Jim: we all face a monster storm at some point in our personal professional lives. There's there's no escaping it. could be divorce, could be financial hardship, could be medical emergency, could be a business bankruptcy, could be a crisis, a terrorist attack, could be anything. there's really there there's no there's no escaping it. So the real question is, are you ready to handle that crisis and how will you handle that crisis when it does confront you or your organization?
Jonathan: Welcome to the Treehouse Studio and to Stumbling Blocks. My guest today is Jim Olson, former Chief Communications Officer at United Airlines, US Airways, Starbucks, and current Chief Communications Officer at Chorus International. He is also author of the book Tailwind, a compass for turning your setback story into your comeback legacy.
Jonathan Block: Jim Olson, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate it.
Jim: Thanks for having me, Jonathan.
Jonathan Block: My pleasure. So, Jim, you have a remarkable background. You've been head of communications at United Airlines, US Airlines, Starbucks. you've taught all over the world. You've lived and worked in more than fifty countries. you were head of communications at Starbucks when the Starbucks flagship store in Indonesia in Jakarta was bombed. You were head of s communications at US Airways when the miracle on the Hudson happened with Captain Sully Stellenberger. You were head of communications at United Airlines when Dr. David Dow was was removed from from a flight and broke his nose and was bloody and and was one of the first kind of viral moments in business history. And Oscar Munoz, who was CEO at the time, was a guest on the show not long ago. And so I'm gonna ask you about that from your perspective, because I got his perspective. And so it's perhaps no wonder that you say things get worse before they get worse. but you
Jim: Yeah.
Jonathan Block: also say that hopelessness is finite and hope is infinite. Which is interesting because while your your professional life is remarkable and you've been through kind of every s kind of storm there is to go through from a professional communications perspective, on on the personal side, you were diagnosed with lung cancer. And then brain cancer. And then through the course of treatment for both of those, you lost your eyesight. And then you wrote a book called Tailwind. And in Tailwind is the quote I just mentioned that ho hopelessness is finite, but hope is infinite. And so Jim, if you if you don't mind, where I'd like to start is where Oscar Munia has left off when he was on the show, which is that moment about ten years ago now, where Dr. David Dow was dragged off of a united flight. And what Oscar says is that he he was prepped to sort of acknowledge the incident, but to say, hey, it wasn't actually United Flight, it was a partner of ours, and it wasn't actually United Security Guard, it was O'Hare Security, and it wasn't us essentially. It was someone else. and and then he went on Good Morning America and he he just apologized. And I wonder that's his point of view. I'd love to hear the story from your point of view, kind of what what happened.
Jim: Yeah, well, like I said, I I I'm a huge fan of of Oscar's. He hired
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: me. I was his first executive hire after he came on board. He he had his own medical crisis, as I'm sure you spoke to him about in terms of his
Jonathan Block: Right, heart attack in the middle or and heart replacement in the middle of being CEO. What was that like?
Jim: Yeah. Not only a massive heart attack but a heart transplant, right? And
Jonathan Block: Right.
Jim: then he bounced back to not I mean the guy could have easily just retired from that point, but he's a fighter and more importantly just cares about people and the organizations he worked with works with. So I was honored to for him to bring me along his side and to be with him during that transformation of of United that set the stage for it becoming the the airline that it is today. that's the world's largest
Jonathan Block: Absolutely.
Jim: airline and and Very likely one of the most if not the most admired airline in in the world. Yeah.
Jonathan Block: In the world, yeah. And he talk I ha I will say he talks a lot about his listening tour, and how how that shifted things at United. And I have to think that as his communications lead, you were part of the listening tour and probably orchestrated it. helped him go around the world and listen to folks all over the world at all kinds of crazy times and places. and so I I y you should know that he speaks well of the work that y incredibly highly of the work that you did.
Jim: Yeah, and he he he wrote the forward as you
Jonathan Block: I saw, yeah.
Jim: he wrote the forward to my book, which again I was I was blessed and honored to have him. He was the the the first person I went to because he was the perfect person to write that forward. And and now I understand why I went to him to write the forward and why I'm so just blessed and thankful that he wrote the forward because it's just it's more than a forward. It's a forward to people reading the book. But to me it really is a you know, it it's it's a life ring that I read probably at least once a week. and that I know I'll read in the future when there are dark moments because to me it's it's it's more than a forward. It really is a life ring that that gives me continues to give me hope reading he talked about his story and his comeback, that gives me hope and blue sky on my dark days. so
Jonathan Block: I mean I so I just gotta I have to just pause and say you're being unbelievably modest here. and so I'm gonna gloat on you for you. The your forward is a is a is a true who's who of the business community, but they're not just sort of generic forwards like read this book, it'll change your life. They're like really specific nuggets like I lovingly recommend this book to friends, family and colleagues and anyone who believes in the power of personal transformation. That's from Howard Schultz at the head of founder of Starbucks, Ariana Huffington is a is a writing forward, Sully Sullenberger, Oscar Munoz at United, Poppy Harlow from CNN, Chris Carr, the the chairman of the board of REI, and on and on and on and on. So you're being modest, but I'm gonna just name some of those names for you. It's it's really quite remarkable.
Jim: Yeah. yeah, and and and certainly don't want to divert from your your question here, because number one rule of
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: PR is actually to take the questions head on as as Oscar and I I did. But you know, just you know, look the the the Dr. Dow situation was was extremely unfortunate. should have never happened. and we we made sure that in the policy changes we made in the the days that followed that it it hasn't happened again. and it's been what almost probably ten years since that that happened. And so it was the first time anything like that had ever happened as far as we we knew. So in many ways we were the guinea pigs for that kind of scenario. There was no blueprint for dealing with that kind of scenario. that's certainly not an excuse by any means for what happened. And but it's like what I write about. It know it's you know when you're in these crises, whether it's a terrorist attack at our store in Jakarta, Indonesia, whether it's the Sully Sullenburger situation, you can't anticipate so many of these situations, you know, a a plane landing on the Hudson River, ISIS
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: deciding to bomb your store in Jakarta, you know, and and and somebody being forcibly removed against their will, not by our own employees, but by rogue police officers, Chicago police officers. But that
Jonathan Block: Right, right.
Jim: still doesn't excuse it. but what I found in my crisis communication experience Even in you know, the US Airway situation on the Hudson River, the Jakarta situation we can we can talk about, and certainly this case, the n in ninety-nine percent of the case cases, the first information coming in, it's a fog of war. There is information
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: coming in from so many different sources in these situations. and so certainly in in that situation with Dr. Dow, there was it was a Sunday night when it happened, late Sunday night. And so as you can imagine that night and the morning that followed. there's information coming in from our own operations, from the airport, from the police department, from the authorities, from the media, from social media. And so you're trying to process all of this information. I'm not using this by any means as an excuse for for the the the lack of or you know our initial response, which was not full throated enough by any means, but I'm just trying to paint a picture for folks to understand. There are
Jonathan Block: Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's what I wanted, yeah.
Jim: so many are there are so many armchair quarterbacks out there, and so I'm always
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: very careful. you'll never see me quoted in any of the trades casting stones at any crisis because you unless you're in the room you really don't know what's what's going on. Doesn't mean the decisions were right or wrong. It's just you it's just I
Jonathan Block: Sure, sure.
Jim: find it very disingenuous when I you know there's these there are these PR agency, you know, crisis leads who've never actually sat in a boardroom before and faced a crisis, yet they they're these experts all of a sudden on how to handle a crisis.
Jonathan Block: Ha.
Jim: But that said, we we did we we missed the mark and Oscar told you that. and he's said that many, many times. because the the initial information was painting a different picture than reality. And and the lesson I learned from that, and I think Oscar probably shared this with you as well, is that once the toothpaste is out, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube very easily. And so the mistake that not only we made, but others make some of these situations, is a rush to get a statement out and explain what happened or cast blame. before you really before the dust settles and you really have all the information. Like I said, most of the information in most crises is wrong the first time around. and that was certainly the case here. But once you get that initial statement out, you know, again, if you don't say the right if if you know if if it's wrong or off the mark, you really can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. And so my the lesson we all learned, including Oscar here, is that you know, you can certainly acknowledge something the h you know you can acknowledge how horrific something is without accepting responsibility or casting blame and then ign and then noting that you'll get back with you know a more you know detailed explanation of what happened once you have all the facts. we just jumped to some clu conclusions that unfortunately were were wrong and but you know as Oscar did we we we very once we realized what had actually happened, we were very quick within the the first twenty-four, forty eight hours to pivot to a much more full throated Apology. I think Oscar's words were we can't apologize enough for what happened. and we are gonna take the next seven days to do an autopsy on our policies and our procedures to make sure this never happens di again. And we did exactly that. we we bunkered down, we didn't put our tail between our legs and just, you know, send in letters of recognition resignation. We we actually we actually dug in for a week and looked at all the video camera footage and we came out with you can Google it's out there. it was a public document. We came out with a a PDF that was a ten point not only an explanation of what happened, but also a ten point plan for the policy changes we were gonna make to make sure this never happened again, and make sure if there were things that happened, the accommodations that we would provide to customers when things do go wrong.
Jonathan Block: So take us if you don't mind, just sort of to that moment when he's on you're in the studio, in ch or I guess maybe in a conference room at at United's head headquarters, Good Morning America is there. They brought in one of their high powered talent some of their high powered talent. He's asked the question, you know, sort of essentially how did this happen? and then he flips the script and says it should have never happened and it'll never happen again, and I'm sorry. What was that moment like for you as one of his advisors? Like wha what take us to that moment.
Jim: Yeah, well we we all realize going into that, all of us that were advising him going into that, especially Oscar, you give Oscar full credit, he was the one kind of going into that conversation the night before and that morning saying I I'm
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: y you know we've we've got to you know own this, right? And we did exactly that. So
Jonathan Block: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim: that was you know i it was a very genuine, authentic,
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: raw moment. but, you know, and I and I give Oscar full credit. He you know he he he leads and he you know realized and we all realize that we had to this wasn't about just flipping the script or coming up with new talking points. We had to authentic
Jonathan Block: Right, right.
Jim: own you know the you know, the situation and and he did exactly he did exactly that and he stepped up and did it and you know he's a great example to other CEOs in terms of you know not hiding from the issue. I write about this in the book, like, you know,
Jonathan Block: Yeah, yeah.
Jim: I took you you you've gotta ride your storms and and not try to run from them or you know or hide from them, right? The you know, at the end of the day, you know, our our our lives and our you know reputations are gonna be judged not by the number of storms that we avoid or the number of storms we or how fast we go through a storm, but by the magnitude of the storms we do actually ride and go through and what we learn from them.
Jonathan Block: So take us to, if you don't mind, take us to another storm. And again, this is one of the things that you write about in the book. and just for the listener, I will put in the show notes a link to the Oscar Munoz interview. so you can hear as as Jim just said, how genuine he was when he apologized. and how it it how authentic it it sounded and felt and because it was, it was from sort of the bottom of who he was and came from a place of of deeply rooted values. which is Yeah, yeah.
Jim: And I think I just add one more thing there. Like it it wasn't about apologizing. And this is why he also mentioned, I think, in that interview, was that it it you know Actions speak louder than words. And that was actually the title of that PDF or that report or that autopsy, whatever you want to call it, that we put out that actions speak louder than words. And I think he even
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: used language in his interview that day. And so again, that's another I think mistake that a lot of organizations make. They could learn from this experience, right? Is that you you can apologize all day long, but you've got to have actions that ultimately back up. There's got to be some kind of change that takes place. and we realized that that you know we were honest enough at United and and Oscar certainly led the charge here. We can't just apologize. We've got to make we've got to make actually fundamental changes. He used to say that our our policies got in the way of our values. And so we could never let that happen again. So we had to change the policies that got in the way of our values.
Jonathan Block: Yeah. One of the things he he he he says, in the discussion we had is, show me your proof, not your promises. And it echoes exactly what you said and gosh, his leadership has ch changed me a lot as I've watched and learned. So another another storm that you let helped lead through, was of course the US Airways miracle on the Hudson The piece of this that I wanna ask you about, because we all know that remarkable story of Captain Sully Sullenberger l landing the plane on the Hudson and saving every single life. But there's a piece that is specific to you that I think is really interesting. You y you focused on the three flight attendants who got everyone out of the sinking plane, and you found their story and you pitched it to the New York Times as an example of heroism when everybody was focusing on Sully Sullenberger. And I wonder if you can tell us their story.
Jim: Yeah. so again, full credit to to Sully and Jeff Skiles, who was his first officer for in ensuring that the the aircraft and and all amazingly all hundred and fifty-five souls on board that plane literally walked away, some swam away from that that situation. and that's we we used to joke that we at US Airways that we had a crisis plan, but we didn't have a miracle plan.
Jonathan Block: Ha ha.
Jim: And which was was really the case. And it really was a a team effort. I mean, it it was we had actually just I'd only been there eight months and had never worked for an airline before. And so actually about a month before that situation, we actually did a full tabletop cross functional crisis exam or or
Jonathan Block: Amazing.
Jim: exercise. And and so this the accident happened a month later. So we were we were ready to jump in the foxhole and handle that situation. but to your question, You know, really communications and leadership is a team sport. And Sully and Jeff Skiles did their fur their job. They got the plane safely on the Hudson River. but the flight attendants, the three that were in the back, they they did their job. They made sure that the hundred and fifty passengers that are b that were aboard that flight that day safely were evacuated. and it wasn't as simple as you might think it would be. If you look at the pictures of that that aircraft, it landed without wheels on the you know, on the the the river, which is like landing on a cement runway at Newark without wheels. And so if you look at the bottom Yeah, it was coming in it it was coming in fast and hot. And
Jonathan Block: Is that right? That's the comparison. Unbelievable. Yeah.
Jim: and so the reason you see people out on the wings and the front of the aircraft not the back is because a huge hole was ripped in the back. And so if you had actually been on that aircraft, there was water f you know, up to the s the sea tops, cold water. It was it was January. I mean there was thirty two degrees, thirty yes. And so
Jonathan Block: The seat tops the seat tops.
Jim: Doreen Welsh, who was the the flight attendant in the back. So they had two in the jump seats in the front of the plane, it was an Airbus and one in the back. she I mean all three are heroes in their own right, but she really was above and beyond because she had gashes in her legs from where the the floor had ripped up in front of her, water, you know, freezing water coming in and splashing in her face, and she's pushing people forward. Even though a passenger tried to open the back door, she's like, don't open it. If they'd opened that back door, it would have just flooded the plane and it would have just sank even faster. So she was pushing people forward and got people off the wings. And so we just and and certainly that that that concept of of recognizing the flight attendants, Elise Eberwine, who was my boss, who was the overall head of HR and public affairs, you know, we really sat down and we were like, okay, you what Sully is, you he's writing a book and doing all this great stuff. But really, you know, there there are these unsung heroes to this story that are certainly worthy of the spotlight. And so It's a great example of storytelling, right? Like we always we always want to r you know race when we tell stories to the hero. And really in many cases it's the unsung heroes that are the more interesting you know, the more interesting stories. If you think about the movies you like and the books you read, it's it's often not the obvious hero. It's obvious in many cases the unexpected hero or heroes or heroines. in these stories and there are just so many examples of movies out there where it's not you know the the the person that you would expect to be the hero of the story that are the real heroes.
Jonathan Block: Who are the unsung heroes in your life?
Jim: Yes. in in my c i well in my case, well, and I I have a whole section. my wife actually gave me a hard time 'cause my my acknowledgement section of my book is more than just a couple a couple
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: of pages. But you know, I I decided in my in my book, rather than just like giving typical tributes to family members, I actually wrote what I called love letters to my family. So I consider my my wife and my daughter, my mother, my father who had passed away literally a couple weeks before I was diagnosed with cancer, who taught me so much, and and my sister, they're they're the they're the ultimate heroes in my life who have gotten me through so much. and so I felt it was just it was just unworthy to write this book and just simply give them a couple of sentences. So I I I actually wrote entire letters my direct my immediate family members my late my late father and then beyond them i had an entire team of doctors who've gotten me through all these situations and so dr pachipala who was my chief oncologist dr jason berligan who is my radio radiologist oncologist dr offendi who is my brain surgeon and all of their nurses and I mean they're just there there were almost too many people just even name in the book. there was an entire eco si there was an army of individuals who have and continue to make sure they stay alive and and stay well.
Jonathan Block: Yeah, a as you said, the your acknowledgement section is a r remar I've never seen an acknowledgement section with that names so many specific people and what they did. and so it's and these love letters, with things like Thank you for bringing me into this world. Thank you for helping explain the world to me. Thank you for showing me the world, for listening to me in the letter to your mom. it's incredible. So I wanna flip to as you you just began talking about cancer. And so can you take us to the moment when you learned that you had lung cancer?
Jim: Yeah, and and just for the record, I actually have melanoma cancer, but it had appeared on my lung and my brain. So just technically, even though
Jonathan Block: Yeah, I could
Jim: cancer i it was melanoma, which is very rare. It was very surprising. well the part that it was melanoma was not overly surprising just because I have spent a lot of time in the sun. I you know, went to high school in Los Angeles and spent a lot of time on the beach and and have traveled a lot around the world and we lived on a For my diagnosis, we lived on the remote Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius, where I was an executive residence of university there. So, so on the one hand, it you know, it doesn't surprise me that I had melanoma. I didn't want it, but it it wasn't overly shocking. But what was a surprise was that I didn't have any of the the normal spots that you associate with melanoma. You see, you know, which is you know, the
Jonathan Block: Like spots on your skin.
Jim: all the public service announcements are if you have these ugly spots, go to your dermatologist. You know, I I would go for regular dermatology checks and and and annual physicals and there were never any spots noted. what got me into that initial diagnosis was it was a a like a Friday night in late November right before Thanksgiving and my wife was off visiting with friends. My daughter was at college, I was home alone, went out for a nice dinner, got home ten o'clock at night, was in bed, and I just, you know, by about two o'clock in the morning I was awakened to this like just horrific lower back pain. I'd never I'd had soreness in the back, but nothing like this. It was like a electric screwdriver just drilling into my lower back. Not my lung, not my brain. It was just like in my lower back a drill going in. And I took some Advil, that didn't help, and that's actually a blessing that it didn't help. and it was too late to go to just urgent care. so I drove myself. So I actually heard Oscar's voice actually echoing in the back of my head, 'cause he had his own public service announcement that if you ever feel anything wrong, you'll know it. and don't hesitate to call nine one one to go to the ER because if you're afraid that it's you know, that it's nothing and you'll get laughed at, if it is really something and you die, you'll you'll regret not having called or gone to the yard.
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: So so I actually instead of calling nine one one, I actually stir up the energy. There was a hospital nearby, so I drove, it was like five minutes away. Get to the ER, flop on the desk at two o'clock in the morning. Luckily in the woodlands of outside a suburb of Houston, nothing's going on there. So I was literally the only person.
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: And so they triage me and take me back to a a suite and I'm laying there and they give me some morphine, which I'd never b had before, which now I know why it's so addictive. and they use it in the military so much because it it actually did that the pain went away in my lower back almost instantaneously, which was great. but the doctors said, like, hey, we still need to figure out why what brought you in here to begin with. So they did a
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: some blood work and a C T scan of my lower abdomen and lower back. And Yeah, you know, ERs take a long time. So I just kinda sat there listening to music for a couple hours as the morphine did its thing, which was kind of nice, you know, magic carpet ride in itself. And then the doctor comes back in and he says, I got some good news and some bad news, Jim. He goes, The good news is that your blood work and the C T scan didn't show anything abnormal with your lower back or your your organs in your abdominal area or your blood work came back great. I said, So what's the bad news? And he said, Well, the C T scan and he goes, This was Totally accidental, the aperture of the C T actually caught your lower middle lung and there's a two and a half inch spot on your lung. And I said, Well, why do I have this pain in the lower back? He goes, I can't provide any explanation for why there's there, you know, I have no connection between the lung and the the lower back, but the good news is it got you in here. you're released to go home, but I strongly suggest you go see a pulmonologist, ASAP to get that checked out. And I'm not a smoker, I'm a runner and I thought like I can't have lung cancer. I'm like I'm I'm in great health. And then they started doing the bi the the thread came out of the sweater at that point, coinciding with my dad passing away and in early January went in for the diagnosis after the the biopsy and was sitting Doctor Pachipala, my oncologist's office who I'd never met before, and he goes, you have stage four melanoma.
Jonathan Block: And so you begin treatment and then what happens?
Jim: Yeah, so the good news so the the bad news is that I thought I heard stage four and my life just went into slow motion. I mean I just thought like I like I I thought that was it. I thought he was gonna say just start getting your, you know, everything in order kind of thing, right? Like the stage four
Jonathan Block: Sure.
Jim: is just those are words you never want to hear. And and then I also started thinking, okay, on the treatment side it's gonna be chemo and you know, I'm just my whole life just at that point I just I saw my life just disappear. in front of my eyes. not just my career, just my life. And and the good news is, Dr. Pachipala in in timings everything, he said, the good news is that there's this new treatment. We're not gonna use chemo, we're gonna use immunotherapy. which he these aren't his words but mine, but like this was kind of the metaphor. Chemotherapy is like a 20th century nuclear bomb. It you drop it on your body and it kills everything, good and the bad cells. That's why people have such a horrible reaction to it. Immunotherapy is kind of almost like AI created, it was just approved by the FDA in two thousand eighteen, two thousand nineteen, and it's very highly targeted. It just you get it the same way through an infusion, but it just goes after the bad cells, not the good cells. So you don't have anywhere
Jonathan Block: Amazing.
Jim: the kinds of experiences and so he said we're gonna treat this with immunotherapy. He goes, I've got a ninety five percent success rate with my patients that are in your exact same condition. You're in great shape. and so I have every you know bit of optimism that you're gonna come out of this thing in a year to a year and a half you know free of this thing. I can't promise you that but that's my my diagnosis. he goes and as we were getting relieved my wife was there with me, Stephanie and we were walking in goes, one more thing, just out of abundance of caution we should do a brain MRI just To make sure it hasn't spread to your to your brain. I don't think that's probably happened, but just to be safe. and so a week later we started my immunotherapy treatment and he walks in during the treatment, he goes, How's the treatment going? And I said, it feels like a placebo. It's just, it was, you know, it was it was nothing. he goes, and then his smile kind of disappeared real quick, and he goes, Well, your your brain MRI came back and you've got an inch and a half tumor on your brain. and then I thought, you know, there you go. It gets worse before it gets worse. And
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: and so I
Jonathan Block: What was that? Yeah, wha what was that and what did that feel like? What was that like to get that news on top of having
Jim: well at that at that point I I I you know, if I thought a a melanoma stage four diagnosis was bad, this was, you know, like I say it gets wor this was it didn't get any worse. I thought how well I didn't want to think I thought, well at that point how could it get, you know, worse than this? And I had all these fears of brain surgery and all kinds of different things and He said, I'm gonna refer you to my partner in my practice, who's our radiologist radiology oncologist, who's a great guy, who I I I you know stay in touch with to this day. And he alleviated me of all my fears and said, look, we're gonna blast this thing out of your brain with one five minute dose of radiation. and I said, Well, is it gonna like burn a hole in my head? I lose all my hair, am I gonna like
Jonathan Block: Sure.
Jim: what's gonna happen? He goes, No, no, he goes, you know, you just lay down. We'll have we have to get this really cool mask made. And and then we'll bolt you down for five minutes, you'll listen to some really cool music and they'll just it'll be like you watching a Star Wars show show for five minutes and this little goober will be blasted away and we'll do another MRI in about three months to make sure it's all gone. And that was the case. You know, three months later he was right. He goes, you know, he goes it's a ten, it's you know, it's it's gone. There's a little bit of spattering of residual, it's kinda like pouring acid on a body in the Sopranos, right? Like, you know, there's still some ashes and stuff left over. But
Jonathan Block: There's still some gruel left over, but not much. my gosh.
Jim: Yeah, which there's a little bit downstream story from that, that did result in some brain surgery, but that for for all intents and purposes that th the the cancer was you know, gone and it's been gone to this to this day.
Jonathan Block: But then what happened?
Jim: So then so so then I made the mistake you know of it was Father's Day. So that you know this is about probably six months into my diagnosis and treatment. So it's Father's Day, so I My daughter and I decided to go get a a do hard things tattoo on my my right shoulder. I'm a huge fan of JFK's moonshot, Man on the moon speech at Rice University, and
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: the do hard things attitude. And I thought, you know, my lung tumor with the immunotherapy had shrunk about 60 or 70 percent by that point, the brain tumor is gone. You know, I I thought I was just this dragon slayer gladiator who
Jonathan Block: Ha ha.
Jim: just like kicked cancer to the curb. And so I got this
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: do hard things tattoo on my shoulder. And that was like I guess mistake number one. and about a month later I was on a business trip. at that's why I had not I just I was still working at Velo Airl at at the airline. I was out there I
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: never took a day off during this whole period. I was just still
Jonathan Block: You y sorry, I'm just pause there for a second. You had l lung cancer and then brain cancer and you did not take
Jim: Yeah.
Jonathan Block: a day off.
Jim: No, I I took One day off because I woke up just one day on a business trip to Connecticut where I felt woke up just kind of fatigued and that went away within
Jonathan Block: Wow.
Jim: probably six hours. But I did not but even then I was on a business trip, so I didn't really even take the day off. I was working, but I didn't take a single day off. was flying around the country doing what I do as a new airline, just you know, PR exec, just cutting ribbons and meeting with
Jonathan Block: Sure.
Jim: mayors and governors and doing all this stuff. And but then in June that all changed real fast after I got that do hard things tattoo. So that's lesson number one for your listeners is don't get a do hard things tattoo.
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: to unless you really want to do something. and so I I was on a business trip out to California in the Napa Valley area and and I it was the fourth of July and I'd been out at the airport. You know, we had you know our our leadership team would fan out on b big holidays to do hot dog hamburgers and I ordered I was going back, I was ordering my Uber that afternoon on the fourth to go back to my hotel and then I was gonna do some wine tasting. And I looked down my phone and everything is just it everything it's like looking at a video, everything's starting to get all pixelated and blurry and something I knew something was wrong. I I just didn't know what it was. And I thought, well, maybe I had already worn contacts. I mean I could drive, I had pretty good vision with my contacts and stuff, but I but I couldn't but it definitely something was wrong. And I called my eye doctor, just who does my contacts and normal glasses, and she ran through some. diagnostics the next morning with me and said, you know, I don't think anything's really wrong with you. She goes, just get some rest and come see me on Monday when you get back to Houston. but then the next morning when I did wake up, it you know, it just I looked in the mirror and it just like again it's kind of like how I see you now. It's just it's almost like if you wear glasses for any of the you that are watching or listening and you get dilation drops put in your eyes. it's just that it's it's not complete darkness and blindness in that sense. It's just this almost this kind of screen of just blurriness and fogness that kind of overlays your your vision. And so long story short, it took about six weeks to figure it out after going to about six different doctors. but they ultimately diagnoses optic nerve damage, which I'd never even heard of before, but it's the cords that it's not your eyes themselves, it's the cords that go from your eyes to your brain. And there's lots of things that can cause optic nerve damage, but in my case they think they're not sure, so I don't want to scare anyone off from immunotherapy. but but one of the side effects of immunotherapy can be dramatic swings in blood pressure, either high or low. And so they think that I might have had like a micro seizure in the middle of the night the night before that I didn't even notice. and that then cut off the blood or oxygen flow to the optic nerves that then led to this basically irreversible vision damage that's rendered me legally blind. So I can't drive. I I can kind of see you. It's like it's just a the only way I can describe is like again if if you want to experience what I'm experiencing, go go to an eye doctor, have him put in a double dose of dilation drops you'll know what Jim Olson sees. So Yeah, exactly.
Jonathan Block: dilation drops that never go away, they never fade, yeah. Well, I'm so sorry that that happened. I'm gonna read some of the things that you've written written since this life experience. You wrote, Cancer did not make me weaker, it made me stronger. Blindness did not make my world darker, it made my world brighter. And then separately you wrote, I lost my sight, but I found my purpose. What do those mean and how did you find the hope to write them?
Jim: Yeah, well, like I said, I never took a day off before I had the vision loss. So I was still fighting the cancer battle. but I w when the the vision loss happened it was it it's that threw my world into a little nosedive or tailspin emotionally and physically. So I did actually about probably three weeks into that, I tried to tried to muscle through it and it just it was just too hard trying to do tea do everything I was doing at my job with this
Jonathan Block: I'm sure.
Jim: vision loss. And so that's where I did call andrew levy who is this C V and he still is the CEO of of Ella who was actually previously had worked with Oscar. He was the CFO at United Airlines. So
Jonathan Block: That's amazing. Oscar is a talent a talent magnet. I love it. I love it. It's amazing.
Jim: Yes. So so several of us after we left United followed Andrew over to Avello Airlines. but a lot but but I I I I felt like an injured football player. I I I called Andrew, I said, Coach, I I need to side you know, he didn't he didn't come to me. He didn't say, Jim, you need to pull yourself out of the game. I went to him and said, you know, Andrew, I need to bench myself. and so that's what short term disability is there for. I never thought in my life I'd always heard about in HR presentations about your benefits, and I thought I'll never have to
Jonathan Block: Sure, sure.
Jim: like Who uses short term disability, right? And and
Jonathan Block: Yeah, you hear about it on your first day during orientation and that's usually it.
Jim: Yeah, and so I'm glad it's there. I so I used
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: that and I took three months. and it when you're when you're on short term disability, legally, not that I I I would have loved to have had stuff to work on, but legally just they you they can't give you anything to work, even though I called and said, Hey, can I help you or something? They're like, No, you can't do anything. So that's what led to the book. I would go on my walks every morning to Starbucks, you know, I'd go on these three mile walks, come back 'cause I couldn't drive, so I'd come back with a Starbucks in hand and sit down on my computer and was doing journaling and my wife and daughter said, you know, you've always wanted to write a book. you got three months with nothing to do. Why don't you write your book? And so, I s so the journaling kind of started to turn into ideation. And so I write I actually have a whole chapter in the book that actually gives people a formula for how to write a book if you want to write a book. Like it gives you a a step by or I don't know if it's the right model for writing a book, but it
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: was the model I followed for writing a book. I certainly hope You don't have to write a book under my circumstances, but if you want to write a book, it's certainly a doable thing. And so I took those three months and I I wrote 300 pages. now I what I would do is it it but that taught me how taking that time by writing the book, it one allowed me from an occupational therapy standpoint to learn how to use the accessibility tools on the Mac. So how to use keyboard commands to zoom in and zoom out, how to use Siri to read back things to me very quickly, how to use dictation. to dictate things. And so I was constantly going through this ebb of flow ebb and flow of maybe typing things and then having Siri read stuff back to me or dictating to my phone on these walks and ideas and then getting back. And so I had this whole kind of, you know, I I used like all these different resources to ultimately write the the the the book, which is, you know, right here, Tailwind. and but I but I got the first draft done and and then I went back to work. I I came up to the end of the three months and Andrew called and said, Are you gonna come back? And I said, Absolutely. I figured out how to manage through this and emotionally I'd learned how to deal with what I was doing because I felt the confidence now. I I knew how to do what I needed to do to my do my job. And I I I went back and was back full force traveling around the country doing ribbon cuttings and doing everything I was doing before. And and then ultimately I had people starting to call me saying, like, Jim, are you ever gonna finish your book? And I had to put the book on hold. I couldn't, it was just very hard to finish, like to do all the editing and I ultimately
Jonathan Block: sure, yeah.
Jim: about probably four and a half years into nearly five years into my Avello journey, I left and spent the next this basically this past year doing all the fit and finish on the book and the cover design and all that kind of stuff.
Jonathan Block: Well the book is well worth reading. I it's extra your story's extraordinary, but I I I I still wonder, like w this phrase that you said, I lost my sight but I found my purpose. Like w what does that mean?
Jim: Yeah, well it's good. Well th the the writing of the book really did kind of help me clarify. I think I always kind of knew this, but it really it kind of forced me 'cause if if I was gonna write a book and it's this is not a memoir, as you know. The book is it's got my story in it, but it's also got the stories of like, I don't know, fifteen other friends of mine that are in
Jonathan Block: Yeah, lots of other people.
Jim: there. most of the people that I mentioned the book are that have stories in there are people I know directly that are are first friends. There's there's just one person That has a story in the book that's a friend of a friend, the boxer Daniel Jacobs, who was the middleweight boxing champion of the world who had his own spinal cancer comeback story. but other than that, they're all like direct friends. And so you know, for me, I you know, as I was writing the book, I had to, I couldn't be writing a book about kind of discovering your purpose and not actually be honest about what mine was. And so hopefully my my personal mission statement is that my calling is to help others discover and answer their calling. And and the book became kind of the manifestation of that that mission. And so the book in many ways is my personal calling or purpose coming to coming to life.
Jonathan Block: So in the book you talk about finding your sense of purpose. you say ambition without purpose is like a sailboat without a compass. And then you get even more interesting. You say the fruits of our ambition may bring us happiness, but it's purpose that gives our life meaning. Which is kind of interesting coming from someone who's had a career as successful as yours. What does that mean?
Jim: Yeah, well well look, you know, I've had these amazing jobs that
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: where I've gotten to fly, discover the world and and I I've been like I said, I've been to I still have to conquer Antarctica but I've been to all six
Jonathan Block: Of that I have no doubt you will.
Jim: And had these these these amazing experiences. I've worked for very purpose oriented and driven organizations and and leaders, and have led a very happy, happy life. But it you know, it but really you know, it it takes sometimes it takes a a crisis for you to really realize you know your purpose on this planet and and what you can really the the lives that you can really change and help. And not that I wasn't helping people before. It wasn't like I was working for Philip Morris, you know, peddling cigarettes and taking people's lives, but
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: but, you know, I I I was very selective. The companies I've worked for, as you see from my review, these are all purpose driven organizations and and and and leaders I've worked for you know, to various degrees, and even Oscar. is an extremely purpose-driven leader. I mean, he writes about in my and he might have talked about this in your your interview, but he talked about in the forward about, you know, when he woke up from his heart transplant and the nurse telling him, you know, hey, Oscar, I see two kinds of patients come through the ICU. but they both ask the same question. The the first group asked, why me? Why God did you impose this horrific medical tragedy upon me. There's so many others that were are worthy of this you know, life destroying illness than me. And then the other group come in and ask why me? And they say, God, why did you give me a second shot at life? Why did you bless me, you know, with this this opportunity to be a beacon of hope and inspiration for other people? And Oscar told the nurse, you know, I'm determined to be that second kind of of person. And when I read that, I'd never heard Oscar tell that story before he wrote it in my my forward. And I read that and I thought, Well, I'm you know, I've got to be that second kind of person too. And so it's a good question to ask yourself, why me? And you know, how are you gonna answer that question?
Jonathan Block: Yeah, or or sort of the other way of phrasing it that maybe you haven't said explicitly is why not me?
Jim: Exactly. And and you could that could be any situ that's why I wrote that you know, this first sentence of the book, of the main portion of the book is we all face a monster storm at some point in our personal professional lives. There's there's no escaping it. You're gonna whether it whether it's something that happens to you at work or in your personal life, or in your professional life or both, could be divorce, could be financial hardship, could be medical emergency, could be a business bankruptcy, could be a crisis, a terrorist attack, could be anything. there's really there there's no there's no escaping it. So the real question is, you know, are you ready to handle that crisis and how will you handle that crisis when it does confront you or your organization?
Jonathan Block: One of the things you say is that if s telling your story doesn't scare you, you're not revealing enough. You're not being real enough. And there are two chapters in your book and I just want to read their names because they're great. One is Don't Let Your Story Go to Waste. And then the very next one is Five Reasons Not to Tell Your Story. which I love. but again you write, If you're not tell if if telling your story doesn't scare you, you're not revealing enough because you're not being real enough. What does that mean? And how does it like sort of in
Jim: Yeah, look,
Jonathan Block: in your life, what did it mean?
Jim: well, I I was very lucky and I I actually write about this and especially in the the gratitude section of my book. you know, I I was very lucky to have some amazing storytellers surrounding me and other people that I really trust. And I write this in kind of my formula for writing a book. Go find some people to really kind of push you. to to be very you know real and and raw and revealing in your your story. And so I use that that test, right? Like there are some things that you have to be vulnerable. And it's one thing to say you're scared, but you really you know, if if you really want your story to connect with other people and be relatable, you just really have to go deep and deep and hard. And if you're not willing to go there. It's not so much that you shouldn't tell your story, but if you really want to truly connect with other people, you've got to I I think you've got to go go deep. And the best way to do that is to have a trusted, I call it my my writer's room, like to have a trusted group of people who you give license to to push you and you send them chapters and they you know and they'll tell you, hey, you know what, Jim, this is great, but what do you mean by X, Y, or Z? Like, you know, tell me more about that. And once you answer that, that tell me more question. Then all of a sudden that adds another whole page to the chapter. And then you start to get deeper right there. And then they'll even push you further. Okay, that's great, Jim. But tell me more about that. So next thing you know, a a five-page chapter turns into a 10-page chapter real fast because you've got some of these people really pushing you to to explain why you said a certain thing. And that's really how you get to that vulnerability. Because sometimes your your mind just we're we're wired to be very protective of ourselves. And sometimes our own mind won't even let us answer. ask the questions that really need to get asked because it's a it's just our own survival instinct won't blocks out these experiences. It sometimes takes a a third party to come in and and and ask you these questions.
Jonathan Block: In your in your book throughout your book, in the th throughout, but especially in the beginning and at the end and the acknowledgments before you start writing love letters to the folks who are near to you, really your first love letter is a letter of gratitude to God. thanking him for the chance to be alive, thanking him for the chance of a remarkable life, with as you write, with brimming with advr adventure, friendship, joy, love, and good health for most of my years. Can you tell us a little bit about how faith has shaped you?
Jim: Yeah, well, like I said, th there you know, faith has been a huge huge part of this. There there are a absolute like in my mind miracles that have have happened. you can call whatever you want. but even dating back to that you know, that that pain in my lower back that took me into the hospital without any spots on my skin for melanoma. if I had that was that was a life ring from God to get into the hospital because otherwise I would not have gone in the hospital. And if if I had probably waited another six months to go in by the time I was having a hard time breathing or pains in my my head from the brain tumor, I probably wouldn't be here talking to you right now. and so I've talked to so many different doctors and I always ask them what was the connection between the lower back pain and the melanoma and and and every single doctor has not found a connection between between the two. Maybe it was totally coincidental, but Coincidence is sometimes just a miracle in itself. So I I'm I am convinced that that was a a a shaking of the shoulders in the middle of the night to get my ass into the hospital and for
Jonathan Block: Mm-hmm.
Jim: whatever reason. And and and you have you know, a lot of times I write about this in the book. I would find myself just, especially after the vision loss, just kind of sinking into my sheets at night or in the morning. And just life is just a blur and and and I use this phrase like you know, I just you you you wake up with this choice of either giving up. or getting up. And and I would just s you know, even though sometimes it was really hard, again, not a single morning where I just found myself just sinking into the sheets permanently for the whole day or for the whole week, I'd might take me half an hour to, you know, summon the the courage to get out of bed, but I attribute a lot that to faith to you know Oscar's why me? you know It's not really a opportunity. It's it's in my view I view really as a almost obligation to get up and share my story every day.
Jonathan Block: Last question for you, you say in w one of the things you say in your book is too often we beg God for things he's already making happen. And you wrote that mid radiation. Can you tell us about that moment?
Jim: Yeah. you know, I I I've I found myself praying a lot and and and begging for you know, whether it be early on with my cancer diagnosis that you know that I I survive and that these tumors go away. And I ultimately kind of came to the you know, I guess kind of the illumination that in many ways you know, while I've been doing this praying, the the the you know, the miraculous you know, masterful work of healing is actually already going on. And so what I've kind of re trained myself and re kind of oriented myself is to rather than praying every night for even for my vision to this day, it's it's not so much like a I pray that my my vision comes back, but rather it's a it's a it's a prayer of gratitude every night that you're already working on restoring my vision.
Jonathan Block: Jim, thank you so much. I've learned a great deal from you, both now and then from your writings and your book. Thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast.
Jim: Thank you, Jonathan.
Jonathan: Welcome to the Treehouse Studio and to Stumbling Blocks. My guest today is Jim Olson, former Chief Communications Officer at United Airlines, US Airways, Starbucks, and current Chief Communications Officer at Chorus International. He is also author of the book Tailwind, a compass for turning your setback story into your comeback legacy.
Jonathan Block: Jim Olson, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate it.
Jim: Thanks for having me, Jonathan.
Jonathan Block: My pleasure. So, Jim, you have a remarkable background. You've been head of communications at United Airlines, US Airlines, Starbucks. you've taught all over the world. You've lived and worked in more than fifty countries. you were head of communications at Starbucks when the Starbucks flagship store in Indonesia in Jakarta was bombed. You were head of s communications at US Airways when the miracle on the Hudson happened with Captain Sully Stellenberger. You were head of communications at United Airlines when Dr. David Dow was was removed from from a flight and broke his nose and was bloody and and was one of the first kind of viral moments in business history. And Oscar Munoz, who was CEO at the time, was a guest on the show not long ago. And so I'm gonna ask you about that from your perspective, because I got his perspective. And so it's perhaps no wonder that you say things get worse before they get worse. but you
Jim: Yeah.
Jonathan Block: also say that hopelessness is finite and hope is infinite. Which is interesting because while your your professional life is remarkable and you've been through kind of every s kind of storm there is to go through from a professional communications perspective, on on the personal side, you were diagnosed with lung cancer. And then brain cancer. And then through the course of treatment for both of those, you lost your eyesight. And then you wrote a book called Tailwind. And in Tailwind is the quote I just mentioned that ho hopelessness is finite, but hope is infinite. And so Jim, if you if you don't mind, where I'd like to start is where Oscar Munia has left off when he was on the show, which is that moment about ten years ago now, where Dr. David Dow was dragged off of a united flight. And what Oscar says is that he he was prepped to sort of acknowledge the incident, but to say, hey, it wasn't actually United Flight, it was a partner of ours, and it wasn't actually United Security Guard, it was O'Hare Security, and it wasn't us essentially. It was someone else. and and then he went on Good Morning America and he he just apologized. And I wonder that's his point of view. I'd love to hear the story from your point of view, kind of what what happened.
Jim: Yeah, well, like I said, I I I'm a huge fan of of Oscar's. He hired
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: me. I was his first executive hire after he came on board. He he had his own medical crisis, as I'm sure you spoke to him about in terms of his
Jonathan Block: Right, heart attack in the middle or and heart replacement in the middle of being CEO. What was that like?
Jim: Yeah. Not only a massive heart attack but a heart transplant, right? And
Jonathan Block: Right.
Jim: then he bounced back to not I mean the guy could have easily just retired from that point, but he's a fighter and more importantly just cares about people and the organizations he worked with works with. So I was honored to for him to bring me along his side and to be with him during that transformation of of United that set the stage for it becoming the the airline that it is today. that's the world's largest
Jonathan Block: Absolutely.
Jim: airline and and Very likely one of the most if not the most admired airline in in the world. Yeah.
Jonathan Block: In the world, yeah. And he talk I ha I will say he talks a lot about his listening tour, and how how that shifted things at United. And I have to think that as his communications lead, you were part of the listening tour and probably orchestrated it. helped him go around the world and listen to folks all over the world at all kinds of crazy times and places. and so I I y you should know that he speaks well of the work that y incredibly highly of the work that you did.
Jim: Yeah, and he he he wrote the forward as you
Jonathan Block: I saw, yeah.
Jim: he wrote the forward to my book, which again I was I was blessed and honored to have him. He was the the the first person I went to because he was the perfect person to write that forward. And and now I understand why I went to him to write the forward and why I'm so just blessed and thankful that he wrote the forward because it's just it's more than a forward. It's a forward to people reading the book. But to me it really is a you know, it it's it's a life ring that I read probably at least once a week. and that I know I'll read in the future when there are dark moments because to me it's it's it's more than a forward. It really is a life ring that that gives me continues to give me hope reading he talked about his story and his comeback, that gives me hope and blue sky on my dark days. so
Jonathan Block: I mean I so I just gotta I have to just pause and say you're being unbelievably modest here. and so I'm gonna gloat on you for you. The your forward is a is a is a true who's who of the business community, but they're not just sort of generic forwards like read this book, it'll change your life. They're like really specific nuggets like I lovingly recommend this book to friends, family and colleagues and anyone who believes in the power of personal transformation. That's from Howard Schultz at the head of founder of Starbucks, Ariana Huffington is a is a writing forward, Sully Sullenberger, Oscar Munoz at United, Poppy Harlow from CNN, Chris Carr, the the chairman of the board of REI, and on and on and on and on. So you're being modest, but I'm gonna just name some of those names for you. It's it's really quite remarkable.
Jim: Yeah. yeah, and and and certainly don't want to divert from your your question here, because number one rule of
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: PR is actually to take the questions head on as as Oscar and I I did. But you know, just you know, look the the the Dr. Dow situation was was extremely unfortunate. should have never happened. and we we made sure that in the policy changes we made in the the days that followed that it it hasn't happened again. and it's been what almost probably ten years since that that happened. And so it was the first time anything like that had ever happened as far as we we knew. So in many ways we were the guinea pigs for that kind of scenario. There was no blueprint for dealing with that kind of scenario. that's certainly not an excuse by any means for what happened. And but it's like what I write about. It know it's you know when you're in these crises, whether it's a terrorist attack at our store in Jakarta, Indonesia, whether it's the Sully Sullenburger situation, you can't anticipate so many of these situations, you know, a a plane landing on the Hudson River, ISIS
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: deciding to bomb your store in Jakarta, you know, and and and somebody being forcibly removed against their will, not by our own employees, but by rogue police officers, Chicago police officers. But that
Jonathan Block: Right, right.
Jim: still doesn't excuse it. but what I found in my crisis communication experience Even in you know, the US Airway situation on the Hudson River, the Jakarta situation we can we can talk about, and certainly this case, the n in ninety-nine percent of the case cases, the first information coming in, it's a fog of war. There is information
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: coming in from so many different sources in these situations. and so certainly in in that situation with Dr. Dow, there was it was a Sunday night when it happened, late Sunday night. And so as you can imagine that night and the morning that followed. there's information coming in from our own operations, from the airport, from the police department, from the authorities, from the media, from social media. And so you're trying to process all of this information. I'm not using this by any means as an excuse for for the the the lack of or you know our initial response, which was not full throated enough by any means, but I'm just trying to paint a picture for folks to understand. There are
Jonathan Block: Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's what I wanted, yeah.
Jim: so many are there are so many armchair quarterbacks out there, and so I'm always
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: very careful. you'll never see me quoted in any of the trades casting stones at any crisis because you unless you're in the room you really don't know what's what's going on. Doesn't mean the decisions were right or wrong. It's just you it's just I
Jonathan Block: Sure, sure.
Jim: find it very disingenuous when I you know there's these there are these PR agency, you know, crisis leads who've never actually sat in a boardroom before and faced a crisis, yet they they're these experts all of a sudden on how to handle a crisis.
Jonathan Block: Ha.
Jim: But that said, we we did we we missed the mark and Oscar told you that. and he's said that many, many times. because the the initial information was painting a different picture than reality. And and the lesson I learned from that, and I think Oscar probably shared this with you as well, is that once the toothpaste is out, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube very easily. And so the mistake that not only we made, but others make some of these situations, is a rush to get a statement out and explain what happened or cast blame. before you really before the dust settles and you really have all the information. Like I said, most of the information in most crises is wrong the first time around. and that was certainly the case here. But once you get that initial statement out, you know, again, if you don't say the right if if you know if if it's wrong or off the mark, you really can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. And so my the lesson we all learned, including Oscar here, is that you know, you can certainly acknowledge something the h you know you can acknowledge how horrific something is without accepting responsibility or casting blame and then ign and then noting that you'll get back with you know a more you know detailed explanation of what happened once you have all the facts. we just jumped to some clu conclusions that unfortunately were were wrong and but you know as Oscar did we we we very once we realized what had actually happened, we were very quick within the the first twenty-four, forty eight hours to pivot to a much more full throated Apology. I think Oscar's words were we can't apologize enough for what happened. and we are gonna take the next seven days to do an autopsy on our policies and our procedures to make sure this never happens di again. And we did exactly that. we we bunkered down, we didn't put our tail between our legs and just, you know, send in letters of recognition resignation. We we actually we actually dug in for a week and looked at all the video camera footage and we came out with you can Google it's out there. it was a public document. We came out with a a PDF that was a ten point not only an explanation of what happened, but also a ten point plan for the policy changes we were gonna make to make sure this never happened again, and make sure if there were things that happened, the accommodations that we would provide to customers when things do go wrong.
Jonathan Block: So take us if you don't mind, just sort of to that moment when he's on you're in the studio, in ch or I guess maybe in a conference room at at United's head headquarters, Good Morning America is there. They brought in one of their high powered talent some of their high powered talent. He's asked the question, you know, sort of essentially how did this happen? and then he flips the script and says it should have never happened and it'll never happen again, and I'm sorry. What was that moment like for you as one of his advisors? Like wha what take us to that moment.
Jim: Yeah, well we we all realize going into that, all of us that were advising him going into that, especially Oscar, you give Oscar full credit, he was the one kind of going into that conversation the night before and that morning saying I I'm
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: y you know we've we've got to you know own this, right? And we did exactly that. So
Jonathan Block: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim: that was you know i it was a very genuine, authentic,
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: raw moment. but, you know, and I and I give Oscar full credit. He you know he he he leads and he you know realized and we all realize that we had to this wasn't about just flipping the script or coming up with new talking points. We had to authentic
Jonathan Block: Right, right.
Jim: own you know the you know, the situation and and he did exactly he did exactly that and he stepped up and did it and you know he's a great example to other CEOs in terms of you know not hiding from the issue. I write about this in the book, like, you know,
Jonathan Block: Yeah, yeah.
Jim: I took you you you've gotta ride your storms and and not try to run from them or you know or hide from them, right? The you know, at the end of the day, you know, our our our lives and our you know reputations are gonna be judged not by the number of storms that we avoid or the number of storms we or how fast we go through a storm, but by the magnitude of the storms we do actually ride and go through and what we learn from them.
Jonathan Block: So take us to, if you don't mind, take us to another storm. And again, this is one of the things that you write about in the book. and just for the listener, I will put in the show notes a link to the Oscar Munoz interview. so you can hear as as Jim just said, how genuine he was when he apologized. and how it it how authentic it it sounded and felt and because it was, it was from sort of the bottom of who he was and came from a place of of deeply rooted values. which is Yeah, yeah.
Jim: And I think I just add one more thing there. Like it it wasn't about apologizing. And this is why he also mentioned, I think, in that interview, was that it it you know Actions speak louder than words. And that was actually the title of that PDF or that report or that autopsy, whatever you want to call it, that we put out that actions speak louder than words. And I think he even
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: used language in his interview that day. And so again, that's another I think mistake that a lot of organizations make. They could learn from this experience, right? Is that you you can apologize all day long, but you've got to have actions that ultimately back up. There's got to be some kind of change that takes place. and we realized that that you know we were honest enough at United and and Oscar certainly led the charge here. We can't just apologize. We've got to make we've got to make actually fundamental changes. He used to say that our our policies got in the way of our values. And so we could never let that happen again. So we had to change the policies that got in the way of our values.
Jonathan Block: Yeah. One of the things he he he he says, in the discussion we had is, show me your proof, not your promises. And it echoes exactly what you said and gosh, his leadership has ch changed me a lot as I've watched and learned. So another another storm that you let helped lead through, was of course the US Airways miracle on the Hudson The piece of this that I wanna ask you about, because we all know that remarkable story of Captain Sully Sullenberger l landing the plane on the Hudson and saving every single life. But there's a piece that is specific to you that I think is really interesting. You y you focused on the three flight attendants who got everyone out of the sinking plane, and you found their story and you pitched it to the New York Times as an example of heroism when everybody was focusing on Sully Sullenberger. And I wonder if you can tell us their story.
Jim: Yeah. so again, full credit to to Sully and Jeff Skiles, who was his first officer for in ensuring that the the aircraft and and all amazingly all hundred and fifty-five souls on board that plane literally walked away, some swam away from that that situation. and that's we we used to joke that we at US Airways that we had a crisis plan, but we didn't have a miracle plan.
Jonathan Block: Ha ha.
Jim: And which was was really the case. And it really was a a team effort. I mean, it it was we had actually just I'd only been there eight months and had never worked for an airline before. And so actually about a month before that situation, we actually did a full tabletop cross functional crisis exam or or
Jonathan Block: Amazing.
Jim: exercise. And and so this the accident happened a month later. So we were we were ready to jump in the foxhole and handle that situation. but to your question, You know, really communications and leadership is a team sport. And Sully and Jeff Skiles did their fur their job. They got the plane safely on the Hudson River. but the flight attendants, the three that were in the back, they they did their job. They made sure that the hundred and fifty passengers that are b that were aboard that flight that day safely were evacuated. and it wasn't as simple as you might think it would be. If you look at the pictures of that that aircraft, it landed without wheels on the you know, on the the the river, which is like landing on a cement runway at Newark without wheels. And so if you look at the bottom Yeah, it was coming in it it was coming in fast and hot. And
Jonathan Block: Is that right? That's the comparison. Unbelievable. Yeah.
Jim: and so the reason you see people out on the wings and the front of the aircraft not the back is because a huge hole was ripped in the back. And so if you had actually been on that aircraft, there was water f you know, up to the s the sea tops, cold water. It was it was January. I mean there was thirty two degrees, thirty yes. And so
Jonathan Block: The seat tops the seat tops.
Jim: Doreen Welsh, who was the the flight attendant in the back. So they had two in the jump seats in the front of the plane, it was an Airbus and one in the back. she I mean all three are heroes in their own right, but she really was above and beyond because she had gashes in her legs from where the the floor had ripped up in front of her, water, you know, freezing water coming in and splashing in her face, and she's pushing people forward. Even though a passenger tried to open the back door, she's like, don't open it. If they'd opened that back door, it would have just flooded the plane and it would have just sank even faster. So she was pushing people forward and got people off the wings. And so we just and and certainly that that that concept of of recognizing the flight attendants, Elise Eberwine, who was my boss, who was the overall head of HR and public affairs, you know, we really sat down and we were like, okay, you what Sully is, you he's writing a book and doing all this great stuff. But really, you know, there there are these unsung heroes to this story that are certainly worthy of the spotlight. And so It's a great example of storytelling, right? Like we always we always want to r you know race when we tell stories to the hero. And really in many cases it's the unsung heroes that are the more interesting you know, the more interesting stories. If you think about the movies you like and the books you read, it's it's often not the obvious hero. It's obvious in many cases the unexpected hero or heroes or heroines. in these stories and there are just so many examples of movies out there where it's not you know the the the person that you would expect to be the hero of the story that are the real heroes.
Jonathan Block: Who are the unsung heroes in your life?
Jim: Yes. in in my c i well in my case, well, and I I have a whole section. my wife actually gave me a hard time 'cause my my acknowledgement section of my book is more than just a couple a couple
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: of pages. But you know, I I decided in my in my book, rather than just like giving typical tributes to family members, I actually wrote what I called love letters to my family. So I consider my my wife and my daughter, my mother, my father who had passed away literally a couple weeks before I was diagnosed with cancer, who taught me so much, and and my sister, they're they're the they're the ultimate heroes in my life who have gotten me through so much. and so I felt it was just it was just unworthy to write this book and just simply give them a couple of sentences. So I I I actually wrote entire letters my direct my immediate family members my late my late father and then beyond them i had an entire team of doctors who've gotten me through all these situations and so dr pachipala who was my chief oncologist dr jason berligan who is my radio radiologist oncologist dr offendi who is my brain surgeon and all of their nurses and I mean they're just there there were almost too many people just even name in the book. there was an entire eco si there was an army of individuals who have and continue to make sure they stay alive and and stay well.
Jonathan Block: Yeah, a as you said, the your acknowledgement section is a r remar I've never seen an acknowledgement section with that names so many specific people and what they did. and so it's and these love letters, with things like Thank you for bringing me into this world. Thank you for helping explain the world to me. Thank you for showing me the world, for listening to me in the letter to your mom. it's incredible. So I wanna flip to as you you just began talking about cancer. And so can you take us to the moment when you learned that you had lung cancer?
Jim: Yeah, and and just for the record, I actually have melanoma cancer, but it had appeared on my lung and my brain. So just technically, even though
Jonathan Block: Yeah, I could
Jim: cancer i it was melanoma, which is very rare. It was very surprising. well the part that it was melanoma was not overly surprising just because I have spent a lot of time in the sun. I you know, went to high school in Los Angeles and spent a lot of time on the beach and and have traveled a lot around the world and we lived on a For my diagnosis, we lived on the remote Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius, where I was an executive residence of university there. So, so on the one hand, it you know, it doesn't surprise me that I had melanoma. I didn't want it, but it it wasn't overly shocking. But what was a surprise was that I didn't have any of the the normal spots that you associate with melanoma. You see, you know, which is you know, the
Jonathan Block: Like spots on your skin.
Jim: all the public service announcements are if you have these ugly spots, go to your dermatologist. You know, I I would go for regular dermatology checks and and and annual physicals and there were never any spots noted. what got me into that initial diagnosis was it was a a like a Friday night in late November right before Thanksgiving and my wife was off visiting with friends. My daughter was at college, I was home alone, went out for a nice dinner, got home ten o'clock at night, was in bed, and I just, you know, by about two o'clock in the morning I was awakened to this like just horrific lower back pain. I'd never I'd had soreness in the back, but nothing like this. It was like a electric screwdriver just drilling into my lower back. Not my lung, not my brain. It was just like in my lower back a drill going in. And I took some Advil, that didn't help, and that's actually a blessing that it didn't help. and it was too late to go to just urgent care. so I drove myself. So I actually heard Oscar's voice actually echoing in the back of my head, 'cause he had his own public service announcement that if you ever feel anything wrong, you'll know it. and don't hesitate to call nine one one to go to the ER because if you're afraid that it's you know, that it's nothing and you'll get laughed at, if it is really something and you die, you'll you'll regret not having called or gone to the yard.
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: So so I actually instead of calling nine one one, I actually stir up the energy. There was a hospital nearby, so I drove, it was like five minutes away. Get to the ER, flop on the desk at two o'clock in the morning. Luckily in the woodlands of outside a suburb of Houston, nothing's going on there. So I was literally the only person.
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: And so they triage me and take me back to a a suite and I'm laying there and they give me some morphine, which I'd never b had before, which now I know why it's so addictive. and they use it in the military so much because it it actually did that the pain went away in my lower back almost instantaneously, which was great. but the doctors said, like, hey, we still need to figure out why what brought you in here to begin with. So they did a
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: some blood work and a C T scan of my lower abdomen and lower back. And Yeah, you know, ERs take a long time. So I just kinda sat there listening to music for a couple hours as the morphine did its thing, which was kind of nice, you know, magic carpet ride in itself. And then the doctor comes back in and he says, I got some good news and some bad news, Jim. He goes, The good news is that your blood work and the C T scan didn't show anything abnormal with your lower back or your your organs in your abdominal area or your blood work came back great. I said, So what's the bad news? And he said, Well, the C T scan and he goes, This was Totally accidental, the aperture of the C T actually caught your lower middle lung and there's a two and a half inch spot on your lung. And I said, Well, why do I have this pain in the lower back? He goes, I can't provide any explanation for why there's there, you know, I have no connection between the lung and the the lower back, but the good news is it got you in here. you're released to go home, but I strongly suggest you go see a pulmonologist, ASAP to get that checked out. And I'm not a smoker, I'm a runner and I thought like I can't have lung cancer. I'm like I'm I'm in great health. And then they started doing the bi the the thread came out of the sweater at that point, coinciding with my dad passing away and in early January went in for the diagnosis after the the biopsy and was sitting Doctor Pachipala, my oncologist's office who I'd never met before, and he goes, you have stage four melanoma.
Jonathan Block: And so you begin treatment and then what happens?
Jim: Yeah, so the good news so the the bad news is that I thought I heard stage four and my life just went into slow motion. I mean I just thought like I like I I thought that was it. I thought he was gonna say just start getting your, you know, everything in order kind of thing, right? Like the stage four
Jonathan Block: Sure.
Jim: is just those are words you never want to hear. And and then I also started thinking, okay, on the treatment side it's gonna be chemo and you know, I'm just my whole life just at that point I just I saw my life just disappear. in front of my eyes. not just my career, just my life. And and the good news is, Dr. Pachipala in in timings everything, he said, the good news is that there's this new treatment. We're not gonna use chemo, we're gonna use immunotherapy. which he these aren't his words but mine, but like this was kind of the metaphor. Chemotherapy is like a 20th century nuclear bomb. It you drop it on your body and it kills everything, good and the bad cells. That's why people have such a horrible reaction to it. Immunotherapy is kind of almost like AI created, it was just approved by the FDA in two thousand eighteen, two thousand nineteen, and it's very highly targeted. It just you get it the same way through an infusion, but it just goes after the bad cells, not the good cells. So you don't have anywhere
Jonathan Block: Amazing.
Jim: the kinds of experiences and so he said we're gonna treat this with immunotherapy. He goes, I've got a ninety five percent success rate with my patients that are in your exact same condition. You're in great shape. and so I have every you know bit of optimism that you're gonna come out of this thing in a year to a year and a half you know free of this thing. I can't promise you that but that's my my diagnosis. he goes and as we were getting relieved my wife was there with me, Stephanie and we were walking in goes, one more thing, just out of abundance of caution we should do a brain MRI just To make sure it hasn't spread to your to your brain. I don't think that's probably happened, but just to be safe. and so a week later we started my immunotherapy treatment and he walks in during the treatment, he goes, How's the treatment going? And I said, it feels like a placebo. It's just, it was, you know, it was it was nothing. he goes, and then his smile kind of disappeared real quick, and he goes, Well, your your brain MRI came back and you've got an inch and a half tumor on your brain. and then I thought, you know, there you go. It gets worse before it gets worse. And
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: and so I
Jonathan Block: What was that? Yeah, wha what was that and what did that feel like? What was that like to get that news on top of having
Jim: well at that at that point I I I you know, if I thought a a melanoma stage four diagnosis was bad, this was, you know, like I say it gets wor this was it didn't get any worse. I thought how well I didn't want to think I thought, well at that point how could it get, you know, worse than this? And I had all these fears of brain surgery and all kinds of different things and He said, I'm gonna refer you to my partner in my practice, who's our radiologist radiology oncologist, who's a great guy, who I I I you know stay in touch with to this day. And he alleviated me of all my fears and said, look, we're gonna blast this thing out of your brain with one five minute dose of radiation. and I said, Well, is it gonna like burn a hole in my head? I lose all my hair, am I gonna like
Jonathan Block: Sure.
Jim: what's gonna happen? He goes, No, no, he goes, you know, you just lay down. We'll have we have to get this really cool mask made. And and then we'll bolt you down for five minutes, you'll listen to some really cool music and they'll just it'll be like you watching a Star Wars show show for five minutes and this little goober will be blasted away and we'll do another MRI in about three months to make sure it's all gone. And that was the case. You know, three months later he was right. He goes, you know, he goes it's a ten, it's you know, it's it's gone. There's a little bit of spattering of residual, it's kinda like pouring acid on a body in the Sopranos, right? Like, you know, there's still some ashes and stuff left over. But
Jonathan Block: There's still some gruel left over, but not much. my gosh.
Jim: Yeah, which there's a little bit downstream story from that, that did result in some brain surgery, but that for for all intents and purposes that th the the cancer was you know, gone and it's been gone to this to this day.
Jonathan Block: But then what happened?
Jim: So then so so then I made the mistake you know of it was Father's Day. So that you know this is about probably six months into my diagnosis and treatment. So it's Father's Day, so I My daughter and I decided to go get a a do hard things tattoo on my my right shoulder. I'm a huge fan of JFK's moonshot, Man on the moon speech at Rice University, and
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: the do hard things attitude. And I thought, you know, my lung tumor with the immunotherapy had shrunk about 60 or 70 percent by that point, the brain tumor is gone. You know, I I thought I was just this dragon slayer gladiator who
Jonathan Block: Ha ha.
Jim: just like kicked cancer to the curb. And so I got this
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: do hard things tattoo on my shoulder. And that was like I guess mistake number one. and about a month later I was on a business trip. at that's why I had not I just I was still working at Velo Airl at at the airline. I was out there I
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: never took a day off during this whole period. I was just still
Jonathan Block: You y sorry, I'm just pause there for a second. You had l lung cancer and then brain cancer and you did not take
Jim: Yeah.
Jonathan Block: a day off.
Jim: No, I I took One day off because I woke up just one day on a business trip to Connecticut where I felt woke up just kind of fatigued and that went away within
Jonathan Block: Wow.
Jim: probably six hours. But I did not but even then I was on a business trip, so I didn't really even take the day off. I was working, but I didn't take a single day off. was flying around the country doing what I do as a new airline, just you know, PR exec, just cutting ribbons and meeting with
Jonathan Block: Sure.
Jim: mayors and governors and doing all this stuff. And but then in June that all changed real fast after I got that do hard things tattoo. So that's lesson number one for your listeners is don't get a do hard things tattoo.
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: to unless you really want to do something. and so I I was on a business trip out to California in the Napa Valley area and and I it was the fourth of July and I'd been out at the airport. You know, we had you know our our leadership team would fan out on b big holidays to do hot dog hamburgers and I ordered I was going back, I was ordering my Uber that afternoon on the fourth to go back to my hotel and then I was gonna do some wine tasting. And I looked down my phone and everything is just it everything it's like looking at a video, everything's starting to get all pixelated and blurry and something I knew something was wrong. I I just didn't know what it was. And I thought, well, maybe I had already worn contacts. I mean I could drive, I had pretty good vision with my contacts and stuff, but I but I couldn't but it definitely something was wrong. And I called my eye doctor, just who does my contacts and normal glasses, and she ran through some. diagnostics the next morning with me and said, you know, I don't think anything's really wrong with you. She goes, just get some rest and come see me on Monday when you get back to Houston. but then the next morning when I did wake up, it you know, it just I looked in the mirror and it just like again it's kind of like how I see you now. It's just it's almost like if you wear glasses for any of the you that are watching or listening and you get dilation drops put in your eyes. it's just that it's it's not complete darkness and blindness in that sense. It's just this almost this kind of screen of just blurriness and fogness that kind of overlays your your vision. And so long story short, it took about six weeks to figure it out after going to about six different doctors. but they ultimately diagnoses optic nerve damage, which I'd never even heard of before, but it's the cords that it's not your eyes themselves, it's the cords that go from your eyes to your brain. And there's lots of things that can cause optic nerve damage, but in my case they think they're not sure, so I don't want to scare anyone off from immunotherapy. but but one of the side effects of immunotherapy can be dramatic swings in blood pressure, either high or low. And so they think that I might have had like a micro seizure in the middle of the night the night before that I didn't even notice. and that then cut off the blood or oxygen flow to the optic nerves that then led to this basically irreversible vision damage that's rendered me legally blind. So I can't drive. I I can kind of see you. It's like it's just a the only way I can describe is like again if if you want to experience what I'm experiencing, go go to an eye doctor, have him put in a double dose of dilation drops you'll know what Jim Olson sees. So Yeah, exactly.
Jonathan Block: dilation drops that never go away, they never fade, yeah. Well, I'm so sorry that that happened. I'm gonna read some of the things that you've written written since this life experience. You wrote, Cancer did not make me weaker, it made me stronger. Blindness did not make my world darker, it made my world brighter. And then separately you wrote, I lost my sight, but I found my purpose. What do those mean and how did you find the hope to write them?
Jim: Yeah, well, like I said, I never took a day off before I had the vision loss. So I was still fighting the cancer battle. but I w when the the vision loss happened it was it it's that threw my world into a little nosedive or tailspin emotionally and physically. So I did actually about probably three weeks into that, I tried to tried to muscle through it and it just it was just too hard trying to do tea do everything I was doing at my job with this
Jonathan Block: I'm sure.
Jim: vision loss. And so that's where I did call andrew levy who is this C V and he still is the CEO of of Ella who was actually previously had worked with Oscar. He was the CFO at United Airlines. So
Jonathan Block: That's amazing. Oscar is a talent a talent magnet. I love it. I love it. It's amazing.
Jim: Yes. So so several of us after we left United followed Andrew over to Avello Airlines. but a lot but but I I I I felt like an injured football player. I I I called Andrew, I said, Coach, I I need to side you know, he didn't he didn't come to me. He didn't say, Jim, you need to pull yourself out of the game. I went to him and said, you know, Andrew, I need to bench myself. and so that's what short term disability is there for. I never thought in my life I'd always heard about in HR presentations about your benefits, and I thought I'll never have to
Jonathan Block: Sure, sure.
Jim: like Who uses short term disability, right? And and
Jonathan Block: Yeah, you hear about it on your first day during orientation and that's usually it.
Jim: Yeah, and so I'm glad it's there. I so I used
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: that and I took three months. and it when you're when you're on short term disability, legally, not that I I I would have loved to have had stuff to work on, but legally just they you they can't give you anything to work, even though I called and said, Hey, can I help you or something? They're like, No, you can't do anything. So that's what led to the book. I would go on my walks every morning to Starbucks, you know, I'd go on these three mile walks, come back 'cause I couldn't drive, so I'd come back with a Starbucks in hand and sit down on my computer and was doing journaling and my wife and daughter said, you know, you've always wanted to write a book. you got three months with nothing to do. Why don't you write your book? And so, I s so the journaling kind of started to turn into ideation. And so I write I actually have a whole chapter in the book that actually gives people a formula for how to write a book if you want to write a book. Like it gives you a a step by or I don't know if it's the right model for writing a book, but it
Jonathan Block: Ha ha ha.
Jim: was the model I followed for writing a book. I certainly hope You don't have to write a book under my circumstances, but if you want to write a book, it's certainly a doable thing. And so I took those three months and I I wrote 300 pages. now I what I would do is it it but that taught me how taking that time by writing the book, it one allowed me from an occupational therapy standpoint to learn how to use the accessibility tools on the Mac. So how to use keyboard commands to zoom in and zoom out, how to use Siri to read back things to me very quickly, how to use dictation. to dictate things. And so I was constantly going through this ebb of flow ebb and flow of maybe typing things and then having Siri read stuff back to me or dictating to my phone on these walks and ideas and then getting back. And so I had this whole kind of, you know, I I used like all these different resources to ultimately write the the the the book, which is, you know, right here, Tailwind. and but I but I got the first draft done and and then I went back to work. I I came up to the end of the three months and Andrew called and said, Are you gonna come back? And I said, Absolutely. I figured out how to manage through this and emotionally I'd learned how to deal with what I was doing because I felt the confidence now. I I knew how to do what I needed to do to my do my job. And I I I went back and was back full force traveling around the country doing ribbon cuttings and doing everything I was doing before. And and then ultimately I had people starting to call me saying, like, Jim, are you ever gonna finish your book? And I had to put the book on hold. I couldn't, it was just very hard to finish, like to do all the editing and I ultimately
Jonathan Block: sure, yeah.
Jim: about probably four and a half years into nearly five years into my Avello journey, I left and spent the next this basically this past year doing all the fit and finish on the book and the cover design and all that kind of stuff.
Jonathan Block: Well the book is well worth reading. I it's extra your story's extraordinary, but I I I I still wonder, like w this phrase that you said, I lost my sight but I found my purpose. Like w what does that mean?
Jim: Yeah, well it's good. Well th the the writing of the book really did kind of help me clarify. I think I always kind of knew this, but it really it kind of forced me 'cause if if I was gonna write a book and it's this is not a memoir, as you know. The book is it's got my story in it, but it's also got the stories of like, I don't know, fifteen other friends of mine that are in
Jonathan Block: Yeah, lots of other people.
Jim: there. most of the people that I mentioned the book are that have stories in there are people I know directly that are are first friends. There's there's just one person That has a story in the book that's a friend of a friend, the boxer Daniel Jacobs, who was the middleweight boxing champion of the world who had his own spinal cancer comeback story. but other than that, they're all like direct friends. And so you know, for me, I you know, as I was writing the book, I had to, I couldn't be writing a book about kind of discovering your purpose and not actually be honest about what mine was. And so hopefully my my personal mission statement is that my calling is to help others discover and answer their calling. And and the book became kind of the manifestation of that that mission. And so the book in many ways is my personal calling or purpose coming to coming to life.
Jonathan Block: So in the book you talk about finding your sense of purpose. you say ambition without purpose is like a sailboat without a compass. And then you get even more interesting. You say the fruits of our ambition may bring us happiness, but it's purpose that gives our life meaning. Which is kind of interesting coming from someone who's had a career as successful as yours. What does that mean?
Jim: Yeah, well well look, you know, I've had these amazing jobs that
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: where I've gotten to fly, discover the world and and I I've been like I said, I've been to I still have to conquer Antarctica but I've been to all six
Jonathan Block: Of that I have no doubt you will.
Jim: And had these these these amazing experiences. I've worked for very purpose oriented and driven organizations and and leaders, and have led a very happy, happy life. But it you know, it but really you know, it it takes sometimes it takes a a crisis for you to really realize you know your purpose on this planet and and what you can really the the lives that you can really change and help. And not that I wasn't helping people before. It wasn't like I was working for Philip Morris, you know, peddling cigarettes and taking people's lives, but
Jonathan Block: Yeah.
Jim: but, you know, I I I was very selective. The companies I've worked for, as you see from my review, these are all purpose driven organizations and and and and leaders I've worked for you know, to various degrees, and even Oscar. is an extremely purpose-driven leader. I mean, he writes about in my and he might have talked about this in your your interview, but he talked about in the forward about, you know, when he woke up from his heart transplant and the nurse telling him, you know, hey, Oscar, I see two kinds of patients come through the ICU. but they both ask the same question. The the first group asked, why me? Why God did you impose this horrific medical tragedy upon me. There's so many others that were are worthy of this you know, life destroying illness than me. And then the other group come in and ask why me? And they say, God, why did you give me a second shot at life? Why did you bless me, you know, with this this opportunity to be a beacon of hope and inspiration for other people? And Oscar told the nurse, you know, I'm determined to be that second kind of of person. And when I read that, I'd never heard Oscar tell that story before he wrote it in my my forward. And I read that and I thought, Well, I'm you know, I've got to be that second kind of person too. And so it's a good question to ask yourself, why me? And you know, how are you gonna answer that question?
Jonathan Block: Yeah, or or sort of the other way of phrasing it that maybe you haven't said explicitly is why not me?
Jim: Exactly. And and you could that could be any situ that's why I wrote that you know, this first sentence of the book, of the main portion of the book is we all face a monster storm at some point in our personal professional lives. There's there's no escaping it. You're gonna whether it whether it's something that happens to you at work or in your personal life, or in your professional life or both, could be divorce, could be financial hardship, could be medical emergency, could be a business bankruptcy, could be a crisis, a terrorist attack, could be anything. there's really there there's no there's no escaping it. So the real question is, you know, are you ready to handle that crisis and how will you handle that crisis when it does confront you or your organization?
Jonathan Block: One of the things you say is that if s telling your story doesn't scare you, you're not revealing enough. You're not being real enough. And there are two chapters in your book and I just want to read their names because they're great. One is Don't Let Your Story Go to Waste. And then the very next one is Five Reasons Not to Tell Your Story. which I love. but again you write, If you're not tell if if telling your story doesn't scare you, you're not revealing enough because you're not being real enough. What does that mean? And how does it like sort of in
Jim: Yeah, look,
Jonathan Block: in your life, what did it mean?
Jim: well, I I was very lucky and I I actually write about this and especially in the the gratitude section of my book. you know, I I was very lucky to have some amazing storytellers surrounding me and other people that I really trust. And I write this in kind of my formula for writing a book. Go find some people to really kind of push you. to to be very you know real and and raw and revealing in your your story. And so I use that that test, right? Like there are some things that you have to be vulnerable. And it's one thing to say you're scared, but you really you know, if if you really want your story to connect with other people and be relatable, you just really have to go deep and deep and hard. And if you're not willing to go there. It's not so much that you shouldn't tell your story, but if you really want to truly connect with other people, you've got to I I think you've got to go go deep. And the best way to do that is to have a trusted, I call it my my writer's room, like to have a trusted group of people who you give license to to push you and you send them chapters and they you know and they'll tell you, hey, you know what, Jim, this is great, but what do you mean by X, Y, or Z? Like, you know, tell me more about that. And once you answer that, that tell me more question. Then all of a sudden that adds another whole page to the chapter. And then you start to get deeper right there. And then they'll even push you further. Okay, that's great, Jim. But tell me more about that. So next thing you know, a a five-page chapter turns into a 10-page chapter real fast because you've got some of these people really pushing you to to explain why you said a certain thing. And that's really how you get to that vulnerability. Because sometimes your your mind just we're we're wired to be very protective of ourselves. And sometimes our own mind won't even let us answer. ask the questions that really need to get asked because it's a it's just our own survival instinct won't blocks out these experiences. It sometimes takes a a third party to come in and and and ask you these questions.
Jonathan Block: In your in your book throughout your book, in the th throughout, but especially in the beginning and at the end and the acknowledgments before you start writing love letters to the folks who are near to you, really your first love letter is a letter of gratitude to God. thanking him for the chance to be alive, thanking him for the chance of a remarkable life, with as you write, with brimming with advr adventure, friendship, joy, love, and good health for most of my years. Can you tell us a little bit about how faith has shaped you?
Jim: Yeah, well, like I said, th there you know, faith has been a huge huge part of this. There there are a absolute like in my mind miracles that have have happened. you can call whatever you want. but even dating back to that you know, that that pain in my lower back that took me into the hospital without any spots on my skin for melanoma. if I had that was that was a life ring from God to get into the hospital because otherwise I would not have gone in the hospital. And if if I had probably waited another six months to go in by the time I was having a hard time breathing or pains in my my head from the brain tumor, I probably wouldn't be here talking to you right now. and so I've talked to so many different doctors and I always ask them what was the connection between the lower back pain and the melanoma and and and every single doctor has not found a connection between between the two. Maybe it was totally coincidental, but Coincidence is sometimes just a miracle in itself. So I I'm I am convinced that that was a a a shaking of the shoulders in the middle of the night to get my ass into the hospital and for
Jonathan Block: Mm-hmm.
Jim: whatever reason. And and and you have you know, a lot of times I write about this in the book. I would find myself just, especially after the vision loss, just kind of sinking into my sheets at night or in the morning. And just life is just a blur and and and I use this phrase like you know, I just you you you wake up with this choice of either giving up. or getting up. And and I would just s you know, even though sometimes it was really hard, again, not a single morning where I just found myself just sinking into the sheets permanently for the whole day or for the whole week, I'd might take me half an hour to, you know, summon the the courage to get out of bed, but I attribute a lot that to faith to you know Oscar's why me? you know It's not really a opportunity. It's it's in my view I view really as a almost obligation to get up and share my story every day.
Jonathan Block: Last question for you, you say in w one of the things you say in your book is too often we beg God for things he's already making happen. And you wrote that mid radiation. Can you tell us about that moment?
Jim: Yeah. you know, I I I've I found myself praying a lot and and and begging for you know, whether it be early on with my cancer diagnosis that you know that I I survive and that these tumors go away. And I ultimately kind of came to the you know, I guess kind of the illumination that in many ways you know, while I've been doing this praying, the the the you know, the miraculous you know, masterful work of healing is actually already going on. And so what I've kind of re trained myself and re kind of oriented myself is to rather than praying every night for even for my vision to this day, it's it's not so much like a I pray that my my vision comes back, but rather it's a it's a it's a prayer of gratitude every night that you're already working on restoring my vision.
Jonathan Block: Jim, thank you so much. I've learned a great deal from you, both now and then from your writings and your book. Thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast.
Jim: Thank you, Jonathan.
