants that are lingering from the past or maybe we're suppressing or something that can come back up and destroy everything we're working on. So super important to get both of those done to have that recovery and healing as much as the rebuilding and moving forward. Now, you've shared a lot throughout this episode, a ton of great advice, but if you could leave us as we close the episode here with just one way marker, if you had to choose just one to leave us with today, uh, that's kind of on your heart right now, what would that be? I think the, the, the one that, that, that, that pulls up right up top is, is, is starting with ourselves. A lot of the, the, the way markers that I've, that I've pushed out so far and, and published so far is about interacting with ourselves and regaining togetherness with ourselves lately. Um, from not only understanding ourselves, but how we interact with the world. The, the one that I was, that, that I just published today that you can fi nd at, at, at wayward, waywardpurpose.com is, is the I don't care. Um, the, the phrases and, and sayings that we, we end up internalizing and then, and then saying when somebody comes to us and they have a concern or they're, they're trying to give us advice or they're concerned about a decision we're about to make, and in the process of them telling us all of those, all of those things, our brain goes and, and fi lls up 37 different whiteboards in our mind of all the different possible scenarios and solutions, and we've already basically have lived an entire life by the time they fi nish their sentence. And what comes out of our mouths is, "I don't care." And what that normally means to us is, "Look, I got this. I... No matter what happens, I'm resilient. I've done worse. You've... I've seen worse. I've had worse leaders. I've had great leaders. Um, no matter what's going to go, w- no matter what's going to happen, I'm gonna fi gure it out." And, and that's what we mean when we say, "I don't care." And when people hear that who don't understand that we just lived 37 lifetimes in our own head, um, they hear that as, "Wow, this person just doesn't care what I think. They are being arrogant. They're being... This person's obviously narcissistic," or, "This person just is gonna fl y off the handle and they're the worst person in the world." And just because they didn't understand that you just went through all those things in in your
mind there. So fi guring out where in your life that you have been taking shortcuts in your communications with, with others, not only with yourself, but then with others as well, and really refl ecting on that and fi guring out when you use those shortcut communication styles, what you're actually trying to mean in those, and take the extra fi ve, seven minutes to actually explain what's going through your mind to people who have no idea, uh, what, w- what's going on and why you're coming out a- and making the decisions that you're making. So I think that's kind of the biggest one right off the top of my head on just, um, being able to navigate a lot of those different interactions with, with, with folks. Um, and I think that's one of the very small steps on just how to restore togetherness in general. So. It starts with the internal togetherness of ourselves, and then it's a ripple effect of what we can do from there, and I think that's great. And, you know, goes into a lot of themes we've talked about on the show about how can you love others if you don't love yourself? How can you respect others if you don't respect yourself? And how can you have togetherness with others if you're not all together? Yeah, and that's why we have coaching, we have therapy, we have shows like this to try and make an impact to have prevention, intervention, and recovery. And so I want to thank you for what you're doing with waywardpurpose.com, as well as, you know, guesting on the show today and sharing your time to help impact others. Yeah, no, I de- I defi nitely appreciate it. I mean, a lot of this was built out of, um, looking out across not only the veteran, um, audience, but then the active duty, um, population. And there's, there's a lot of i- individuals and companies and organizations doing great things for suicide prevention, but when I looked across everything and I, I s- I started working with some folks, there wasn't a whole lot of people that was solely focused on mindset. And- Mm ... in the beginning of Wayward Purpose and understanding moral injury and the impacts that moral injury does when somebody internalizes guilt, and that becomes shame, and then shame becomes somebody trying to solve themself as a problem- And how moral injury basically collapse, collapses everything from autonomy and competence and relatedness and, and, and what we need for self-determination. Uh, my, my whole goal with all of this was taking the, the group of people that kept fi nding me for coaching, providing this framework of decision-making that, that, that I've shared with many people, and ultimately with the, with the, the restoring togetherness goal is to help change the mindset, um, to, to get, to get it to where suicide is never an option. Um, and in, and in the work that I've done in intelligence, my, uh, for, for a good part of my career, there was always the saying like, "How do we..." Uh, like to get to the decision-makers, "How do we give information as far left of boom as possible?" Was- Mm-hmm ... it was kind of the thing. And for, for your audience, uh, I, I think they would, they, it would resonate with the same exact thing that I've done my entire military career, I'm doing with Wayward Purpose of getting far left of the boom as possible by helping shift mindset so it's never even an option that comes up for folks. Um, and then provide
that new foundation and new n- new framework of thinking, um, that, that, that we kind of do in the group, group settings and in, in newsletters, in the waymarkers, and a lot of the, the coaching that we do, so. Right, 100%. And I, I think it's so important. You know, I've done a lot of suicide prevention and intervention and recovery work, and it is a huge issue globally as much as it is an issue in active duty and veteran. And like you said, to get to a point where it's not an option, people aren't thinking about it, to have that mindset shift and to have more prevention than intervention, uh, would be great. So I appreciate you taking the time today to help be a part of that, and thank you for guesting. Hey, no, thank you. And, and thank you for, for having me. So thanks.
