109: The Frequency of Excellence: How Great Leaders Tune In W/ Scott Millson

If you want to lead with humility, confidence, and real influence in a distracted world, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss. Sean Patton sits down with Scott Millson — former U.S. Navy Petty Officer, executive leader, and author of Frequency of Excellence — to explore why leadership breaks down when attention fades, how ego quietly erodes trust, and why the smallest behaviors reveal the real standard you’re setting as a leader. 

From folding underwear in Navy boot camp to leading high-performing organizations, Scott shares timeless lessons on presence, growth mindset, humility, and human-centered leadership — and how leaders can build cultures that consistently perform at a higher frequency.  

⏱ Episode Timestamps 

00:00 – Why excellence isn’t about doing more — it’s about paying attention
00:42 – Scott Millson’s leadership journey: Navy, executive life, and beyond
02:09 – Joining the Navy and early lessons in discipline and perseverance
04:01 – “How you do anything is how you do everything”
06:17 – The power of presence and curiosity as a leader
08:15 – Growth mindset in a distracted, fast-moving world
10:58 – Reflection, pausing, and encoding lessons for long-term growth
12:28 – Capturing insights: journaling, notes, and learning systems
14:30 – Being intentional about who you surround yourself with
16:55 – Failure, humility, and learning the hard way
21:02 – Growth mindset vs ego at senior leadership levels
23:07 – Leadership lessons from the USS Benfold turnaround
26:11 – Trust, respect, and why leaders must give it first
30:03 – Why culture is the shadow of leadership
33:54 – The organization’s role in leader development
35:59 – Management vs leadership: tasks vs people
38:55 – Calm, optimism, and leadership as a force multiplier
42:00 – Where to find Scott and learn more  

Scott Millson is a former U.S. Navy Petty Officer, seasoned executive, keynote speaker, and author of Frequency of Excellence: Tuning Into the Everyday Excellence of Life and Leadership. After decades in leadership roles across industries, Scott now dedicates his work to helping leaders grow with humility, confidence, and intentionality — focusing on presence, relationships, and continuous learning.  

📘 Featured Book 

Frequency of Excellence: Tuning Into the Everyday Excellence of Life and Leadership
🔗 https://scottmillson.com
 

🔗 Connect with Scott Millson 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-millson/
  
  

Interested in exploring a thrilling vision for your life with me or another Novus Global Coach? Go to www.nolimitleaders.com/vision to apply.

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
If you want to lead with humility, confidence, and real influence in a distracted world, this is a conversation you don't want to miss. Most leaders think excellence is just about doing more. This episode will challenge that. Today I sit down with Scott Millson, former Navy Petty Officer, executive, and author of Frequency of Excellence, to talk about why leadership breaks down when we stop paying attention, how ego quietly kills trust, and why the smallest behaviors reveal the real standard you're setting.

Sean Patton (00:42)
Welcome to No Limit Leadership Podcast. am your host, Sean Patton, I'm excited today to have Scott Milson with me. He is a mostly retired executive who has dedicated the second half of his career to helping people find their frequency of excellence and grow their careers. He's held many titles along the way, including founder, president, partner, owner, chief operating officer. And before all those, petty officer, second class in the U S Navy. Scott has worked with and for world-class organizations and leaders.

Now as an author, keynote speaker and dedicated encourager, he spends his days helping others tune into the everyday, but not always obvious crucial lessons of life and leadership. And his first book, Frequency of Excellence, tuning into everyday excellence of life and leadership was just published last fall. Scott, thanks for being here, man.

Scott Millson (01:25)
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Sean Patton (01:27)
Yeah, every once in we gotta let Navy people on, just to not let it get too skewed.

Scott Millson (01:30)
I noticed you said that was really hard to get out there, but I do

appreciate it.

Sean Patton (01:35)
This is slow beat of the US Navy. Yeah, no, you it's all right. Yeah, like I said, you guys beat us in Army-Navy game this year, but you know, all brothers.

Scott Millson (01:43)
Yeah, there'll be no mention of that. Yeah. I'll

let you mention it. I won't say it, but yeah.

Sean Patton (01:49)
Man. well, you know, one of the things that was so interesting in our like prep conversation was obviously you've had all this success in, in business and leadership, you know, throughout your career. we talked about like the early lessons of joining the Navy and, you're kind of interesting story about how you, how you ended up in the Navy. So how would you end up in the U S Navy?

Scott Millson (02:09)
Yeah. So I come from a long line of Academy grads. I'd share with you that I've got three generations, my great, great grandfather, great, great grandfather and grandfather all buried on the grounds on the yard in the U S Naval Academy. So I, you know, I come from a long line of that started heading down the path of applying for that. Um, found out I could do a simpler application and get accepted in the university of Florida and took the easier path. So I went to Florida.

⁓ but my parents had a deal with me that I was going to pay for half of my college. And so I got about midway through my freshman year and realized I wasn't going to have the funds to be able to fund this. my dad, my dad loved to talk in acronyms. And so I went home that Christmas and told him my plight. he said, TS very simply TS. And it was tough. And I'll let you figure out the S and, I got it. got it. I got a call from a Naval recruiter, shortly after that. And, ⁓ he offered, threw me a lifeline.

I said that there was a new program that was available that it would allow me to go to bootcamp at a Navy school between freshmen and sophomore years of college and then return back to school and they would help pay for it. So it was a tremendous experience. I would love to say that it was part of an overall strategy, but it was a very defensive maneuver on my part to, uh, to help make ends meet. But it was a tremendous experience, you know, uh, for me to be able to, enter into the Navy at age 18 and, really kind of learn, you know, discipline and hard work and.

perseverance. so those things were kind of drilled into me at an early age. And yes, it was tremendous experience.

Sean Patton (03:33)
You know, you told you, we were kind of shooting it back and forth about military stuff and you brought up your basic training underwear story. And I actually used that in a training I did with a client later that week. And I always get that question about, know, people asking about, they really, they really measure like you, how you felt folded your underwear? I'm like, yeah, yeah, they did. But you've had an interesting experience about like,

Scott Millson (03:44)
Thank

Eighth of an inch. Eighth of an inch.

Sean Patton (04:01)
question why that happened and ⁓ had a comment from your commanding officer. I think that might be relevant.

Scott Millson (04:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, so was it was a tremendous experience. So it was about second week beginning a second week of boot camp. And you know, you've been trained on everything Navy, right? I'm marching in formation. I'm learning how to shine my boots. I'm learning how to do all these various things. And all of that was expected. Like I got that. But it was beginning that second week, we were handed a binder and we were told we were going to be told how to fold our clothes. And I thought, this is over the top controlling like this is nuts. And then we got into our underwear and we're folding our skivvies and down to

an eighth of an inch and we literally were handed rulers. And again, I was just annoyed by this. I was just at all this static in my head of just like, this is stupid. This is crazy. And but you go through the exercise as you need to. And at the end of it, though, I was I was curious. And so I looked up at our company commander and I said, Chief, why does Uncle Sam care how we film underwear? And he looked me dead in the eye. I'll never forget it. And he said, how you do anything is how you do everything.

And I was 18 years old. I'm like, chief, I don't know what that means. Like, you know, explain that to me. He basically said, he's like, look, when you go out into the fleet, he said, you're at some point, you're going to be asked to pre flight a naval aircraft. And he said, if you half asked that, that naval aircraft pre flight lives are going to be endangered. Like literally tens of millions of dollars are going to be, you know, at stake. And that's person you're sending up there with a pre flight that said everything was, was done well. That

Sean Patton (05:01)
Yeah

Scott Millson (05:23)
it's a husband, it's a father, it's a mother, it's a daughter of somebody that's going up there. And he said, so anything you do, you have to do to the best of your ability. And so in that moment, two things I think kind of I got from that lesson. The first was that the lesson of how you do anything is how you do everything. And anybody I've ever led, including my children, they got tired of me saying, how you do anything is how you do everything. You practice like you're going to play. But the second thing that really kind of shown through to me was to be present.

You know, again, I could have been annoyed by that and just been like, this is stupid. This is kind of crazy over the top controlling. But instead I was really, I was present with our company commander and was leaning in on what he was trying to teach us. And I was curious. And so I asked those follow up questions to help me better understand what he was talking about. And those became a cornerstone for my career that I needed to be present. I was going to have to be curious with people. And that really kind of served me incredibly well.

Sean Patton (06:17)
I love the fact you brought up being present. think there's so much more to that. And then also I love the perspective. A lot of times we talk about uncoaching, like the lens we choose to put on in a situation, right? Like it's not the thing that happens to you, it's how you respond to it. you go this, there's like so many analogies and different philosophies on why that's important. And so, through my experience in the military too, especially in the infantry and Rangers Corps and all that stuff, it's like, would it,

Scott Millson (06:28)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (06:43)
What it really taught you is to sort of pull yourself out of that, like the suffering and out of like the, the, was going on in the moment and ask that like bigger question, like, okay, how could this be for me? Like, what am I going to get out of this? And, and how do we pull that into our work environment as leaders?

Scott Millson (06:55)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. And so that is, know, the nature of my book, not to jump ahead to that, because we'll come to that at some point. But the nature of my book is called Frequency of Excellence. And that is exactly kind of what I was aiming to do there is I knew I had to be tuned in because there was an opportunity to learn and grow and develop in every moment. Right. It's out there. The opportunity to learn and grow and develop is surrounds us on a daily basis. But you got to be tuned into the frequency in order to pick up on it. And for me, that tuner was being present. And when I was

present with somebody being curious because I could learn in every one of those situations and how I was going to grow and develop from a trial from a learning that somebody was trying to maybe not even teach me they were just doing something to the best of their ability and I picked up on it and I learned something from that so I you just got to be tuned in to be able to hit those.

Sean Patton (07:49)
I love that. When you say you've been able to work on being president in that moment, I think that's something a lot of us, and I say a lot of us, I know I struggle with, I'll speak in the first person, right? I struggle with that. It's a constant battle for me. And there's so many distractions going on now. And there's so much expected of us in the workplace, in the home and everywhere. so what's your tools? Is there a framework? it an awareness thing in order for us, like how do we know?

Scott Millson (08:06)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (08:15)
or catch ourselves if we're not being present. Like, how do we pull ourselves back?

Scott Millson (08:18)
Yeah.

Well, it's hard today. mean, right. I mean, we've got this device that's sitting never further than a few, few inches from our fingertips and that thing's buzzing and beeping and going off and constantly drawing our attention away from the things that really are in front of us that we should be paying attention to that could teach us. And so for me, it was always a growth mindset, you know, and a growth mindset was popularized by Dr. Carol Dweck back in the late eighties, nineties, ⁓ timeframe.

And the idea there was that your abilities and your intellect can be developed through hard work, a love of learning and dedication. Like if you focus on that, you've got a desire to want to learn. And look, I knew early on in my life, I was never going to be the smartest person in the room, but I knew that I could outwork people and I could out learn people. And kind of that became my superpower. And so my ability to try to be present in those moments.

And it really at the root of it is that growth mindset because I knew that if I was interacting with somebody, they were going to teach me something. And so I just had to be smart enough to kind of lean in on what they were saying. And I didn't want to miss those opportunities. I don't want to miss that opportunity for chief Burroughs to tell me how you do anything is how you do everything. Look, there were 83 other shipmates in that room at that time. I will bet 83 other people walked out of there without that life lesson.

And here I am 40 some odd years later talking about that because it was a, it was a critical part of my, development as a person and as a leader to be able to hear that message. so again, I think I just went into things looking at it and saying, what is, what is the, that growth mindset? And I have developed kind of a framework that I use now for that. And there were, there were five B statements, kind of B, know, action statements we can do. And that one is to, know, to be intentional.

to surround yourself with people that are going to lift you up. It's the old iron sharpens iron. You you can't fly with the sword with the Eagles. If you're to run with turkeys, all those various adages. And so, you know, I needed to be intentional about the people I was going to surround myself with. I needed to be present with them when I am around those people that are going to hopefully lift me up. I need to be curious with them. So if they're going to say something or do something, I need to be curious and try to draw that out of them and ask questions as to what that is.

Fourth one is being bold and so learning from your failures, you know, cause you learn as much and sometimes more from the failures that happen in life than the successes. ⁓ and the last one is to be reflective. And so to constantly have this as a, you know, kind of a cycle that you run through to make sure that you're reflecting because even if you see something great, if you don't take the time to pause and allow it to kind of in your hippocampus shift from that short term to longterm and allow that to kind of happen.

you'll miss the opportunity to kind of be able to use that and leverage it later.

Sean Patton (10:58)
Hmm.

I'm really interested on the reflective part and shifting it over. What are some systems or how do people ⁓ put that into practice in a world that's moving so fast?

Scott Millson (11:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's the power of the pause. You know, it's kind of an overused term, but you know, to take that moment to pause when you when you witness somebody doing something that is exceptional, you know, it's kind of like this is going to sound silly. But like when you watch something like you watch a beautiful sunset, you're kind of speechless for a bit, right? And you remember what that looked like. It's kind of gets in your brain because you take that moment to just pause and and really kind of reflect on it.

and allow it to of wash over you. And so when I witness somebody that does something, I will take that opportunity to be, you know, to be quiet for a bit, to pause and to allow that to kind of seep in. Um, because if I'm just moving on to the next thing, right, if I just go, well, that was great. Boom. What's the next thing I got to do? I've missed the opportunity to really allow that to kind of encode in my brain. And so you got to take that moment to pause and really take that opportunity to reflect and leverage it so that you can leverage it downstream.

Sean Patton (12:02)
I love that moment of pause. for me, what I found is a moment of recording. you know, like if I can find a way to, I always have, maybe this is my time in the military, always have a pen and something to write with. So I still have that, like you said, we always have our iPhone in our pockets, but having like, I have a notes folder too.

Scott Millson (12:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (12:28)
Uh, and I got from, I think it was in our podcast, I guess around like having a spark file or is coming called spark file. they were from there anyway, but it's like these ideas, they come to me and, if something good, I was like finding a place to immediately capture. we're not like relying on this distractible, you know, microprocessor in a head that's always looking at the next thing. Um, and so yeah, I think that's an, that's an important.

Scott Millson (12:36)
Yes.

100%.

Sean Patton (12:54)
especially for leaders as we get busier and you're a part of bigger organizations, is like, where are you tracking and recording?

Scott Millson (13:01)
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I'm a, I'm a big fan of the, the binder as well. So I've sit here with it, not too far from me. I've got my, my notepad here that if it, that I constantly am updating, I do use notes within my phone that if I'm with somebody and I see something, I'll make myself a note. If I'm driving somewhere and I'm doing some thinking, or I hear something in a podcast, I will ask Siri to save me a note. And so you get, you gotta find

Sean Patton (13:03)
Peace out.

Scott Millson (13:27)
whatever that mechanism is that you use to be able to capture it. I think pausing to be able to think that was good. I want to remember that now let me store it because it, if I don't, I might lose it. I think that's all part of that encoding process. so whatever your mechanism is, whatever your processes, your system is just take that time to pause, take that opportunity to jot it down. Whether if you're a kinesthetic learner, write it down, right? If you're an auditory person,

say it out loud so that it kind of stores in your brain, whatever it is, just allow that to kind of seep in and really kind of, you know, get getting coded in the brain, because you're to want to use it down the line. Like I remember the other day, I was listening to a great podcast. I'm a big Simon Sinek fan. And I was listening to a Simon podcast, and something they said resonated. And I hit the pause button on that, told Siri make a note of that because I wanted to be able to reflect on that later because I

It was gold and I wanted to be able to use that.

Sean Patton (14:23)
I love that. And that's great. You on the, said be intentional. And then you specifically mentioned about being intentional about the people you surround yourself with. Can you tell me more about that?

Scott Millson (14:30)
Yeah.

Yeah. So, out of the Navy, I was fortunate to work for a global consulting company that was incredibly well respected and just some of the best leaders, communicators, consultants that I've ever had the opportunity to work with or ever probably will ever work with in my life. And I was fortunate to be able to have that opportunity to be dropped into that right out of college. You know, so I had, that's where I, my first professional job, if you will, beyond the Navy.

⁓ and it was true. was formative for me. And so, but I not only appreciated that I was surrounded by this excellence, but I sought out people. So if I saw somebody do something or somebody that I respected or admired, I signed up for that project. I went out of my way to say, I want to be on that project. Let me go beyond that because I want to surround myself with that person because there's a boatload of things that I can get from them. I remember one in particular, I had.

It was a partnership. this was a, was the company ultimately went public, but it was a partnership and I was very focused on becoming a partner by my 10th year. And I was fortunate to be able to become a partner right at the end of my ninth year. And at the very first partner meeting I go to a man who I had the utmost respect for was kind of the. Obstensibly the president of the business unit that I was in.

pulled me aside and he said, Hey, we're going to be doing a spinoff here. We're to talk about it tomorrow in the, in the partner meeting, but I'd love for you to come and be a part of this, but you're going to have to give up your partnership that I had just worked my tail off for. And so it was a real, should have been a really difficult decision for me, but I jumped at the opportunity because I was like, if I get to work with you, the president of that unit, plus the other 10 people that he was pulling over to go with them.

I'm like, I have nowhere to go but up. I'm to be on the bottom rung of that ladder, right? mean, these were some of the best of the best of the best people that were in this organization. And my opportunity to go and jump to do that. I didn't hesitate. I did it. know, ultimately, ultimately didn't work out. We got folded back in because the spin-off didn't work as well as we had hoped. But those two to three years that I had of working with those people, I wouldn't trade that for anything. So I was quite intentional.

to go and do that, to give up my partnership that I just fought my tail off for, to give that up so I could go be a part of that organization and work with those other people. That was really kind of a great example for me of just, was highly intentional about the people with whom I surrounded myself.

Sean Patton (16:55)
⁓ Man, that's so good. the, what's coming up for me actually is like a really, you know, I'm reflecting back on my transition out of the military and.

Obviously when I was in the military, especially my last few jobs, when I was in army special forces groups surrounded by green berets, like just, you know, the greatest human beings on the planet, right? Like so, and, and, and I recognized how amazing that was in that moment. But I think if I'm being completely honest and vulnerable, underestimated the power of that. Cause when I look back, you know,

Scott Millson (17:16)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (17:27)
thinking shoulda, woulda, coulda, and sort of hindsight 50-50, doing something like you did, like respecting it and be like, I wanna work with other great people. You found a great organization, you aligned with them. I got out and took how to learn the hard lesson the other way of like, I'm gonna do it all myself. I was like, I'm gonna go be an entrepreneur. I'm gonna start my own. I've done all this stuff. I'm just gonna go out by myself and through failure there and having to...

Scott Millson (17:46)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (17:51)
learn a little humility ⁓ and, know, in this new arena of business, and then realizing how important it is to have the team, like how important it is of who you surround yourself with. And man, if you go tackle anything big, hard and long, big that, anything that almost that's worth tackling life-wise all on your own,

Scott Millson (17:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (18:14)
you're setting yourself up for failure and unnecessary suffering and less joy, I think.

Scott Millson (18:21)
Yeah. But you know, with the beauty of what you said there, though, is that you learn from it, right? I mean, we all are to make our mistakes. Yours may have been on a bigger scale or on a different scale, but we all make our mistakes and we learn from them. And it's, know, those scars that go untended to that don't heal or the the wounds, I should say, that that don't heal and don't form a scar. That's problematic. But when they form a scar, that scar just serves as a reminder for us that that was a bad period.

Something didn't go the way I'd I wanted it to go, but I learned from it. And guess what? I'm not going to do that again. Right. So, I mean, you know, I think those, those challenges in our lives, those, situations that we have, I think ultimately while difficult when you're in the midst of them serve as a catalyst for us to make sure that we don't repeat, know, history doesn't repeat itself and that we can learn from that. And we're better as a result of it. You know, my biggest failures came on some big stages, you know, that, partnership.

I left the partnership to go do a spinoff. We failed. It got folded back in. it was, and thankfully the partnership, I was able to get some of that restored, but I lost a couple of years there that was difficult. But I never view that thing as a failure by any stretch of the imagination because good came from it. Like I got really good stuff and you're now successful in what you're doing today.

You may not be at the place you are today without having that initial failure of trying to do it and bootstrapping yourself and I can do this on my own. You might be in a better place today as a result of that challenge.

Sean Patton (19:49)
guess true and really just highlights your, you know, your last B right. It'd be reflective because to your point you can go through and get scars or get, wounds, but, without reflection and learning, then they just, they just stay open wounds and they start impacting. I know for me on the decisions I'm making.

Scott Millson (20:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (20:07)
subconsciously, right? It's still influencing you. It's still impacting you, but not from a, as a productive place or like an intense, because you're not, you haven't done the work to look back on what were those lessons learned and how am I going to apply those in the future? So yeah, it just comes back to your point of like making space for reflection, I think.

Scott Millson (20:26)
Yeah, you've got to have that time to reflect. Otherwise, you know, again, that that it's kind of like, you know, you've got to have that wound, you got to let air get to it to be able to create that scar to heal that thing. You've got to give some time to be able to to allow this to the reflection to be able to really get encoded in the brain so you can remember that. And remember the next time you go to reach for the stove, it's hot, don't touch the stove, you know, we learned that as a little kid, you know, and that stove is hot, don't put your hand on it, you do it once you won't do that again, you know, and

Maybe you've got a scar to kind of remind yourself.

Sean Patton (20:55)
What's the mindset leaders need to take if they want to lead with this and live with this growth mindset? They know they're capable of more. They want to learn the lessons or they move forward and they want to see what's next. But while doing that, need to make decisions and need to be decisive and need to lead with confidence. how do you hold those two maybe apparently on its face?

Scott Millson (21:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (21:17)
contradictory ways of being. How do you bring those together to be the leader that you want to be as a person?

Scott Millson (21:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think a growth mindset works in any situation, no matter what, what the stakes are, etc. There's an opportunity to learn and grow. And the moment that you think you got it all figured out. That's when you're going to fail. That's when life's going to come up and just bite you in the rear. Because when you think you got it figured out, you're not looking for anybody else to help you. I, I one of my favorite all time leadership books, sorry, it's a Navy guy. But Captain Mike Abershoff wrote a great book called It's Your Ship.

it actually sits on my my counter over my shoulder here. He took over a ⁓ guided missile destroyer, the USS Benfold in the late 90s. And when he took it over, it was the lowest performing ship in the Pacific fleet, like num, like lowest like zero, like nowhere to go but up. And at the change of the command, he came in and he tells a story in the book that when he was there,

you know, it's a very pomp and circumstance. There was a lot of formality and a lot of ceremonial things. And, literally as the captain left, former captain left the ship, everybody at the top of the ship turned and faced away from him. Like didn't give him any credit and they were, it was just a toxic environment. Captain Abersoft took over the ship realizing that this was a bad performing ship and it was a culture issue. The very first thing he did. So there were quick decisions he could have made. Right. So like he's under a ton of pressure.

You just took over the lowest performing ship. And the very first thing that he did is he met with all 310 sailors, all 310 invited him into the captain's quarters, which as a Navy guy, you never want to be invited into the captain's quarters. That's not usually a good thing. He invited every single person in to kind of just say, Hey, look, I'm with you on this. Tell me what you would do if you were in my shoes. So that's a great deal of humility to turn instead of walking on the ship and going.

I got all the answers, right? Like I figured this out. Instead, he turned it and he said, y'all tell me what would you do if you were in my shoes? And he started getting all this great feedback from everybody who's saying, well, here's what we don't like about this. You know, the food stinks or whatever it is. And he tried to literally solve all those problems just by listening to them and applying those principles of the people on the frontline will always know more about what's going on than you will sitting up in your ivory tower. And so

It was, it was a great example for me that no matter the stakes begin really bad performing ship. And just by doing that, just to give you a punchline of it a year later, it was the number one performing ship in the entire U S Navy, not just the Pacific fleet anymore, the entire Navy one year. He turned it around by turning basically involving everybody in that. And he had a growth mindset to say, I don't have the answers. Y'all do.

answer them for me, like help me figure these things out. And so it turned everything around for them and now they were then the highest performing ship.

Sean Patton (24:07)
Here, I'm answering these, again, seemingly two, what could be considered maybe competing words, but I think great leaders hold together, which is humble confidence. And that's how do you show up with that? How do you show up with humble confidence? And I wonder what you think, sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say the...

Scott Millson (24:18)
No, totally. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, think some of the great go ahead. Sorry.

Sean Patton (24:30)
Humble confidence, you think of that, maybe that's where you're going, but when you think of a leader who embodies both of those things, how do great leaders step up into that place and where do you maybe see people struggle to do that?

Scott Millson (24:45)
Yeah, I think there's three letters that get in our way all the time that don't allow us to have that that humble confidence. And that's our ego. And our ego gets in our way when we think we've got all the answers, right? I've hit a certain level of my position, whether you're president, CEO, CFO, you've got to see next to your name. And you kind of allow that ego to kind of get in your way that I I've achieved what I've achieved because I'm really good at what I do.

And the moment that enters into your brain, you're done. You're done because there will be no humility because you're going to be figuring, you're going enter into conversation saying, I'm here. The person I'm talking to is here. There's nothing they're going to share with me. That's going to change my mind because I've got it all figured out. You're toast. You're toast as a leader. The moment that you kind of let that ego get in the way and saying, I don't have anything to learn.

Then it's just confidence. Then there's no humility. And I think the best leaders, whether it was military or whether it was in private sector, the best leaders I've been around are the humble leaders. Those that say, Hey, look, I don't have all the answers. I don't know is a powerful set of words that you can share as a leader that says, I don't have all the answers. Help me figure it out. Let's do this together. Then you create relationship and trust, right? You know, the best leaders recognize that relationships at the top of

anything that they're doing. Doesn't matter the strategy. Doesn't matter all the various things you're trying to achieve. If you don't have relationship with the people with whom you're trying to lead, period, end of sentence, you're done.

Sean Patton (26:11)
Yeah, I love the relationship. I love the fact you brought up trust. know, another phrase that I love to throw around with different clients, right? Is that trust and respect has to go down in an organization before it'll ever come back up. And that kind of speaks to that captain story you told, right? It started with, I'm going to give you, it sounds, I'm going to give you trust and respect up front. I respect your opinion. I'm trusting your opinion. I'm going to give that to you. And I think a lot of leaders,

Scott Millson (26:22)
Mm-hmm, absolutely.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (26:37)
One, guess expect that to come up before like people, other people have to earn that respect and trust from them instead of, no, it's for you to give away and for them to give away. So I think that's such a huge component of that is, people might ask like, how do you build trust? And you got to give that to them and show up with that humility you mentioned. And I'm wondering,

Scott Millson (26:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (26:59)
As you see leaders do that and they show up, do you think there's certain beliefs they get in people's heads that stop them from thinking that that's weak? Like, know, that I feel like I have to show up knowing that people expect me to know what to do?

Scott Millson (27:11)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's across the board that I've seen it. I've seen it in lots of different organizations. But yeah, I think a leader, when they've hit that certain level and they kind of they enter into conversations or even relationships feeling like, you know, again, there's a hierarchy. I'm here, you're there. It's a it's just a recipe for disaster. And so I think that, you know, as leaders back to your question on respect and trust.

You've got to give in order to receive, right? You can't just ask somebody to trust you. You got to give trust first. You know, if you want somebody to respect you, you got to respect them first. If you want to influence somebody, you need to understand what influences them and allow them to influence you in some way, or form. And again, that's what Captain Abertoff did is, is he could have very easily again, just walked in and said, I'm captain. You're not.

I'm going to bark at you and tell you what needs to get done. And instead he humbled himself again. He said, come into my quarters, know, come into my quarters. Let's meet. Let's talk. The circle back on that. One of the greatest things that he heard is guys were saying, you know, what really bugs me is we got to paint this stinking ship every single month. Every time we pull into a port when we should have some type of a, of a leave and we want to go somewhere, we have to paint this ship. And he said, when he was like, well,

I understand, understand that as the Navy, we have to be looking good. You we got to make sure that we can't have rust everywhere, et cetera. So it has to get done. And they were like, yeah, but you know what? Why did the Navy put Ferris metals on this thing? Because in seawater, Ferris metals are going to rust. And if we use stainless steel, they wouldn't rust and we wouldn't have to paint the stinking ship too frequently. the next time they pulled into port, he ordered from home. Well, first of all, he tried to submit it through the Navy purchasing and procurement, which

That was a disaster. They were telling me he couldn't do all this. So he was like, you know what, but he went to Home Depot, bought us a bunch of stainless steel and they swapped out all the fasteners for ferrous metals with the stainless steel. And guess what? They only had to paint the ship twice that year. Morale goes up and he would never in a million years have come up with that idea on his own, but he humbled himself and said, look, I want you guys to influence me. If I want me, if I want my ability to influence you, once we get out to sea to be high.

I have to allow you to influence me." And they did. And they influenced him and gave him an idea that he never would have come up with on his own.

Sean Patton (29:33)
Wow. I love that. So it's great to model that humility. I imagine as you do that and you ask those questions and you actually act on them or get feedback on them. Cause that's the, think one of the fastest ways to kill the, ⁓ that feedback loop is to be a black hole, right? Where suggestions go and no response ever happens. but when they're really there is, is create this organization that's constantly

Scott Millson (29:42)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sean Patton (29:57)
willing to give input and therefore is sort of embracing growth mindset as an organization is what I'm hearing. Like a learning organization.

Scott Millson (30:03)
Yeah,

totally. And I think one of the best things you can do as a leader too, is to demonstrate that. So if you want an organizational culture to have a growth mindset, the very first thing you have to do as a leader is you have to have a growth mindset. You have to talk openly about it, right? So when you're in front of that town hall or you're leading the next meeting with everybody in your company, tell them and say, hey, look, I listened to a great podcast.

that I was listening to the other day, because I want to get better at certain things. So I listened to a podcast or I read this book because I'm trying to get better as your leader. I'm trying to better myself as a human being. And so I read this great book. And let me tell you a little bit about it. When you do that, you're humanizing yourself that people are seeing you that say, ⁓ that person's on a learning journey. Like they're that person's trying to better themselves. So maybe I also need to be doing some of that. And so

If you want to set that culture of having a growth mindset, you got to talk openly about it. You got to be willing to share that you don't have all the answers that you got that you're willing to kind of change how you do something or that somebody influenced you differently because of something you read or heard or saw. And so you got to model that behavior. And when you do, now you're going to have a culture that embraces that because you yourself are kind of humanize yourself and say,

I don't have all the answers, but I'm going to try my best to get better every single day.

Sean Patton (31:23)
As an organization and you demonstrate that you as a leader, you're getting better. You're learning. You've got a coach. You've got a, you're reading books, you're listening to podcasts and you want to encourage that development side of the company. You know, one thing that is in my world and I'm sure is in yours as well is these companies trying to balance out the time, energy and effort for things like leader development, personal development, professional development.

Scott Millson (31:47)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (31:49)
And what role does like, does the company as a whole play in all of those arenas, right? Like, is that an obligation of an organization? Should it be, what's your take there?

Scott Millson (31:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, so I'll, here, I'll give you an example. Sorry, you're going a little off script here. But so this is an event I attended in 2003. It was a leadership event that was put on by that same company, Hewitt Associates, I talked about earlier. They had these leadership events that they would have throughout the year. And, you know, over a course of a couple of years, we'd have multiple of those. But they wanted that growth mindset for everybody. And so they led with that, like the learning and development

side of that organization. It was critical. Like they wanted to have those types of events that that book that I'm referencing Aberstaff, Captain Mike Aberstaff, I met him at an event that he had put on. So I met him. So he just published that book, I met him an event that he had said, Hey, look, we want to try to develop people. Let's bring this guy in and talk. so we kind of learned from him. And that, that binder that I just brought up, I referenced that thing is 20, what 23 years old.

I reference that thing at least once a month. I pull it out. We met a gentleman that they brought in that wrote a book on Colin Powell, who's one of my absolute heroes, even though he was Army, but just one of my heroes, just one of the greatest leaders I think this country has ever known. But they brought the gentleman in who wrote a book on his leadership secrets. And so I share all that to say...

It is incumbent on an organization to put the emphasis on that and to not just put words around it and say, everybody, we got a goal this year to everybody to have a growth mindset. You got it. You got to walk the talk. so, you you got to put on those types of events, bring in people from the outside that are going to give a different perspective, host a leadership training session, host a, you know, a management training session, a communication session, whatever it is that you want people to get better at.

give them the opportunities to grow and develop, and they will take that advantage, and then they will now pass that along through others as well.

Sean Patton (33:54)
What have you seen work for, besides outside of events, Like, awesome, bring in speakers, do workshops, like 100 % agree with all of that. What does it look like? What have you seen work in terms of organizational structure or standards or regular operating procedures that is able to incorporate developing others in a leader leadership capacity on a regular basis? Like, what have you seen work best?

Scott Millson (34:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting. I would say, I don't know if I've seen one thing work best because again, I'll go back to my first two employers. went with very vertically oriented structure with the Navy. Everything was chain of command. You you didn't spoken less spoken to, right? So very hierarchical, very command and control to a degree. And then I went to Hewitt associates. That was a very horizontal organization. Like literally were probably three levels of the whole organization, the CEOs.

office was the same size as my office, you his business card was the same as my business card. We were encouraged to ask questions and to interact. So I've seen polar opposites of it. And yet I've seen both be successful at the end of the day, I think it's the humility of the leader. think that will drive that. I think it's the focus on relationships that the leader places on that that's going to make that successful or not. So I don't know if it's a

org structure that really will drive it and as it is more about what is the DNA of the leader, because how that leader operates is what's going to be important within that organization. If they put a focus on growth, the organization will put a focus on growth. If they put an emphasis on open communication, the organization will be open communication. So I think it's incumbent on that leader to set the culture in it.

It sometimes drives me crazy when I when I meet a leader and they talk about HR is setting the culture. And I'm like, HR ain't setting the culture, man. Like, that is the furthest thing like they can carry forward the culture, they can help come up with programs designed to emulate what you'd like them to be. But as a leader, that's culture is just the shadow of a leader, you got to be able to recognize that as a leader, what I do on a daily basis how I operate.

that is going to dictate what the culture looks like.

Sean Patton (35:59)
I love that because it simplifies it so much. There's so many times when we hear words like leadership and culture and it's this big sort of like amorphous thing and people are like, how would you even? And sometimes it's why they just throw up their hands, right? Like I'll just put my head down. I'm gonna deal with the P and L and the numbers and you know, I'll just manage my way through this instead of lead my way through this. And it can be as simple as like, well, have you decided what you want culture to be? Right? Like have you...

Scott Millson (36:21)
Yeah. Well,

yeah. And I would argue that if you're going to be the heads down PNL, let's focus on that. You're setting the culture, right? That is the culture. When you say I'm going to be the guy who's going to be focused on the numbers and I'm going to rerun in the PNLs and you are setting the culture because people will follow what you're going to do. And if that becomes really Uber important to you, it's now going to be Uber important. And maybe that's okay, right? Maybe that's the culture you want to set, but you can't just bury your head in the sand and say,

I'm gonna do this and I want everybody else to do this. No, like people are gonna follow what you do. If you do x, they're gonna do x. If you do y, they're gonna do y, you know, and if you don't want them doing y, then don't do x, you know what mean? So like, you got to make sure that you're understanding that people are gonna follow what you want with what you do and how you do.

Sean Patton (37:02)
You

It's so true, right? We see that in athletic teams. We see that in military units. We see it in businesses that eventually that unit, that team, that group of people, individuals of human beings, they just, this naturally take on like the persona and the culture, call it persona, they take on that, like that persona and that culture of, of the leader, of the leadership team, like whoever the strongest influence is.

Scott Millson (37:24)
Yeah.

totally.

Yeah, you you probably you probably experienced something similar when you were in the green braes. But, you know, so the seals have an adage of, you know, calm is contagious. And so they look for people that are going to be calm, because in a firestorm, when you're in the midst of a really bad storm, you need your leader to be calm, like, because if not, if that if that leader is all of sudden hectic and frantic and

running around crazy during the bit of a challenging situation. Guess what? The team is going to be frantic and hectic and not knowing what direction to go. so, you know, again, you know, take it back to Colin Powell. mean, I remember one time listening, he, he, has a quote that he says, you know, optimism is a force multiplier. And I, and I, as I read further into what he was talking about, et cetera, it's really for him, leadership was a force multiplier. He recognized that how he operated and how he led

was a force multiplier. People were going to follow what he did. And I remember he said he was in infantry school and they sat to him and they said, Hey, look, no matter how cold you are, you can never look cold. No matter how hungry you are, you can never look hungry. Like, you you need your team to feel like you've got this. And the moment you start showing them that you are vulnerable or that you you're cold or hungry, the team will then be cold and hungry. But if you have that positivity, that optimism,

that I think that everybody will follow that. that's, you know, I think it's really important for leaders to recognize that.

Sean Patton (38:55)
Yeah, 100%. And to me that is, know, not, didn't, we didn't set this up, but my whole, my strong belief is that the journey to becoming the leader that you're capable of is the path to becoming the greatest version of yourself. And

Scott Millson (39:12)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (39:13)
because of the lessons you just described, right? And it's not saying a leader needs to, you know, can't show emotion or can't be hard or important. We're not saying any of that, right? What we're saying is that when you, least my belief is then when you start shifting, like we hold the word leader in our mind, that's a different person than if we hold the word manager in our mind. Like, when you just think of that person, like that's a different person you're visualizing. And,

Scott Millson (39:21)
That's right.

Mm-hmm.

Totally.

Sean Patton (39:38)
And so when you decide to the identity shift of like, I'm going to be a leader. It's your point, right? I'm going to be intentional. Um, you know, I'm going to be curious. I'm going to be bold, right? I'm going to be reflected. Like all those points that you've made in frequency of excellence. Like when you make that decision, like those are you to your point being phrases, those aren't things you're going to do. That's a person you're going to become. And when you started, when you do shift, this is what I found for my whole life is that when I, stepped and I took on the mantle of leadership, whether that was as a

Scott Millson (39:54)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (40:06)
father or as a husband or as a friend or as a whatever founder, whatever it is, you step into that mantle. Like you start holding yourself to a higher standard of being right. And so that is why in my mind, to your point, and hopefully people are listening to that is like embracing and stepping into those moments of leadership and start seeing yourself as a leader. because when you do that, your whole lens, I guess that's your whole thing, right? You, you, you start

Scott Millson (40:09)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Sean Patton (40:31)
You start looking for excellence. start looking for that next level. And that's who you just sort of naturally walk into.

Scott Millson (40:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. You know, mean, management is about managing tasks, right? So management is you need to get something done. Let me manage somebody from A to B to get be able to get that done. Leadership is about people. And that's why I said, we talked earlier about kind of relationships. Leadership is not about tasks. You don't lead somebody in a task. You lead people to be able to complete a task, but you're not.

managing towards a task. You're not managing an SOP that says you got to do X, Y, and Z in this order at this pace, etc. You're leading people and people are humans and, and humans just want to be seen, heard and understood. And so a leader needs to understand that that person that they're trying to lead, you got to understand what drives them, what motivates them. Because if I want you to complete this task, I got to better understand who you are. And I got to understand what your motivations are, I got to understand that

maybe you got something going on at home that's going to inhibit your ability to be successful at this. And maybe I need to modify what I'm asking you to do because again, you're a human, you want to be seen, heard and understood. And you're trying to tell me that you may not be up for that challenge today. Okay, well that's fine. Let me adapt what I'm doing versus just bulldozing somebody through it and not recognizing that that person might have something going on. And so

It's all about relationships. It's all about kind of understanding who people are and getting to know them at a human level. Then you can lead them. If you're not, you're just managing them. You're just managing a task.

Sean Patton (42:00)
And that's awesome. Well, Scott, we will make sure we get a link to your book, Frequency of Excellence, in the show notes. But if someone wants to find and connect with you, maybe have you come speak at their events or something like that, where do they find you?

Scott Millson (42:11)
Yeah, so I'm active on LinkedIn. I don't do any other social platforms, but LinkedIn is my primary choice. So Scott Millson is M-I-L-L-S-O-N. And then my website is ScottMillson.com. So you can find me either one of those two places. I am an open book, so no pun intended. But if you read my book and you like something about it, reach out and say, hey, I'd love to ask you a question about that. how did you leverage that? I'm, you know, my

All my information is out on my website. Reach out to me at any time. I'd love to talk to anybody, any point, any time.

Sean Patton (42:42)
Well, thanks for being on today, Scott. This was a great conversation. know I got a lot out of it.

Scott Millson (42:43)
Yeah.

Yeah. I really appreciate the invitation. So thanks so much for having me on Sean.