KaLea Lehman is the Executive Director and Founder of the Military Special Operations Family Collaborative (MSOFC). KaLea grew up in rural Missouri and learned to cook as a young child at home and more formally through required home economics classes in high school. She took this homegrown spirit to Washington, D.C., where she’s been a longtime advocate for health education, research, and policy. KaLea earned her bachelor’s degree in Sociology from George Washington University in 2007, shortly after marrying her husband of nearly 20 years. In 2018, she earned her Master of Education from Vanderbilt University and founded MSOFC to address the SOF wellness challenges that too often get lost in tempo and time or muddled by the unique aspects of the special operations lifestyle. KaLea and her husband have six children. Her favorite pastimes are running with her family and friends and exploring coastal places.

Connect with KaLea on Linkedin.
Follow MSOFC on Instagram, Facebook, and X.

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

Dr. Topher Murphy graduated with his PsyD from Regent in 2008 and has served as a Psychologist both in the US Army in the in the Department of Veterans Affairs over the past 9 years.

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

Joe Stimac is the founder and President of AccuHire Corporation, a company that specializes in selection, engagement, and retention. His clients include notable firms
including H&R Block, Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, PeopleSoft, DoD commands, MIT, PWC, Marathon Oil, The White House, and others.

He has trained over 12,000 hiring managers at global firms, elite military commands,
universities, and fast-growing startups on how to hire high performers over his 20-year
career. He has been a speaker at SIOP, as well as, at national and international
conferences.

Joe’s passion is research and teaching. According to the Harvard Business Review, two
out of five new CEOs fail in their first 18 months on the job. Joe has identified twenty-
nine failure points that can derail C-class leaders. He advises corporate boards on how
to target these failure points when selecting CEOs, CFOs, and senior executives. Joe holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Kansas. His newest creation is Interview Ready, an online program created from his years of observing where job candidates fail during the job interview. The program helps job seekers understand the job search process from the employer’s perspective, create position-specific interview questions, and practice their interviewing skills to gain the confidence needed to get job offers.

Show notes:

www.InterviewReady.com
www.accuhire.com

Connect with Joe here: [email protected]

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

Meet Dr. Angus Fletcher. Dr. Fletcher has his PhD from Yale and is the Professor of Story Science at Ohio State's Project Narrative. His research has been called "mind-blowing" by Malcolm Gladwell and "life-changing" by Brene Brown. In 2023, he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for his work with US Special Operations on training the brain to act smarter in chaos.

He began working with the Army’s Command and General Staff College two years ago, both virtually and by conducting in-person sessions at military bases.

“If you can come up with an original action and you put two actions together, that’s an original plan. And then you start to put a lot of actions together, and that’s an original strategy,” Fletcher said. “We wanted to train up these areas of the brain that allow you to come up with original actions, plans, plus strategies, so that when you’re in an environment that’s a contested space, when someone else is trying to break your plan, you can come up with a new plan that allows you to achieve what it was you wanted to do in the beginning.”

So how does this apply to our new mission after the military? Tune in today.

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

For nearly 20 years, Cook County Sheriff’s Police Lt. James Draz has served the community through his various roles while working for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. In 2004, soon after graduating from college, he began his career as a Correctional Officer for the Cook County Department of Corrections which is overseen by the Sheriff’s Office. As a Correctional Officer, he worked in several capacities including becoming a member of the Emergency Response Team.

In 2011, he graduated from the Sheriff’s Basic Recruit Police Training Academy to become a full-time sworn police officer and has since worked as a Patrol Officer, Detective, and Training Academy Instructor. He also was a member of the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force and helped oversee the West Suburban Major Crimes Task Force.

In 2019, Lt. Draz continued to put in countless hours of hard work and was promoted to the rank of Sergeant. It was during this time he helped create and build the Sheriff's Police Special Victims Unit (SVU), with a hyper-focus on extremely difficult cases involving sex trafficking, human trafficking, internet crimes against children, missing persons, at-risk youth, and crimes against animals. It was his dedication, passion, and veracity that led him to his current rank as Lieutenant of SVU, where he continues to combat illegal trafficking and child exploitation crimes.

For years, Lt. Draz has worked closely with local and state agencies across Illinois to combat these types of serious crimes. His undercover work for various case assignments even includes posing as an underage child to catch online predators who are lurking in the dark corners of the internet. 

In this episode, we deep dive into trafficking and exploitation and what you can do to protect your family. This is a tough topic that everyone, especially those involved with children needs to listen to.

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

Long before CBS cast Tyler Grey as operator Trent Sawyer on the hit show SEAL Team, he was a real-life Army Ranger sniper turned operator assigned to the US Army’s most secretive counterterrorism special missions unit. He deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he went after high-value targets and endured multiday reconnaissance missions in austere terrain.

His military career changed forever after Grey was seriously wounded in an explosion during a nighttime raid in Sadr City, Iraq. The injuries took him out of the fight and put him in a hospital for months. His post-injury transition wasn't easy, but it led him to be a prominent veterans’ advocate and started him on his new path: acting and producing in Hollywood. As someone who has been there, and done that, Grey provides a lot of value on set, helping to keep everything realistic and authentic.

In our Season 4 opener, Tyler speaks candidly about the challenges he faced during his transition.  From chasing adrenaline to confronting grief and the desire for the peace he found in chaos, self-imposed or not. He shares some great advice about creating awareness about what isn't working for you anymore, how Hollywood is getting it right in how they are telling our stories and other ways in which they're missing the target.

Great stuff, let's dive right in!

Show notes:
Find out more about Tyler Grey here.

Here's how to watch SEAL Team.

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

Stacey Stone. Where do we even begin! She is our lead coach and has worked with thousands of Special Operations family members, whether active, ETSed, or retired, and their significant others.  She has helped to redirect struggling relationships with tools that help us during our worst times.  She is here to teach us the tools to help us live our next best life without the bad baggage of our past.

For those who are unaware, Stacey is a licensed clinical social worker who provides coaching services for All Secure Foundation. She specializes in relationship issues related but not limited to trauma and the impact of these painful experiences on both the individual and their relationships.
She was fortunate enough to begin working in the field of mental health in 1989, starting her career in an inpatient addictions facility. Thus began the journey of training with trauma, PTS, depression, anxiety, and grief, to name a few. 

The most recent training with couples in emotionally focused therapy (EFT) began about 17 years ago that has enabled a plethora of tools, understanding, and an in-depth approach to working with and supporting people and their most valued relationships utilizing a mapping system to guide them along in their journeys. 
She was invited to join the All Secure team in 2019, working with military personnel and their significant others facilitating retreats that includes in-depth communication tools utilizing exercises with the training, guidance and support of Stacey, Tom and Jen.

Beginning in 2020, she began coaching individuals and couples, virtually expanding the generous resources that All Secure Foundation has to offer. 
To say that it is a deep honor to work with the military, and their loved ones is such an understatement. “It is with complete gratitude that people trust and let me into the most sacred parts of their lives," says Stacey about what she gets to do with us. 

Let’s get right to it!  Tune in to hear the tools that can help our relationships and lives, too.

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

Sheriff Dart has revolutionized a system that most people don't even want to look at, let alone get into the trenches of & that is prison reform. Something that hit home for us in SOF is that if a person can be rehabilitated, then you should take that time & effort to do so. "When they're back on the street which version do you want to bump into at target?"

Sheriff Tom Dart has dedicated his career to challenging injustice, fighting the violence plaguing our communities, & bringing new, thoughtful approaches to public service.

After serving as a prosecutor & an IL state legislator, Sheriff Dart was elected by the people of Cook County, & has brought his reformative vision, & his commitment to action, to his role as sheriff. Sheriff Dart has rewritten the book on what a sheriff can accomplish, looking inside & outside of the conventions of LE for nuanced & thoughtful solutions to help people.

Sheriff Dart’s skills in management, accountability, & forward-thinking leadership was critical in the success of the Cook County Jail being released from almost 40 yrs of oversight by the U.S. Department of Justice’s federal consent decree, making it the only large jail to ever complete such a task.

Sheriff Dart has instituted extensive programming at the Cook County Jail, seeking to give individuals in custody, skills that help to stop the revolving door of incarceration. The Sheriff has sought out creative programming within the jail in the areas of art, chess, construction, cooking, gardening, parenting, & literacy, all of which help foster social & emotional growth for individuals in custody while they await trial.

Sheriff Dart also formed the Cook County Sheriff’s Office’s Treatment Response Team to provide support & assistance (available 24/7) for those in the community struggling with substance abuse issues.

Sheriff Dart has been named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME Magazine, & a Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine. He & his wife, Patricia, live on Chicago’s South Side & are the proud and dedicated parents of five children.

There's a reason why we saved this one for our season closer! Tune in to understand why.

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

Listen Up! Picture this: our podcast audience is a classroom. Imagine Tom asking, "How many of you know someone within SOF or a veteran of SOF that has been diagnosed with cancer?" We can guarantee every hand would shoot up. This is why you need to listen in to this episode with Dennis Downey.

Dennis Downey is a retired Army officer who spent 26 of 29 years on active duty in Special Forces. He served in a variety of assignments with the 10th and 1st Special Forces Groups and had extensive deployments to both Iraq and the Philippines.

Since retirement in 2010, he has led the First In Asia Association which is dedicated to honoring the fallen from the 1st SFG (A). In 2013, after the death of several friends in the 10th SFG (A), he has been heavily involved with assisting Special Forces Soldiers, their family members, and other Special Operations Forces personnel (CA, PSYOP, Ranger, 160th SOAR, NSW, AFSOC) afflicted with cancers.

He has written to the VA in support of numerous SF Soldiers who are battling for recognition of their cancer as service-connected. He has written both the Commanders of USSOCOM and USASOC to provide information on cancer trends and to help raise awareness of cancer within the force and in the veteran and retiree SF populations.

SF and SOF members and their family members fighting cancer or serving as caregivers to someone with cancer can join the SOF Cancer Fighters Facebook Page for support and information.

Let's dive right into this episode!

Honorable Mentions:

TRICARE covers the following cancer screenings as part of the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Benefit:

• Breast cancer exams
• Cervical cancer exams
• Colorectal cancer exams 
• Lung cancer screening 
• Oral cavity and pharyngeal cancer exams 
• Prostate cancer exams 
• Skin cancer exams
• Testicular cancer exams 
• Thyroid cancer exams

Below are Dennis's best recommendations for websites for cancer information, awareness, and testing programs: 

American Cancer Society

Special Operations Forces support organizations:

Green Beret Foundation 

Navy SEAL Foundation - A Nation of Support  

HunterSeven Foundation  

Diagnostic Testing: 

Galleri® for HCPs  

Top five cancer treatment hospitals in the US:

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/

The growth mindset is important to cultivate as you journey onto the next step following your time in SOF. In this episode with Aaron, he recognizes and owns what he's done in the past, speaks on imposter syndrome, is able to reflect on his growth, and questions Tom on his same path. Aaron also knows he's not on mile 26 of the marathon of life. There's more growth to come. 

Aaron Hill served for five years with the 45 Royal Marine Commandos and  five years with the 22 SAS (UKSF). From the military, he went into the private security industry for ten years, working generally in high-risk, high-pressure, hostile environments, but also for a premiership football team and a few of their players. 

Feeling the need to be closer to home to support his young family, he retrained as a personal trainer and started working in a local gym outside of Barcelona, Spain. 

While in the gym, he went from an under-stimulated and frustrated victim to starting to see his real potential and how to be his authentic self. This was thanks to the work of his friend of mine who coached him and lead him to realise that he  had a desire to help people and that for many years he had been living with a very narrow view of the world and about himself 

He now works as a resilience coach. It helps drive  individuals who feel stuck and want to get the best of themselves and find their own version of success and fulfillment. He lives in Barcelona, Spain, with his wife and two kids. 

This episode is exceptional and important for you to listen to as you move on to the next step of your life! Tune in now.

For more information about All Secure Foundation, visit https://allsecurefoundation.org/