May 8, 2019
Whenever I think I have a plate that is completely full, I have a guest like Otis “Hoop” Hooper on my #MakeYourMark podcast to remind me how accomplished some people can truly be! Hoop not only has served our country for almost 20 years as a pilot, but has some many other accomplishments under his belt, and wait until you hear about being on American Ninja Warrior! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg...
I had no desire to be a pilot, but what I did enjoy was leading and inspiring others, affecting change. So while I was there over the 4 years we listened to many different leaders, learned about the military history, and what I observed was those in the Air Force who would affect change the most were the leaders of the organizations, they were pilots, so I figured out that for me the fastest way to affect change and to lead was to be a pilot, and so that’s why I decided to become a pilot.
What really stands out about Hoop in my mind is his ability to focus, to put a beacon on what he wants to achieve, and once he’s set his mind to it, it gets done. Just imagine not wanting to necessarily become a USAF pilot, but doing so in order to lead. Think about how hard it is to swim with 3000 other swimmers starting an Ironman Triathlon, and hear how Hoop got through it.
While I was deployed I had my first son in 2003, and so during that period I realized I was not the kind of father I wanted to be, just absent all the time, so I decided to make a shift from active duty to National Guard, I didn’t know anything about the guard, it was on of the best kept secrets in the military, so I started talking to some guard guys and they explained me how it works. I found a Guard Unit in D.C. that also flew airplanes, had a similar mision, so I transferred and applied for an instructed pilot position. They had a VIP mission, so I started doing that and I really enjoyed it, and starting in 2005 I flew those for 12 years.
Hoop and I covered a ton of ground, and offer up advice not just for servicemembers looking to transition into civilian life, but for anyone who feel like they’re in a bit of a rut. Give this episode a good listen, Hoop truly impresses!
Recruiting command was out in San Antonio, Texas, and they were specifically trying to increase the African-American representation at pilot training, because the statistics are not good, including women as well. So they asked me to come on board and target specific conventions, different seminars and to help the process, and the ones who were interested in flying to get into the program.
You’ve trained for this moment, just trust your training, and I got through it. I think a lot of those things can apply to military. We trained for a long time, and doing what we’ve done, it is just about translating the skills that we have into where we are today, and just taking the first step. Once you start doing that process and get into the rhythm, you just go for it. So for me the event itself was not the hard part, it was getting in my own head.
Afterburner is a group of what we call elite military professionals, Air Force Pilots, Navy Seals, Army Rangers, VIP pilots as myself, and what we do is we go and talk to both big and small businesses, and we just talk about the process that we use in the military to accomplish a mission. It is not complicated, but we explain how we plan in the military, how we brief the plan, we’re going to execute and most importantly at the end of that we debrief, and we debrief for the process and the purpose of accelerating future performance, and we repeat that cycle. And we talk to businesses about the importance of doing those steps in that order, to do it efficiently.
Some Topics we talk about in this episode:
- Introduction - 02:23
- Born and raised in Virginia - 05:58
- Living in a Karate School - 6:20
- Leading, inspiring and affecting change - 8:08
- The hard task of refuelling - 12:53
- Being part of the 09/11 afterwards - 15:28
- Transition into Instructoring - 16:03
- Flying for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - 18:25
- Increasing African-American representation - 21:15
- The Challenge of Recruitment - 22:30
- Serving the Country through the Military Life - 24:43
- Being part of American Ninja Warrior - 26:00
- Watching behind the scenes 29:53
- The Ironman - 31:21
- Training hard to execute well - 35:28
- Beating the time - 37:68
- Afterburners league - 40:44
- Incorporating personal story into the speech - 44:21
- Sky rocking it - 45:26
- Mastering Yourself in Acting 48:31
- Wrap-up and Takeaways - 51:20
How to get involved
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- If you’re looking for ways to Make Your Mark, send me an email Mark@MarkMoyer.com and I’ll get you going right away.
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