Story of failure: Burning vegetables in the air fryer.

Mr. Robert “Cujo” Teschner is a combat veteran. He’s a former F-15 “Eagle” instructor at the prestigious U.S. Air Force Weapons school—the Air Force “Top Gun” program. He’s also a former F-22 “Raptor” fighter squadron commander, having commanded one of America’s precious few operational F-22 fighter squadrons.

During his time teaching at the Weapons School, Cujo served as the U.S. Air Force’s Subject Matter Expert on the practice of team accountability. His published work from that time is still in use throughout the Air Force today. Specifically, Cujo authored “The Vocabulary of the Debrief” and helped mold the Methodology of the Debrief, defining the language and accountability practices that the Air Force uses to the present day.
A 1995 distinguished military graduate of the Air Force Academy and a 2013 distinguished graduate of the National War College, Cujo retired from the Air Force in December 2015, achieving the rank of full Colonel. But because of a battle with colorectal cancer, Cujo and his family decided to retire from the Air Force early. Team Teschner’s ambition was to focus on Cujo’s health and to accommodate the fact that his body was largely broken. This led to Cujo’s introduction to entrepreneurship.
Back when he was teaching at the Weapons School, Cujo believed that the principles he was teaching applied to a much wider audience. In fact, as Cujo started to refine and update the Accountability practices he would teach for the entirety of his time at the Weapons School, he also started thinking about translating those principles to business. Once cancer forced him to give up his ability to fly high-performance fighter aircraft, he pivoted to teaching businesses the principles that allow all teams to thrive in disruption. And he’s never looked back.
Cujo is now the founder and CEO of VMax Group, an international leadership training company. He is also the national bestselling author of Debrief to Win: How America’s Top Guns Practice Accountable Leadership … and How You Can, Too! His second book, Aiming Higher: A Journey Through Military Aviation Leadership also immediately went to #1 on the Amazon bestseller list. Cujo has built his growing company from scratch, and everyone in the company is committed to the company’s purpose: To teach and inspire real teamwork so that teams thrive in disruption and keep our economy strong.

In today's episode Cujo talks about:

- watching Star Wars as a kid in St. Louis, MO
- identifying with Luke Skywalker
- Top Gun and the roar of fighter pilots
- disappointment of not getting accepted into the academy at first
- fighter jet with 104-0 record in combat
- teaching in flight school
- commanding a fighter squadron
- getting colon cancer diagnosis and pivoting
- the pain of colon cancer and having to retire early
- deciding to live someplace close to family
- raised as a Cardinals fan
- becoming an entrepreneur
- how do you build a team that wins?
- building the VMAX Group
- life is always going to be hard but how do we deal with the challenges?
- the importance of the debrief
- “The best teams on the planet know how to learn well.”
- failing in a positive way
- as a fighter pilot, it’s impossible to do everything perfectly
- twice the speed of sound
- passing another fighter in the sky
- 9 times the force of gravity
- your blood being pulled out of your brain and eyes
- the dangerous environment of training
- the story of a practice dog fight
- the fighter pilot objective
- the mechanism to make the next mission better than the last
- reinforcing the good
- Excellence In All We Do
- free from pride and ego
- humble, approachable, and credible
- nobody’s ever going to be perfect
- the one debrief of Top Gun and why it has changed
- teaching teamwork principles across America
- “The best leaders are the best instructors.”
- a team with a willingly vulnerable leader
- times of not being a good instructor and learning from it
- his dad as a big mentor
- his dad winning a bronze star in Vietnam
- loving being around JAG officers at the base
- Gary Langford as a mentor
- squadrons with strong commanders and leaders
- doing something epically wrong and learning through it
- all that needed to be said about a mistake
- movie to watch: 12 O’Clock High
- failing consistently and early and bouncing back
- painting some degree of calm
- doing something that would highlight you
- trying for the Wings of the Blue Parachute Team
- getting a cold before the first high altitude jump
- getting sick on the wrong day
- conditioning himself to know nothing goes according to plan
- “How are you going to bounce back and be resilient?”
- graduating #1 in pilot training and making it to F-15 school and working through failure
- story of failure: tape review after his first practice battle
- doing the exactly wrong thing while thinking he was doing the right thing
- the X-ride
- over G-ing the aircraft
- passing the Elimination Ride
- working from the bottom of the bottom
- on the cusp of elimination
- taking full accountability
- willing yourself
- “You don’t know how you’re going to respond to something until you’re in that situation.”
- “Once the mission is done, it’s done.”
- centering on team purpose at home
- how cancer drew his wife and him even closer
- the epic failure turning into a tipping point in his journey
- a prayer in the early phase of the diagnosis
- Cujo’s ongoing ambition
- helping America dream again
- showing people the way
- you can’t be defensive in the debrief
- telling himself “You were right! And it’s working!”
- lucky to have a great family
- new team members to VMAX