Running Toward the Fire - Dave "Big D" Harden ’95

From the Pentagon on 9/11 to keeping service members safe through timely innovation, Dave Harden ‘95 embodies what it means to run toward the fire.

SUMMARY

In this episode of Long Blue Leadership with host Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz ’99, hear how adversity, gratitude and courage forged a leader others would follow anywhere. From his harrowing experience during the 9/11 attacks to overcoming childhood adversity and pioneering innovation in the Air Force, Dave Harden shares practical lessons on gratitude, resilience and the importance of running toward challenges rather than away from them. The conversation emphasizes that true leadership is forged in the fire of adversity and that gratitude can transform hardship into fuel for growth.

 

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DAVE'S LEADERSHIP TAKEAWAYS

• Leadership is about how we respond in crisis.
• Everyone has a personal story of 9/11.
• Muscle memory from training prepares us for challenges.
• Gratitude shifts our perspective from burden to opportunity.
• Looking up fosters hope and gratitude.
• Gratitude can transform lives and relationships.
• Innovation is crucial for effective leadership.
• Courage is a choice we make every day.
• Hardships prepare us for future leadership roles.
• True leaders run toward the fire, not away from it.

 

CHAPTERS

 

ABOUT DAVE HARDEN

BIO

Dave Harden is a Class of 1995 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, where he earned his B.S. in electrical engineering and began a distinguished career in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He went on to serve at the Pentagon as chief of strategic prioritization for the Air Force and later as the chief architect and chief operating officer of AFWERX, the service’s innovation accelerator. Building on that experience, he founded and now leads Outpost Ventures (also known as “The Outpost”), a firm dedicated to guiding dual-use technology companies across the so-called “valley of death” from promising concept to real nation-scale impact.

At Outpost Ventures, Harden leverages his deep experience in national security, technology transition and strategic decision-making to help entrepreneurs navigate both government and commercial ecosystems. His blend of military leadership, innovation acumen and venture focus makes him a valued partner for founders tackling the toughest problems at the intersection of defense and industry.

 

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TRANSCRIPT

 

OUR SPEAKERS

Guest, Dave "Big D" Harden ’95  |  Host, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz ’99

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 0:12
Welcome to Long Blue Leadership, where we explore the lessons of leadership through the lives and stories of Air Force Academy graduates. I'm your host, Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ’99. My guest today is Dave Harden, Class of 1995. Dave is widely accepted in the Long Blue Line community for his leadership, service, business acumen and his willingness to run toward the fire.

Dave Harden 0:35
When bad things are happening and fires are burning around you, you won't even think for a second, “I need to help someone. I need to do the thing.”

Naviere Walkewicz 0:46
From his time as a C-17 pilot to his work at the Pentagon and in the private sector, David's faced both personal and professional moments that shaped not just his career, but his philosophy of leadership. In our conversation, we'll talk about three transformative moments in his journey — from being just 400 feet away from impact during the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, to overcoming hardships in his childhood, to his work pioneering innovation at the highest levels in government and business. Along the way, we'll hear about the meaning behind his call sign, “Big D,” and engage in practical leadership lessons that have transformed his life and can transform yours. This is a conversation for cadets, aspiring leaders, seasoned business professionals and lifelong learners alike, because leadership isn't just about what we do; it’s how we respond when the fire is burning right in front of us. Dave, welcome to Long Blue Leadership.


Dave Harden 1:38
Thanks for having me on today. I’m excited to be here.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 1:41
We are so excited, and I think this is going to be a real conversation that's extremely practical for our listeners, but we're going to jump into a really important moment, and this is one that encourages so many people — 9/11. Can you talk about that experience with us?

Dave Harden 1:57
I’ve been able to speak over the years post the event. Talked to 15,000 people about 10 years after the event and have been able to share this story many times over, and I'm glad to be able to share it here with us today. Everyone knew what happened — kind of the Twin Towers. The first story comes out. I was busy in the thralls of my job at the Pentagon. Actually getting stuff out for President Bush, for him to make statements to some of my work in the Baltics at the time. So I wasn't really paying attention kind of to what was going on at the World Trade Center. Kind of knew what was going on. My beautiful redheaded wife, Angie, was coming to pick me up. So at the time, we had a young daughter, and she was pregnant with what would be my son, but we didn't know that at the time. So she was supposed to pick me up from the ultrasound, and so I rushed outside, and I don't remember the exact timing. Maybe she's supposed to pick me up at 9:15, 9:30, is right around, as we know now, when the plane would come into the Pentagon. So I'm out on the south bridge of the Pentagon, and it winds up being on the side of the impact of the plane would come in. And standing out there, I remember looking, it was a beautiful day, quiet, and if you remember, not a lot of people, there wasn't a lot of videos — not a lot of people actually saw the plane impact. And so those things you never forget. So that day, standing out there, I saw this plane coming. But we're by Reagan National Airport, right? So you're thinking that another plane's coming into Reagan. No big deal. I'm waiting for Angie to pick me up. She winds up being about five, 10 minutes late, and in hindsight, she always said, “If because I was late, you lost your life, I would never forgive myself.” And so I watch the plane come in, and then all of a sudden, it's like, “Holy crap! This plane is pointed right at me.” And so as it's coming straight in, I start running over the bridge. Little did I know Angie was just driving under the bridge at the time. So the plane comes over the top of her car, and as the plane impacts, if you remember, it kind of like actually careened, bounced into a 45-degree angle and then hit the building. So I'm running off the bridge. I'll never forget the sound, the flames, the searing heat as I was kind of running off the bridge, as the plane came in. And you could hear the engines spooled up, because if you remember, kind of like, obviously the terrorists are full throttle. And I remember looking in and seeing the people in the window, and I can't imagine their emotions and what they were going through in their final moments of life. So the explosion happens, I'm running off. I then run back into the bridge, go back into the building, really not thinking, and just like, you know, you're like, “How can I help?” So there's fire, there's smoke, and so we just start trying to get folks out and they start setting up kind of triage stations, both inside the courtyard, you know, at the Pentagon, and on the outside. So do that about 45 minutes, like, an hour helping out. And then enough people got me to kind of stabilize, you know, the situation. And so then, you know, I'm in the mission of finding my wife. So I was fortunate to kind of find her in the parking lot, you know. And obviously we have a moment. And it was interesting, because from her vantage point, she just was kind of blocked by the bridge. She saw the plane, and then they just saw the explosion and the fire, and so she thought I was dead.

Naviere Walkewicz 6:03
I can’t imagine how she was feeling at that moment.

Dave Harden 6:06
So she takes Madison out. She's holding Madison, and she just starts bawling. She's like, “I just lost my husband,” right? And it's amazing, because Madison, who's, I guess, 2 years old, goes, “Mommy, it's OK. God will take care of the fire. God will put it out.” And the power of the words of a 2-year-old, kind of, in that moment, she's like, “All right,” you know, she took a deep breath, like, “Hey, I gotta get my act together.” We're able to get back kind of together, but we live like maybe an hour from the Pentagon. The car was there. We could take all these people, it’s chaos, as you can imagine, it felt like a war zone that was just happening. And we get flooded with calls and, this was back — maybe not as much good telecommunications. We're flooded with calls and people. So because of all the adrenaline, everything that happened that day, we finally had a moment to break down, right? And we're just tearing up and crying and in that moment, just such a sense of gratitude for not only being alive, but for my family, for everything that kind of this nation represents, right? It's just a moment that kind of brought everybody together, and everyone has a 9/11 story. Everyone says, “Here I was, or there I was,” on 9/11.

Naviere Walkewicz 7:30
After running across the bridge, like when you saw it coming, obviously you're like, “I need to not be in its path.” Can you remember what in you said, “Turn around and go back.” Was it just your background in the military? Like, “We don't run from we go help.” Can you remember?

Dave Harden 7:50
It's hard to remember. I think it's instinct in the moment, you know? But I also think for listeners today — and today is about thinking through all those moments, and saying what are the muscle memories of running into the fire that gets you maybe more prepared for that moment?

 

Naviere Walkewicz 8:10
So you don't freeze.  

 

Dave Harden 8:12
So you don’t freeze. I think the Academy helps prepare you for those moments. What you go through — through hardships, and your personal hardships and childhood can help you through those moments, right? So many things make up someone's journey and the fabric of their lives, and who makes them themselves. And you don't always know if you'll have the courage in that moment. You don't always know if you'll have kind of what it takes. But I think, along the way, you can have a muscle memory that prepares you for that, right? And so, you know, might be something — you're overloaded with academics at the Academy, right? It could be you're having a personal crisis, you know, could be in your family. It could be external. It could be, literally, you're getting shot at, right? But I think it's kind of transforming the mentality, or a victim mentality, of, “I have to. This is a burden” to “I get to.” It's not saying, “I have to” anymore, It’s saying, “You know what? I'm so thankful that I get to,” right? I get to solve this problem, right? “I get to — I'm lucky that I'm here at the Academy, and I have 25 credits, and I gotta take all these classes.” It's hard to think like that. You're like, “Oh, woe is me. This is such a burden. Oh, this is problem at work. Oh, someone died in the family, there's a crisis.” You have cancer, right? Think about all the things that impact our lives, that are hard. And if we're able to say, “You know what…” Start that muscle memory like, “You know what, I get to overcome this, I'm going to learn a lot going through this hardship, through these tough times. It's going to make me different. It's going to make me stronger. It gives me that instinct and that character.” And when you have enough of those muscle memories, then I think what happens in the moment is you're ready.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 10:04
Yeah, you act.

Dave Harden 10:05
You act.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 10:06
Did you develop that as a child — that muscle memory, you think? Or what was that like for you then?

Dave Harden 10:19
So I was very fortunate. I'll preface this with: I have a family that adopted me, but my early childhood was not a silver spoon. A lot of people look at my life today and they say, “Oh, you were given something. It was easy.” A lot of people feel like that, you know, someone made money. They got inheritance from the family. You know, all those things.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 10:39
Right. The easy way, right? The easy button.

Dave Harden 10:41
The easy road. Easy street.  

 

Naviere Walkewicz 10:43
Yes, you push the button, and it was… yeah.

Dave Harden 10:44
So I would say that there was no yellow brick road to this path. And so I was actually born in Avignon, France. And so my birth father was French, my birth mother was American. I don't speak a lick of French, so that's a side note. And so I wind up born a U.S. citizen. Come back to the U.S. when I was 2 — they split up. And, you know, unfortunately, my birth mother just wasn't well and wasn't able to love me, maybe you think like a traditional family. So I suffered extreme abuse as a child, and so much so that the state had to come in at 6 years old and take me away. My original foster parents told me, you know, I think I knew 12 letters of the alphabet at that time because I wasn’t going to school; I wasn't doing the things that most kids kind of get to do. If you look at the history of what I went through in the beginnings of my life, normally, that doesn't lead to success. So a lot of people over the years have asked me, “Dave, what was the difference? How'd you come out of that differently?” And you don't always know in the moment, right? You think about it, you reflect all the things that came through. And for me, as I reflect, there's an unyielding faith in God. And I think, as I reflect — some people call it the universe, and I want to be respectful about how people view the energy that we get to experience and the faith that we have. But for me, what I figured out is, I was able to look up when all hell is breaking loose, when your life seems like it's in shambles, when things are going wrong, how do you have a glimmer of hope?

 

Naviere Walkewicz 12:54
You look up.

 

Dave Harden 12:55
You look up, right? And what does that mean? Looking up changes your gratitude, your centeredness, and it shifts from a “why me” conversation — “Why is all of this happening to me?” Right? “I'm a bad person. I fail. Things are going wrong. Things are blowing up. Someone just died. I'm getting shot at. I have too much academics. I just lost someone close to me in my life.” But if you can go from like, “Why me?” to “What if? What if things get better?”

Naviere Walkewicz 13:45
How did you do that as a young boy? I mean, I'm thinking, you know, 9 years old, you know, you're still learning about yourself. You had maybe a foster family that showed you and displayed maybe some love. Is that where you learned to look up, or was it just something in you, and that was just the way that — I know you said faith.

Dave Harden 14:03
Yeah, I think it's both. I've had deep analysis on nurture versus nature and I think it's a little bit of both. My foster parents went on to adopt me, and they come from a Depression, kind of post generation, right? And so I think what they were able to give me is enough structure and safety to become the person who I could become. And I think you need that safety and structure to start with, and then I could learn the things about gratitude and self-esteem and love, right? And those were innate with me. Each of us have this creative being, and we want to see it become alive. But if it gets squashed, If we don't believe in ourselves, if we don't look up, then we're just confronted with all the stuff in front of us. All the crap, all the fire, all the burning in our lives, in our businesses and in our workplaces. And I think going through that experience helped me learn to transform that thinking so that we look up and we look beyond.

Naviere Walkewicz 15:23
When I'm looking at you right now, you know how, as we age, we have like lifelines on our face? And when I think about people who tend to look down, their face kind of shows it. But what I see in you when I look across right now are the lines that show that you have looked up. I see when you smile, it is so like, etched in your face, like in a way that is like joy. And I really do think you live that way. How do you share that gratitude and what has been innate in you that's been ignited with others? How have you helped others find that, whether while you're a cadet or in business, etc.?

Dave Harden 15:57
Yeah, that's a great question. Everyone says I have about 300% more energy than most people.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 16:02
I know, I’m trying to hang. I’m trying to keep up with you here!

 

Dave Harden 16:06
I think that's one way, right, is again, you'll hear me say it over and over again. It's gratitude. Do you wake up in the morning and say, “Hey, what are the three things that I'm just freaking thankful for?” Because it's so easy — you listen to news, it's heavy. It's just, everything's heavy, right? And so I think living a life of gratitude transforms everyone's life and allows you to be a different person, allows you to create those muscle memories that allows you to do something. It's interesting — I get asked a lot of questions, especially having kind of this, you know, successful investment and business career, having flown C-17s, having done AFWERX — I think maybe we'll kind of dive in that a little bit. I've had all these eclectic kind of backgrounds and experiences, and they're like, you know, “How’d that happen? How'd you go from this to this, to this, to this?” And, you know, it's interesting. I think it just winds up, you know, running towards the problem. And I've had people say that over and over again: “You're just a person that, man, I just feel like, you know, you'll always run to the fire.” And so, I think when you do that over and over and over again, then it just transforms the way you think. You're willing to overcome, and hey, “I'll take on this bureaucracy. I'll take on the Air Force and transform it.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 17:26
Is that where Big D came from?

Dave Harden 17:28
It is. So are we gonna have a side shuffle here? Alright. We’ll have a side shuffle. As you know, we can dive into it more. I had this opportunity, because of the business background and all these — right moment, right place, right time, had the great honor of being able to build from the ground up with a bunch of other amazing, talented people, what's now known as AFWERX. And that wound up being the anchor innovation arm for the Air Force to bring in new technology and transform the way we're doing business as a service. So that was amazing. We did a shark tank called Spark Tank at Mark Cuban, George Steinbrenner in there. Transform the culture, identify innovation superheroes, is what we call it.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 18:19
I love that.

 

Dave Harden 18:20
So, where's your cape? Where are you innovating? How can we go make that happen quicker? And that's what we were able to do. But it was funny when we kind of started, you know, I was like, 30 days — they wanted to facilitate all the four-star generals in the Air Force in this, like, 30-year planning. So I was only supposed to be at the Pentagon for 30 days…

 

Naviere Walkewicz 18:40
And you're a reservist during this, right?

 

Dave Harden 18:42
I’m a reservist during that time — lieutenant colonel reservist.  And so I wound up… this turns into four years now of my life. I get sucked back into the five-sided building, which was a great honor. But as you know, it's a lot of like, you know, cyber locks and behind-closed-doors kind of stuff at the Pentagon. Everyone goes to their little room and cubicle, and that's where your magical work happens. So here's this business guy who happens — I liked to wear flight suits as much as I can. Every once in a while they make me wear blues in the Pentagon. So, walking around the five-sided building. Well, as you can imagine, cell phone service is not the best at the Pentagon. So, you can imagine, I'm trying to connect businesses. I'm trying to think about different ways to do stuff, right? So that's not sitting at my desk working on the NIPRNet.

Naviere Walkewicz 19:38
There's no magic happening from your seat in the cubicle.

Dave Harden 19:40
So, I'm wandering around the halls, and I have to, like, triangulate — “Where the hell am I going to get a cell phone signal?” Might be the courtyard. I’ve got my hand in the air. If I put aluminum foil on this, you know, the little longer thing. There's one window by the second corridor, you know? So anyhow, that's the exercise. So literally, for like, six months, every month, without fail, someone's pulling me into their office because I'm not following protocol.

Naviere Walkewicz 20:14
Oh my goodness. You're like, “Do you know what I'm standing up?”

Dave Harden 20:16
Didn't care. They didn't care. They're like, “You're screwing off. You're doing other stuff. You're doing outside business. You're always in the hall. You're never at your office.” You know, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” right? So I just got read the riot act. “Terrible officer not doing the things you're supposed to be doing.” A maverick. So anyhow, eventually all these big things started happening. We're transforming the way the Air Force Association…

 

Naviere Walkewicz 20:49
The light goes bing.

 

Dave Harden 20:51
Right. And, like, these new capabilities, and I'm like, actually connecting people, like, I pull people by their office and say, “You need to walk down to this other corridor. Meet this person.” Because this is the connection we need to get stuff done. Now we're just running around the halls of the Pentagon, either on the phone or shuffling people around, and eventually they're like, “Oh, wow. This is making a difference. Things are happening. And so in that process, I got the call sign Big D, which, on this podcast, could be funny. So we’ll keep it PG-13 here on this network. But you know, it was for the deal making. So it's like they knew that big deals were gonna get done with Big D because I was gonna be on the phone, come hell or high water, I was gonna be in the halls of the Pentagon making it happen. Because it was too important. It was too important to get technology quicker out that people needed.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 21:54
Why did you feel that way?

Dave Harden 21:55
So many transformative things kind of in my life come back to service. So I remember, I was actually flying in Afghanistan, C-17. I’m sure you know. Afghanistan is a big bowl, so you gotta get over the 24,000-foot mountains, dive in really quickly. And so at the time we would do that with night vision goggles. You try to find a couple little infrared lights in the basin somewhere, coming down really quick and hoping you find them and you're landing in the right spot. And so, pretty intense environment, as you can imagine. And a lot of threats coming in and coming out. So triple-A. Folks, you know, with Toyota pickup trucks with missiles on the back, launching off the shoulders. And so, leaving out of that bowl, we wound up being a target, like sometimes you are. But on this day, as we were kind of turning out, we have kind of a missile warning system that's in the middle and so it starts going off and kinda tells where, in general, it's coming from. But basically, you know maybe it's a false alert, but more than likely not, it's something's coming at you. So what happens next is kind of like super-slow motion, like you're watching a movie, and so it's like, Fourth of July. Because you have a bunch of systems on the plane, so you have flares, and so it's like, boom. So now it's super bright, and you're taking the actions you need and have kind of been trained to do. But there's some additional systems on there. So they have added basically a laser system, and the laser system is trying to find the warhead, mess up the guidance system, because it's looking for your engines, it wants the heat on the engines. So this is all going on but it happens really quick, but it happens really slow when you're in the moment. And so I just remember when it happened, it's super quiet on the flight deck. Because you have load master, you have another pilot, you have the crew. Essentially, you have three seconds between knowing whether you're alive or you're dead. And so you can imagine the moment when all this stuff goes off, and in the back of my mind, it's essentially a three-Mississippi count. So you go “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi,” and you're either alive or you're dead. So that quiet moment in between is quite the reflection of life. I'm here with you today, so obviously all the stuff that was supposed to work, worked. And in the reflection of that moment, that technology, which was developed years before, saved my life. And yet, we were stuck and faced a bureaucracy that took five years, 10 years to get technology to the front that had bloated requirements and just outdated acquisition processes. And so I was motivated to say, “We have to do something different to get that technology to the front line, to save lives and the work that people do every day to transform the way they get to do business.” And so that's always been the driving force. It's been my driving force to this day, was that that technology to our nation quicker must be accomplished, and the way you do that is you identify the innovation superheroes inside our service and in our businesses and in our entrepreneurs that can be brought together to bring about that change.

Naviere Walkewicz 26:04
So that's really incredible how a moment in time literally had set the stage for your passion. You were leading AFWERX, you got it across the line, and amazing technology has been made available to our warfighters, to our processes. Why did you then — or maybe it's on a grander scale — move into the private sector, where you're actually doing this, still with the same kind of vision of what you're trying to accomplish, but without maybe some of the red tape? Why did you move on from AFWERX?

Dave Harden 26:38
That's a great question. So I love this because I love the concept of the airman citizen. I think it's really important, because I went to pilot training. So in pilot training, we're all competing, like, you know, “You gotta be No. 1. You get the plane you want.” You know, all this stuff. A lot of ego flying around, right? And then there's this group, and they were, like, kind of little bit older. Like, “Oh, I'm in this Guard unit, and as soon as we finish pilot training, I'm gonna fly a C-130. I'm gonna fly this...” They already knew what they were gonna fly. I’m like, “How the hell?” I didn't know about the Guard and Reserve. I knew nothing about it, right?

 

Naviere Walkewicz 27:20
Wow OK. That's true. Many people don’t know…

 

Dave Harden 27:22
Already in service, right? And it was this amazing discovery. One, they became, like, my best friends. I'm like, these are really cool people. But it was the beginning of this journey. It was like an enlightenment of this airman citizen, like I could still serve our country, right? And so I did wind up going into the Reserve, flying out Charleston, South Carolina, flying C-17s while I did business. So I was able to grow all the stuff I did in business and consult the oil industry and write books and speak around the world and run tech companies while still serving and contributing to the nation. And so I just wound up with a unique skill set — kind of business and military and bringing that all together at a moment in time at the Pentagon. And so that all came together and it was a natural extension. And then say, “OK, we've built this kind of ecosystem. How do we now go on the outside and help cut through the red tape? How do we bring capital. How do we identify the entrepreneurs and take this amazing land and amazing minds that we have and turn them towards our nation's most challenging problems and run towards the fire?” That the nation needs to survive for our children, our grandchildren and the democracy that we hold dear. And so I was grateful for each of those chapters, right? I was grateful for the chapter to build something; I'm grateful for the chapter now in the business world to make a difference. And I see that manifest in different ways. You and I earlier, we're kind of talking a little bit — on the business end there's hardships, there's difficulties, there's fires. And you hear that phrase all the time: “All we do is put out fires all day.” So that's a little bit different context. But sometimes there's bigger fires, you know. I remember we were faced — we lost a $9 million contract. And its people's lives, you know? There are single moms that work for you, and there's, you know, people that you've been loyal to the company for a long time. And sometimes just businesses don't become feasible. So you have a big fire. The landscape transforms. COVID hits. The timing just changes and is off. And so we sat in that moment, and it's emotional, because you're like, “I gotta let 25% of the company off. It's gonna impact families. It's gonna impact lives. And I remember this day, part of our culture was being grateful, being thankful. And you lose track of that because the budget, make payroll, all the all these business things, you know? How’s this gonna look? The ego here, right? All these emotions come in, and then taking that moment to take a pause, to look up, to realign, to give thanks, and then to lean into that fire. I remember we kind of gathered up, and I said, “You know what? This is gonna be hard, and people gonna be let go. Can we take a moment just to — there's so many people in here that have stepped up last minute, made things happen, been a part of your life.” And that next hour where people just sat around the table and said, “You know what? John did this for me. Lori did this for me. Man, you know, they stayed up all night and kind of got this proposal done.” Someone's like, “Oh, I needed a surgery and my doctor sucked. They were personally there for me and helped me with that.” It was an hour of gratitude that even in the despair, even in the business environment of having let people go, there was a sense of like culture and gratitude and awareness that doesn't make it easier — you know, you lose your job. It doesn't make some of the fires easier to put out, but we leaned into the fire in a way that helped us get through it from a business perspective. And I always remember that moment, because it really… we just took that step back and it transformed the entire conversation. And so for listeners out there: I say whatever you're going through, you have that same opportunity to take a step back, to have that moment of gratitude, pause and then lean in like hell. Solve that problem. You have an opportunity to really solve what's in front of you, to run into the fire. It might be drastic like 9/11. Like, we're saving somebody's life. But it might be something smaller, but equally as meaningful.

Naviere Walkewicz 32:42
I'd like to ask you something because based off of something you said earlier, and I think it was this whole concept of gratitude and having gone through, many hardships in your childhood, in business, etc. How have you been able to stay— and maybe humble is not the right word — but you seem really rooted. It's not about position or title. You seem just really rooted in a humanity and caring about people. Am I right in seeing that? And how do you do that?

Dave Harden 33:12
Well, thanks for feeling that energy and then responding to it and asking me that question. At the end of day, it's about relationships and connections. And you're right. That comes from early childhood, right? When you have the experiences that you had, for me, I knew more than anything, that family was important for me. In fact, that was part of my decision, like at the Naval Academy, because it's like, I think I like my time at Naval Academy. I don't know if the Navy would just be a higher negative impact on family.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 33:43
Because you'd be underway for months.

Dave Harden 33:45
Right. For a year, or whatever. So I think, imagine making that decision at 17. Because that thought was always there. I think Angie is swinging by for the 30th reunion here at the studio here in a little bit. So I have a beautiful red-headed wife that we've gone through ups and downs, gone through challenges, right? But here we sit at 30 years… 

 

Naviere Walkewicz 34:13
Congratulations, that's amazing.

 

Dave Harden 34:14
Yes, thank you so much. It’s an inspiration for me, right? Because her parents got married at the Cadet Chapel. A little tie back here to the Air Force Academy. We got married three days after graduation. So, you know, I don't know. Maybe that's cliche, but maybe it's kind of a need and a legacy thing which I lean towards, right? And so my kids inspire me every day. You know my wife inspires me every day. Meeting you and the connections and relationships that I get to get across business, across being in the trenches, being in those fires, forge the relationships, that go across boundaries. And too often times things are transactional. It's like, “Hey, I'm in this position,” and then you have their phone number and their email, and then they change positions, and you never hear from them again. And that's not what life is about. That’s not the richness of life. That's not how you inspire people. You inspire people by connecting with them and being thankful for them, right? And so that inspiration comes from my childhood, from seeing death firsthand, from losing people in my life and being able to say, “You know what, if we can transform, if we can pause, if we can look up, right, and see the faith and the ‘what if’ and not say, ‘Why is this happening to me? But what can I do with it? What can I do for others? How can I connect in a meaningful way?’ you will transform your life, you'll transform your leadership, and you'll transform the people around you, because they’ll be inspired to be superheroes in their own right.

Naviere Walkewicz 36:03
Well, I certainly believe I could probably foreshadow what you might say in this next one. But I want to ask you this because, you know, there's something about putting into practice what you say, and obviously it has served you well in all facets of your career. What are you doing every day, Dave, to be better, whether it's in leadership, it's in relationships, but what are you doing personally every day to be better?

Dave Harden 36:29
You know, I think I have a core philosophy. And you might have heard it before. Can I get better by 1% today? So if you wake up in the morning and you're like, “Can I get better by 1% today?” What does that mean? How do I do that? And I think it starts at the beginning of the day by saying… It's easy to be like, “Oh, I'm running late. My alarm went off. I'm tired. I gotta do laundry. I gotta get this job. I gotta get the kids. You gotta… Stack it up and you're like… You can be overwhelmed. The news. You know, something just happened. Within the first 30 minutes, you're overwhelmed for your day. Your day’s done.


Naviere Walkewicz 37:16
Right. Go back to bed. Try again.


Dave Harden 37:18
It sucks. Why me? Fires are burning all around me.

Naviere Walkewicz 37:20
Where do I go? Right.

Dave Harden 37:23
So even if you just take a couple minutes and you're just like, “What are the three things that I'm thankful for today?” it recenters your gratitude journey, right? And then throughout the day, I call it the gratitude debrief. And if you're familiar with anything that's like fighter pilots after your mission— what did we learn? And, you know, getting after that, but a lot of people don't have a gratitude debrief. And what I described for you in that business crisis, what I described for you sitting there with your family after — my family after 9/11, it was a gratitude debrief. What went right today? Who did I appreciate that I need to thank? I guarantee if you come at it from that perspective, you're going to see more opportunity. People are going to want to do business with you, because you're the type of person that is grateful, and they want to reach out, they want to network for they want to do that one other thing, right? And when you're in that mental space, when bad things are happening and fires are burning around you, you won't even think for a second “I need to help somebody. I need to do the thing.” And at that moment when it becomes instantaneous, when it's the thing you just do, you know you're centered in that place of gratitude.

Naviere Walkewicz 38:55
So Dave, thank you for sharing that — what you're doing every day? What about what some of our listeners, no matter where in their journey they are… You know, we talked about the pause, look up. But what can they be doing every day to be better?

Dave Harden 39:08
I think you get back to what we were talking about earlier, which was kind of that stepping into the fire, that leaning in. And I think you know what I've learned, and at the end of the day, what our listeners can take away is, at the end of the day, courage is a choice. I think courage is actually a choice, because you're building all these… I gave you some tools, muscles, and you just don't know what's going to happen in that moment in time. But in that moment in time — there's a great book that I just thought of. It was called Moments of Truth. It's a great book, and it talks a little bit about your brand, your business brand, and it's really built with all these little moments of truth, right? Because it could be your interaction. It could be we came out on the airline today for the 30th reunion So, how did that customer in a certain, you know, interaction? Did they solve my problem? Did they lean in? Did they take care of me? And each of those moments of truth add up to a brand. You, the listeners, have to decide what's their brand going to be. Is it going to be running towards the fire or running away from fires? So whether it's a real fire or proverbial fire, you're going to be ready for that moment. At the end of the day, that's what we believe. Your hardships in life, your Academy experience, your service, your business life, if done correctly, prepare you for and allow you to lead others through.

Naviere Walkewicz 40:54
This time together has been… it's inspiring me. I mean, I have just felt the energy and I felt your hardship and how you continue, how you put into practice, your pause, your look up, you know, be grateful. And I want to tell you I'm grateful for you in this time we've had today, because it's been… it really has made a difference, and I'm looking forward to debriefing tonight when I fly home with my son about what went right today. So thank you for that. I think that's really useful.

 

Dave Harden 41:18
Awesome. Thank you so much. Yes, I appreciate it.

 

Naviere Walkewicz 41:20
Absolutely. Well, as our conversation with Dave Harden comes to a close, I'm reminded that leadership is often forged in the fire. Dave's journey from the Pentagon on 9/11 to overcoming adversity in his childhood to pioneering innovation in some of the toughest environments reminds us that true leaders don't run away from the fire. They run toward it. Dave's story reminds us that hardship is inevitable, but gratitude transforms hardship into fuel when you meet your next fire, literally or figuratively. Pause, look up, give thanks and step forward. We know that's how leaders grow in the Long Blue Line, and how you become the kind of person others want to follow anywhere. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Long Blue Leadership. I'm Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ’99. Until next time.

 

KEYWORDS

Leadership, 9/11, gratitude, innovation, Air Force, personal growth, adversity, private sector, courage, resilience.

 

 

 

The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation