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This is Later with Lee Matthews The
Lee Matthews Podcast More of what You here

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weekday afternoons on the Drive. Hazard
Lee as a US Air Force fighter pilot

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who began his career flying F sixteens. As a flight commander, he and

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his pilots went into combat, in
fact, in the war in Afghanistan.

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He worked his way up to be
arguably the top fighter pilot of the US

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Air Force, and he teaches readers
now how to make clear decisions in everyday

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life with Hazard Lee's book The Art
of Clear Thinking, Stealth Fighter's Pilot Timeless

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Rules for making tough decisions. Hazard, First, I've got to ask you,

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have you ever gone muck ten?
Not muck ten? Unfortunately, not

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that fast. I've been as one
point nine and that was enough, I

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imagine it was the plane was shaking. I could I put my hand near

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the canopy because it kids too of
a heat radiating from just the friction on

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the jets. So yeah, that
was plenty fast in the F sixteen.

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I'm making a reference to the Maverick
movie where he goes mock ten, and

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even then I was like, wait, I don't think you can go mock

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ten. I don't think physically you
can in the atmosphere anyway. Yeah,

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not yet. I mean I was
just chatting with a Space Shuttle pilot and

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he was talking about rendering the atmosphere
at mock twenty. So we have that

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humans go that fast, but not
in a fighter jet. The art of

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clear thinking, this is something I
have to exercise as much as I can

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because I don't like to talk too
much about it. But when I'm on

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the air and I'm doing my talk
show and I'm running everything and screening calls,

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and I got a lot of things
going, there's a lot of balls

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in the air, and I too
have to kind of think like a fighter

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pilot. Yeah, I agree,
And this is some technique I learned in

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Oklahoma, nied Oklahoma, where I
went to pilot training. So I really

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talk in the book about being able
to break down decisions into what I call

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the ace helix, So being able
to assess the problem. If you're not

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able to have a good understanding the
problem, you're not going to be able

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to consistently make good decisions after that, choosing the right course of action.

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Developing those courses of action I talked
to through a process called effect space planning

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to really increase people in organizations,
creativity, and then lastly being able to

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execute. So we'll sometimes have a
thousand people that have touched the mission before

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we're in the air. So spies
on the ground, we have, cyber

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operators, intelligence operators, tankers taken
off from different countries also allow us to

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be over the target on time.
And so that's a lot of pressure,

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especially in today's world where everything is
real time. And imagine those put those

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screens up that everybody's looking at what
you're doing. So you really have to

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be mentally resilient and tough, and
because if you screw up, you're screwing

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up all of their work and that
target may never come back again. Hazardly,

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a fighter pilot who has written the
Art of clear Thinking, a Stealth

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fighter Pilot's Timeless Rules for making tough
decisions, you bring up something that hits

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home for me quite a bit,
and that is stress in a situation leads

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to a you're thinking is no longer
clear if you're too stressed. That's correct.

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So one of the things we have
is as soon as you put on

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your helmet, you lose twenty IQ
points and you don't rise to the level

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of your expectation, you fall to
the level of your preparation. So it's

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talking the book about how to really
prepare for whatever you're doing, because we've

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all experienced experience it. Whatever whatever
you feel nervous doing. If you get

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in front of a group of people, if you are speaking, if you're

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giving you a presentation, I think
everybody's experienced losing twenty IQ points. So

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I talk through a process to be
able to help people manage that stress.

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Multitasking is one of those things that
I've tried to master and I think it's

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benefited me because many of my peers
that had the inability to multitask are no

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longer in my business anyway. Yeah, it's challenging. So it's pilots.

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We call that our cross checks.
So we're looking at all these different dials

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and gauges and there are multiple things
going on, and so it's really about

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being able to assess what's the most
important thing, what do I need to

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focus on? And I talked through
some rules of thumb for people to use

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that in their everyday life to be
able to multitask better, to be able

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to have a faster, more pristine
cross check Hazardly. The name of the

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book is the Art of Clear Thinking, a Stealth fighter Pilot's timeless rules for

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making tough decisions and uh, you
know. I try to prepare for situations

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as much as I can. But
the one rule is paramount when the shooting

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starts. Everything changes when the shooting
starts, Yes, figuratively and literally.

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Yeah. Absolutely. Combat is a
crazy place and that's why we do so

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much training. So when you go
into combat, you're ready to go,

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but still there's a lot of fog
in friction. You need to over prepare

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when you're going into combat because it's
an environment unlike any other. And Hazardle

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is with us, He's lived at
team situations. This is always tough for

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me. I guess for me,
the main thing in a team situation is

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what are the expectations of each and
on what timetable should they be met?

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Correct? So that's one thing we
do as fighter pilots is we're planning these

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missions sometimes days, months, even
years in advance. That's bringing together a

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disparate group together. It's all line
towards one common goal. So I talk

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about it's almost project management in the
book, about how to bring these different

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groups together and be able to get
the peak performance out of them. Hazard

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Lead The Art of Clear Thinking,
a Stealth Fighter Pilot's Timeless rules for making

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tough decisions. When you have finished
a combat mission, and let's say it's

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a particularly active and hot one,
does it take you a long time to

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come down off of that one after
the shooting is no longer they're no longer

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shooting at you. Yeah, it
does. It's it's it's challenging because it's

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so intense, so busy for me, I'd have to go work out after

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flying these missions, and I'd be
on the graveyard shift, so I'd be

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coming back at five five am in
the morning, and so I'd have to

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work out really to blow up that's
team because yeah, it's impossible it is

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to go to sleep right after that, I would think so, I would

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think so The Art of Clear Thinking
of Stealth Fighter Pilots Timeless rules for making

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the tough decisions, and one of
the Air Force's top pilots has written at

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Hazard Lee, we thank you for
sharing your tips with us and for writing

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the book. Well, it's a
pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

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Thanks for listening to Later with Lee
Matthews. The Lee Matthews podcast and remember

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to listen to The Drive Live weekday
afternoons from five to seven and Ihearts Media presentation