Scott Schimmel (00:00)
Yo, what's up? Great, Joe, nice to meet you. We haven't met before, right? Because you were you were in THF. And OK, we was that ⁓ virtual. OK. Yeah, OK. I used to be in the classroom alone, so sometimes I'm like, have we met before?
Joe Black (00:01)
Scott, how's it going, man?
Yep. No, I don't think so.
Yeah, class 72.
Virtual, yes, yeah, the virtual cohort.
Yeah, I was one of the virtual guys. It was a good experience. mean, it awesome experience. But yeah, the virtual world can be a little weird. ⁓ But what was crazy was still just like those connections established and just building a community through the online world. I mean, I'm still in touch with a lot of those guys. It's pretty awesome.
Scott Schimmel (00:47)
How did you find THF? Like, why did you do it? What was the, were you recruited? Did you look for it?
Joe Black (00:55)
Yeah, so funny story. So I'd already made the commitment right that, you know, you know, my family and I were gonna we're gonna transition out of the military, it's time to retire. And and I was doing some other stuff, right, like the commit foundation, ACP, you know, kind of some mentorship stuff. And, and there was a buddy at work, who's an Intel guy. And he said, Oh, yeah, I'm, I got to do an interview for for THF. And I was like, what's what's THF, man?
Scott Schimmel (01:24)
Alright.
Joe Black (01:25)
And he's
like, oh, well, it's a special operations deal. I was like, well, I'm not technically not a special operator. And I said, okay, it's interesting. So then I just said, I want to do some research. So researched it, got connected with Bob Newman. I said, Hey man, here's the deal. You know, I said, here's the deal, man. Here's my background. Here's where I've intersected in the soft community in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here's the work I did for him.
Scott Schimmel (01:41)
yeah.
Joe Black (01:53)
And he said, hey man, throw a packet in. And I said, all right, I got it. And so I knocked it out and then they picked me up. And yeah, I started with class 72 and never looked back.
Scott Schimmel (02:01)
No way.
It's not just your mom that thinks you're ⁓
Joe Black (02:07)
Yeah, true story. Although I think my wife would disagree, but yeah, for sure. Yeah,
it was incredible. So I mean, you know, for me, look, I'm a faith driven guy. So you know, I felt, you know, that was really, you know, God taking care of me kind of throwing me a bone like, hey, listen, dude, you don't listen to me a lot. Like I'm here's your sign, man, you know, like, here's a rope, I need you to I need you to pull on this a little bit. But yeah, it was awesome. You know, I mean, and ⁓
I'm a huge believer and proponent of the Honor Foundation and now the Vector Accelerator. You know, these things are, it goes well, you know, the scope is so much beyond, you know, helping the men and women transition out of service to whatever their next chapter in life is, right? I mean, it's just like legit alumni lifetime tribe, right? I mean, I...
I probably do three or four Honor Foundation calls a week with guys that were in my cohort. Yeah, that's another thing. The cups of coffee and stuff. I told myself, hey, look, I gotta pay this back somehow. I gotta give back to this thing that gave me everything and more. So I'm making a point to.
Scott Schimmel (03:09)
Really?
Yeah.
Joe Black (03:29)
to be active in the Slack channels on the Honor Foundation, guys will hit me up, whether it's about Amazon, which is where I'm at now, or just, hey man, can you look at my resume? you, you know, let's just have a conversation about transition because it's hard, right?
Scott Schimmel (03:43)
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, by the way, Joe, you already were in the episode. I didn't I didn't say that. welcome. Welcome to the show. It sounds like you took advantage of being in the classroom with THF. Like, kind of bring us back to that a little bit. Obviously, you're taking advantage now as an alumni or alum is alum or alumni, whatever you get it.
Joe Black (03:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I always say
alumni, but I think sometimes I see people say alumnets and I'm like, I don't, I need to use chat GPT to see which one is correct. ⁓ But yeah, no, so it really started with that, that first conversation with Bob Newman. I remember sitting in a parking lot in my truck and I jumped on a call with him and he said, hey man, what do you know about the Honor Foundation? And I said, hey man, what I appreciate is that it's just a simple,
Scott Schimmel (04:15)
Hahaha
Joe Black (04:36)
three-phased approach, It's the figure out who you are, your gear, which is all the stuff that comes with it, right? The resume, the LinkedIn, the whole networking aspect, and then your workup, right? Which is kind of the culminating part of the Honor Foundation, like, hey, you're doing a workup for an op, right? I mean, this is your next phase line and doing the tracks and all that stuff and really just setting you up. So.
I appreciated the very pragmatic approach that the Honor Foundation had and I was all in. Look, mean, you know, I remember it was two days a week. You know, my family support us and hey, look, you know, this is going to be a big commitment. You know, it's not like some of these other programs where it's kind of on your own pace. Like, hey, this is a, you know, a block of time, two days a week. You know, they took a chance on me, so I'm going to fully, fully just dive into this. So.
It was just going in with a mindset of just being switched on, right? And taking everything I could out of it.
Scott Schimmel (05:40)
⁓ tell me about Amazon. How did that happen?
Joe Black (05:44)
Amazon,
yeah, so Amazon's a wild place, man. So Amazon is good, but it's crazy. So prior to jumping in with the Honor Foundation, right, I had already been linked up with one of the lead recruiters in Amazon and specifically the Amazon Military Pathways Program.
So that's what I'm in. So, you know, we had some conversations. I talked to some guys that were in Amazon and what appealed to me about the Pathways program is it's a leadership track in Amazon. So it's a come in ⁓ as a senior ops guy and, you know, I get to lead people and be around.
you know, the workers, like the associates, and it feels very much like home for me. I mean, it's a wide cast of society. It's people are motivated by all different kinds of things and to be able to drive them, you know, to the goals, right, of Amazon. But so that appealed to me. It's a fast track leadership deal where you can, you're, I guess, simply put, you're on an accelerated track in Amazon.
little more visibility, a little more mentorship. You know, they kind of take a vested approach like, hey, one, you're a veteran, two, you you made it into this Amazon pipeline or pathways pipeline. So we really have a vested interest to make sure that we're giving you the tools to be successful. So that's what appealed to me about it.
Scott Schimmel (07:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we, with vector accelerator. So I don't, I don't know how much you know about it, but it's, it's if you, as you went through THF, you think of that first phase, you figuring you out, that's, that's vector accelerator, essentially. And there's some slight differences in specific curriculum, but the end results the same like clarity. But one of the real fundamental questions we want to help people answer is what drives you and you just
You just talked about that inside Amazon. You see all these different people with different motivations, not to put you on the spot, but what's what's what have you reflected on for yourself? Like what's what's driving you at this point in your career?
Joe Black (08:02)
Yeah, so that's great, great questions, guys. So I actually made a LinkedIn post this morning where I was talking about focus. Like focus is a superpower. ⁓ Because I'm the kind of guy that I'll just get distracted. I'll get on LinkedIn and it's just like this steady stream of a highlight reel, right? There's a lot of shiny objects, know, it's all these different opportunities and then I would find myself on my days off.
Scott Schimmel (08:22)
huh.
Joe Black (08:31)
man, am I like, am I where I'm supposed to be? You know, like, am I am I truly motivated with what I'm doing? Like, is this aligned with my sense of purpose? Because at the end of the day, look, I've kind of flippantly said, at the end of the day, it's just boxes on a conveyor belt, Amazon, you know, it's boxes on a conveyor belt. And, you know, my my facility is pushing about 3 million a week. ⁓ Yeah, that's pretty that's kind of normal.
Scott Schimmel (08:58)
I think I
think at least two million of those show up at our doorstep
Joe Black (09:02)
Right. then,
you know, that's the thing, I figure I might as well work for the company that's dropping off boxes at my house every day. But um, but so you know, I tend to there, I went through, I'm not going to call it a rough patch, but right, I went through, I'm a year out from the military. So I've been through some kind of valleys where it's like, hey, I don't I don't know if I'm super motivated by this, like, you know, so you start getting pulled in different directions. But
Scott Schimmel (09:08)
Yeah. ⁓
Joe Black (09:31)
I had a couple impactful moments for me at Amazon where, you know, one day, you know, I'm just standing kind of on this catwalk overlooking this. mean, it's just a ginormous facility and there's about 400 employees doing a million different things. I've got seven managers that work for me that, you know, they're most of them are college kid, you know, straight out of college or straight out of an MBA program. And they're.
They're cutting their teeth, you know, they're 24 years old, like, hey, welcome to welcome to life. Right. and I'm just looking at all this stuff and I'm thinking, man, this is crazy. Like this is, you know, people, people don't see, this is behind the curtains. mean, people see the box that arrives at the doorstep. They don't, they don't see, you know, I, know, like they don't see the 60 year old lady that, that still is in a position that has to work. That's in that warehouse.
Scott Schimmel (10:16)
Right. Yeah.
Joe Black (10:28)
you know, and just grinding, you know, and she's motivated by taking care of her family or they don't see the young mom that's single, it's got two kids, you know, that she's just a forklift driver, right? But, but to her, like that is providing for her family. And I have the opportunity, right? To, develop a connection with her or develop a connection with, know, with a young guy that, you know, is trying to figure out life. And he's like, Hey, right now I don't
This isn't where I want to be forever, but I got to pay the bills, right? Or I'm putting myself through college at night. So now I'm coming in here and I'm putting boxes on a conveyor belt for 10 hours straight. ⁓ You know, cause I don't have a college fund or I don't have, you know, whatever resource it is. So I'm going to just do this. ⁓ The, what motivates me, you know, is being around people and look, people have strong opinions about Amazon.
and I see it when I make posts on LinkedIn about Amazon. Yeah, and it's fine. Right, everybody is entitled to their opinion, right? And no one is like ugly or mean. just, you know, some people just, there's a lot of strong bias about Amazon. It kind of seems like you're either all in and you love it or, hey, I went there and it was terrible. It's work-life balance is non-existent. You know, they just care about the end result. And... ⁓
Scott Schimmel (11:46)
Yeah.
Joe Black (11:55)
But for me, I just kind of see through that noise. And there's just little reminders every day where it's a lady will just come up to me and say, Joe, you're the most awesome dude in this building. Thank you for really caring about us. She gives me a hug on the floor. She's unpacking boxes and sorting stuff around. But she took that moment to say, Joe, hey, I want to let you know I appreciate your leadership.
Scott Schimmel (12:24)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Black (12:24)
thanks for what you're doing. And that's what
I try to drive with my managers, right? It's, hey, know, Amazon will talk a lot about the operational metrics and we got to hit the daily goals and remove, you know, risk and barriers to those goals. But I'm like, hey man, step one is just connect with the humans. Like connect with the people that are making this happen. Cause without them, we're not doing anything.
And I'm telling you, if you establish that connection, there's a sense of trust and ownership. They'll work really hard for you. It's just like the military, they show up and they'll work really hard. It's just a different uniform, right? I am motivated. My sense of purpose is being around people, leading people, establishing human connections and just, I love storytelling too. Like that's kind of my new hobby. And every day it's just, hear people's stories.
Scott Schimmel (12:55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Huh?
Joe Black (13:19)
You know, they tell me that, you know, they'll just come up to me and they just tell me a life story or a snippet of something about their life. Totally unprovoked, totally, you know, and I'm like, man, this is, this is pretty cool. That person doesn't have to tell me, you know, that story, but they did. They trust me and it's really cool.
Scott Schimmel (13:41)
That's awesome. What's one thing, so that's, you share like a similarity between military and Amazon. What's something that's been surprising to you for better or for worse? What's like so drastically different than your past experience?
Joe Black (13:55)
Yeah.
So I'm hesitant to call it micromanagement because I feel like I got in trouble a few months ago when I used the word micromanagement. ⁓ Yeah, but ⁓ no, it's fine. But you know, ⁓ I think you know, in the military, there was a sense of trust, right? There was a shared trust, you go through all the training, you go through the workup, we're deployed to Afghanistan, I'm in the 101st, we're getting after it, right?
Scott Schimmel (14:04)
Don't worry, no one's watching this.
Joe Black (14:24)
I mean, we're just getting after it. And we're, you know, we're in a remote location. So it's just me and 150 dudes just getting after it. And you know, my battalion commander is, I mean, he's, he's like a day away, you know, I mean, and so there's a sense of trust, like, Hey, Joe, Joe Black, man, you got it. Like, here's my intent. You know, here's my intent. I trust you through all these shared
Scott Schimmel (14:43)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Black (14:50)
hardships and training that we went through that you're gonna do the right thing, you're gonna execute, you're gonna take care of the men and you're gonna accomplish the mission, right? Whereas, you know, I won't say that this is true in all of corporate world, but my experience at Amazon is there is maybe not a lack of trust, but there's a hesitancy for trust where I've had conversations with my boss, you know, a general manager said, I'm like, look, man, I got it. Like you just gotta trust me,
Scott Schimmel (14:51)
Right.
Yeah.
Joe Black (15:19)
And I told him, you know, we had a conversation one day and he's like, ⁓ you know, I heard you, did, you know, X thing and, know, but you didn't talk to me about it. You did it and you executed. And so look, man, if I, just told him, said, you know, if I, if I'm coming to you every time there's a situation or every time I need to make a decision, I'm coming to you, then you don't need me. Like you don't need me. Like, what am I being paid to do? Like I'm being paid by Amazon to make decisions.
Scott Schimmel (15:38)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Black (15:45)
And I'm being paid to run operations in this building so you can kind of lead the building and build a culture. And said, what are you talking about? like, I'm like, I look at you like you're like the commander, man. Like you set the tone in the building, you establish the culture. I you should be just doing the fun stuff. Walk around, talk to associates, make people feel good about themselves, right? You can yell at us, you know, but we're the ones in the trenches, right? In the sun. there, it's a lot of, know, Amazon operates on Slack as well.
Scott Schimmel (15:50)
Right. Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's just.
Joe Black (16:14)
You know, it's just a lot of, you know, hey, did this happen? Or if, yeah, it's the double checking the check, you know, it's like, it's like, man, I told you we did that. we're good. I was like, I'm like, hey man, we're gonna hit gold. We're gonna over execute goals. And I'm managing profit and loss. I'm managing head count. You know, that's another thing we don't really do in the military. You got what you got, right? It's like now, you know, it's like, hey, I got too many people in the building. I'm like,
Scott Schimmel (16:20)
Double checking, yeah.
Interesting, interesting.
Yeah.
Right.
Joe Black (16:43)
You know, when I was new, I was like, cool, man, more people, we're gonna crush more work. And they're like, no, man, we're gonna lose money. Like, we got to get them out of here. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, that's different. So, you know, it's just like managing headcount, managing this, know, managing the friction that happens every day. But it's just a lot of double checking the initial check, you know, and it's a lot of late night, you know, not, not.
Scott Schimmel (16:47)
Yeah. Oh, never thought about that.
Yeah
Yeah, yeah.
Joe Black (17:10)
I say late night text, they don't expect an answer, but it's just a lot of like coming into work with already a string of Slack messages about what to do for the day, what to expect. It's just like, hey man, you don't have to send that to me. Like I'm gonna come in switched on. I need you to trust me. I get it, you know, when you're brand new, right? You have to earn that trust. I understand that. But now I'm a year in, it's like, hey man, I'm running the best team in this building. You know, there's four teams.
Scott Schimmel (17:16)
Yeah. ⁓
you
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Black (17:39)
And I don't mean that to brag, it just, hey, from an operational metrics standpoint, it speaks for itself. So I just need you just focus on some other problems and let me just do my thing. Let me be Joe Black and, and we're going to make you look good. You know, man, just trust me.
Scott Schimmel (17:47)
Yeah.
Is that you? Is that your military? Are you speaking on behalf of military culture? Because I think that's really fascinating, like what you're saying. Is that, almost like if you imagine an audience of other corporate leaders, are you saying, one thing you gotta understand about us is we'll get stuff done.
Joe Black (18:03)
I think so. Yeah.
Yeah, I had a great conversation yesterday actually at work with my counterparts. So there's two kind of senior ops guys or girls, you know, on a, on a team and we're running different departments. We work together, right? It's all a connected system, but I was talking to him. I was back in his department and we were trying to solve a problem. And he said, Hey man, did you, did you run it by the GM? I said, Hey, I was like, Hey Dennis, this is what we need to do, man. We're going to do this right now. I'm going to go execute. I just need you to be ready. And he said, well, Hey, we need to, we need to run that by the.
the GM. said, no, man, it's like, it's already happening. I said, no, we're going to execute. And I'll just keep them abreast of the situation. Right. And he was like, well, he I don't know if we're allowed to do that. I said, so, so these are concrete, right. So what I, what I've learned, you know, what I've experienced in Amazon is, you know, I've run across a couple of other military guys actually, actually linked up with a retired Navy SEAL.
Scott Schimmel (18:48)
Yeah.
Yeah
Yeah.
Joe Black (19:15)
in Seattle, we went to a little corporate training thing and he's, he works at a site in Virginia and we were talking about this. We have the same mindset, right? It's the him and show up. I understand my boss's intent. Like I've got the objective for the day and I'm going to crush it and I'm going to, I'm going to solve problems. I'm going to manage friction. I'm going to anticipate risk, right? That's something I'm talking to my younger managers about us. Hey, it's not super helpful to come to a sink meeting.
and just tell me of all the things that are happening bad that are preventing you. It's like, hey man, need you to, what, like talk to me about risk. Like what are you seeing? What may happen in the future that has not happened based on what's going on right now? And then let's talk about how we solve that problem or how we put in mitigating measures, right, to eliminate that before it kind of, it bites us. But what I've noticed is,
My other counterparts that are not from the military community, there's just like almost this hesitancy of I'm a little bit anxious about making a decision that I may feel is above my pay grade. I think, I would say this to be factual, my counterpart, like he appreciates the over communication from our GM, right?
He wants all the things, right? Tell me what to do. need to, you know, give me all the goals and I'm going to escalate every problem to him. And he's going to tell me exactly what needs to happen to fix it. I'm like, no, man. I'm like, I got five problems going on and he doesn't know about four of them. You know, maybe there's one that I can't handle at my level. So I'm like, Hey man, I'm coming to you because I literally, I'm just out of schlitz. Like I don't, you know, I need your help actually. ⁓ but no, it's just.
Scott Schimmel (20:42)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Where does that
come from in the military? I'm just a regular old civilian. Like, when did that get rooted in you? I just call that ownership or I don't know how you would call it.
Joe Black (21:15)
early. Right, like early.
You know, I remember, I remember showing up to the hundred and first in 2004 as a scout platoon leader. And and half the division was already in Iraq. You know, we were about to go to Iraq. We had about a seven month train up and it's like, we're going to Baghdad. Here's your scout platoon. It's like 40 dudes, you know, and they're like, you got to get them ready. Like we're going to combat.
And my company commander, you know, was, he's, he's one of my mentors and we're still in touch today. I mean, I love this guy. You know, he, he sat me down early on. He's like, Hey man, I'm going to give you the tools to be successful. And we're to train really hard. But at the end of the day, when you're on a combat patrol with, with your scalpel team, like you got it, man. Like I can't be there, you know, I can't be there to provide oversight or.
or to give you all the answers, like we may be separated, right? And I have to be able to trust you that you're going to accomplish the mission. ⁓ So it was kind of a two-way street to me. realized that I had to not only earn trust from my superiors, right? My company commander, my battalion commander, but I had to build trust with my guys. I mean, I had to establish a sense of trust with the 45 guys that were in my scalpel to you. And we had to have this mutual respect for each other that, hey,
we're going to do some things and some, we're going to, we're going to make some hard decisions and bad things may happen, right? We can't, we can't eliminate all bad things. It's how do we overcome that? How do we anticipate and move forward? Right. And so, I mean, again, I was like 23 years old, right? You know, so it's just like being handed the keys to a Ferrari like, man, don't wreck it. Right. Like don't, don't wreck it. You know, here's a brand new thing. ⁓
Scott Schimmel (22:55)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, yeah, life or death,
Joe Black (23:07)
I'm trusting you with human life, right? mean, like, just like I talk about, you know, all my employees at Amazon have stories, man, I miss that about the military, you know, whether it's late night sitting in a Humvee or doing some long patrol. And, you know, I just got, call them kids, man. I mean, that's probably disrespectful, but I got 18 year old guy, you know, he's from Wisconsin. He's my RTO and my radio operator. And he's a big hunter, you know, and he's just telling me.
was walking around Baghdad and he's telling me, like, man, sir, he's like, I can't wait to get back home. I'm gonna go mule deer hunting. He's telling me about his mom and his dad. You know, I mean, it was just like, so it feels the same, right? I mean, it just, but I think early on, you know, early on there was just this, it was rooted in me that, hey, I'm in the big leagues now. You know, I'm getting paid to make decisions and some of them are really hard decisions and some of them are life and death decisions.
And that went on for 21 years in the military. And so now, now it's awesome. Scott, I'm sitting at Amazon and a lot of my counterparts are getting super stressed out. like, some of my managers, some of my young managers, they're getting stressed out. maybe they had, one of them told me two days ago, they had to brief the GM on something as a project they're working on. And... ⁓
Scott Schimmel (24:10)
Now you're looking at cardboard boxes on a computer.
Yeah
huh.
Joe Black (24:31)
You know, she was telling me, she's like, Joe, I'm super nervous about this. Like I can't sleep. I'm, I said, look, I said, Hey, look, I'm going tell you what a general told me a long time ago. Hey, there's a lot of things in life to be nervous about, but a brief isn't one of them, you know, like, and, but, it's, you know, I think what helped me with 21 years in the military and making life, being in very, very cool, but very tough demanding places, environments.
Scott Schimmel (24:44)
Yeah
Joe Black (24:55)
is the operating environment is not scary at Amazon. At the end of the day, Scott, it's cardboard boxes on a conveyor belt. And either we're gonna push out three million a week, or I'm just gonna bridge it to my boss and say, hey, you know, we didn't hit the metrics for the day, and this is what happened. And then there's a sense of ownership too, right? Like, if I make a decision and we miss, you know,
Scott Schimmel (25:01)
Yeah.
Joe Black (25:23)
because of something I either failed to do or a decision that I did that proved to not be the best decision, then I own it, right? It's a sense of ownership. I just tell my boss, it's on me, man. I don't blame my managers. I don't blame the equipment. I just say, hey James, like we missed and I own it. You I made this decision, it didn't work out. We'll correct it. You know, you can expect that you will never see that miss again. ⁓ But yeah, it's just like, I'm not stressed out going to work.
Scott Schimmel (25:29)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Black (25:51)
Amazon can definitely be a stressful place because it's just really fast, right? And it never stops. It's 24 seven 365 days a year never stops and and it can't stop because they have same day delivery, right? I mean, it's I mean, when a company promises right, hey, I'm gonna you can order that, you know, your Bluetooth meat thermometer at 9am and it's going to be in your driveway by noon because you got to cook out that night like they got a grind, man. So
Scott Schimmel (26:05)
Alright. Whoops. So true.
Joe Black (26:20)
But it's just like, I'm able to put it in perspective, right? It's like, hey man, this is just a job. And I don't actually know that this is my sense of purpose, right? For me, Scott, my sense of purpose was being in the military. I knew from probably when I was like early high school, I think about 10th grade that, hey, I'm going in the military, like I'm doing this. ⁓ And I was super committed to it and I loved it. And I used to think for a long time, man, I'm never getting out of the military. I would be 40 years if they let me. But then life happens, right? You have family and you're like,
Scott Schimmel (26:25)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Black (26:50)
We ought to figure this out. But yeah, it's just like manage stress and, you know, and, the trust and everything that was established early on, you know, as a young 23, 24 year old lieutenant. And then that just grows over a 21 year career. So now my, I think my task is to kind of coach and mentor and impart some of that wisdom onto my young managers, right? They're, they're not going to be in Afghanistan leading the combat patrol.
But they can take away some lessons learned from that, right? I mean, there's methods that they can apply to like, hey, let's manage stress, right? Let's talk about, you know, hey, you feel like you're overwhelmed with all these tasks because you're doing them in an inefficient way, right? We can couple some of these tasks together. Right? In the military, we did lots of things that were like simultaneous, right? It's like combined arms, right? It's multiple things happening at once to overwhelm the enemy. Well, I'm like, hey,
Scott Schimmel (27:29)
Yeah, yeah.
Joe Black (27:49)
Abby, like that's what we need to do at Amazon. We need to figure out how we pair up a lot of things. I'm multitasking. It's just how do we become super efficient? Because Amazon asks us to do a lot of things every day. How do we put these things together and accomplish multiple tasks in kind of one action, right? And it's like, by the way, you just gotta breathe. Like you just gotta exhale.
Scott Schimmel (28:12)
What's your best advice for someone who's hiring a veteran?
Joe Black (28:17)
I would tell you, I think there's pure gold in hiring. I think these companies need to tap into, you know, the Vector Accelerator, the Honor Foundation. When I think, you know, when you're hiring a veteran, you're hiring a man or woman who is super committed, who has a sense of purpose that is, that I would say is peerless, right? It's unmatched. ⁓ A commitment to the team. You know, they, they've been in a tribe, right? And, and
They trust their brothers and sisters. They're going to give everything they got. And I don't think that stops, right? I don't think, you know, we may say like, Hey, I want to power it down now. You know, I don't want to be as, I don't want a red line every day. Like maybe I was doing on, on the teams, but Scott, I'm telling you when you, see veterans in the workforce, right? I have some that work with me. I've worked with some when I did a fellowship with JP Morgan there.
there is a sense of commitment to the organization that almost comes instant for them. I think when I first showed up to Amazon, it's like, hey man, I'm all in. I'm gonna show up and I have a lot of stuff to learn. I don't understand the business language. I don't understand all the tools and systems that Amazon's using, but you're get the best version of Joe Black every day when I walk through that door. I'm gonna be switched on and focused. And I just think it's...
Scott Schimmel (29:40)
That's cool.
Joe Black (29:42)
And it's a sense of pride, right? I mean, in the military, we want to win, right? Cause winning is life and death. So I just think we carry that over to a degree of, again, I just think when a company hires a veteran, you are getting someone who is laser focused and who's been through some very hard challenges that your company's probably not going to present that level of a challenge to them. So they're going to be able to overcome a lot and they're going to be, they're going to be an asset like from day one.
Scott Schimmel (30:09)
Yeah, that fires me up. Joe, you're like model alum or alumni of THF and so thankful. I mean, I feel like I'm just like picking your brain about leadership and culture and how that translates. So I don't know, it's been super fascinating conversation for me. I've been taking notes too. And thanks for your supportive vector. I hope we can, I hope we can like, you know, link arms.
Joe Black (30:16)
Yeah.
Yeah, you bet, Scott. This was an honor for me. Like you have no idea. Like I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I was telling my wife about it this morning. She's a school teacher. And so I'm just like, dude, I'm so fired up for this. And, you know, I was talking to a buddy yesterday. mean, again, I'm doing network calls, cups of coffee. You can, I promise you, Scott, I will be forever a fan of Vector Accelerator, the Honor Foundation.
Scott Schimmel (30:39)
And yeah.
sweet.
Yeah.
Joe Black (31:05)
I'm gonna highlight you guys every chance I get, man. What you guys are doing is invaluable to our tribe and I am big time indebted to you, man, big time.
