Leading with Grit: From the Naval Academy to Newark's Frontlines

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Welcome to Frontline Voices, a podcast series brought to you by Stanford University's Hoover Institution, exploring leadership, service, and solutions to some of our nation's most pressing issues. I'm your host, Iron Mike Steadman, a Marine Corps veteran and former Hoover Veteran Fellow. In this inaugural episode, I'm joined by Gregory Eason, a Hoover veteran, fellow alumni, Naval Academy graduate, and former naval officer working to provide affordable housing solutions in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia through real estate development.

 

I brought on Gray to help introduce me to you all our listeners. As a host of this series, I think it's important you have an understanding of the lens through which I approach life and see the world based off of some of my own lived experiences. We discussed the theme of normalizing excellence and what it realistically takes to raise and maintain standards of excellence, however we define them in our own lives.

 

I open up about being raised in a single parent home without a father, the realities of young men who grew up in environments like mine, and despite a challenging childhood, how I still managed to persevere through it all to become a successful entrepreneur and change maker. I know this is going to be a bit different from some of the shows you typically find on Hoover's portfolio, but I'm excited to hear your feedback and look forward to knowing what you think.

 

So enjoy. Greg, my brother, so happy to have you for this inaugural episode of Frontline Voices. How's it feel to be guest number one?

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely feels good, I'm glad that the platform is here and I'm excited to see where you take it and the things that we'll learn about you in today's session.

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: First, I wanna just acknowledge Stanford University's Hoover Institution for allowing us to have this platform to introduce a new lens of commentary from American veterans and those of you out there on the front lines talking our world's most pressing issues and really excited to do this. It's been a while since I've.

 

I don't want to say hosted a podcast, but yeah, actually that's what it is. It's been a while since I've personally hosted a podcast myself. I kind of took about a year and a half break and it feels good to kind of shake the cobwebs off and get back in the fight.

 

And, you know, for this inaugural episode, I wanted to bring Greg on because Greg and I have both had the privilege of being alumni of the Hoover Veteran Fellowship Program, and I just thought it'd be great to have Greg on here to help introduce me to you who are listening that might not be familiar with kind of my background and why I'm hosting this platform in the first case, and also why I'm so excited about the program in general and sharing these voices and sharing this commentary that we're going to be able to bring to those of you that are tuning in.

 

So, Greg, let's start by just kind of having you introduce yourself first. What even brought you to be a part of the Veteran Fellowship program in the first place, and then I'll let you take the reins and interview me.

>> Gregory Eason: Yes, absolutely. I'm Greg Eason. And truly what brought me to the Hoover Veterans Fellowship program is first, Mike Steadman.

 

But secondly, my commitment and passion to providing affordable housing with churches being the conduit. In 2022, I got back to Atlanta and I was working as a real estate development manager. And as I continue to be a part of the Men's Ministry at my local church and then branch out to ministries and the churches that are a part of our conference in the AME church, a lot of pastors started to come up to me and say, hey, my church has underutilized land.

 

And we know that there's an affordability crisis. And for some flavor in Atlanta, if you're a child born into poverty in Atlanta, you stand a 1 in 20, 1 in 20 chance of escaping poverty. And so that's less than 5%. And it's the worst chances of escaping poverty out of any major city in the United States.

 

And poverty is often defined by the divine, the environment that you live in. And what we've seen in Atlanta is a lot of intense, what people call capital, a affordable housing, which is where you have a concentration of low income housing. And that hasn't been fruitful for those communities.

 

And so what we've seen is we are able to tie housing into some of those greater personal goals. At the Naval Academy, we called it the three missions, the Mental, the Physical and the Moral. Well, when you have a church right by your housing, the church helps to provide a lot of that mental and moral compass for the people who are in the housing.

 

And we believe that when churches have the economic resources to do good, positive outcomes will follow. And the Hoover Institution has been a very good place for me to kind of workshop the problem that we're solving and band together with other people in the space who are trying to solve the problem of affordable housing.

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: That's amazing. And I can't think of anything that can destroy someone mentally, physically and spiritually as being what we call housing insecure these days. And, you know, there's a stereotype of like the homeless veteran, but it's a real thing, you know, and I've been surprised even in, you know, my understanding what housing insecurity is because you go to a place like the naval academy, you serve your country, become an officer, and.

 

And you assume that the homeless veteran is on drugs or something like that. Life's, you know, people get laid off, people go through divorces. They have all kind of issues and it just destroys them. And so I think it's great about what you're doing, and I think it's a real problem, particularly, you know, as the cost of living continues to rise, especially in our inner cities, and people are just trying to make it.

 

So I'm really glad to have you on here and even unpack that a little bit more.

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely, but I would like if you could tell me a little bit more about your upbringing and your background and kind of. Let's go all the way back to before you decided to go to the naval academy and kind of what were the things that, you know, shaped you into the person who wanted to attend a service academy?

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: That's a great question, so I was born and raised in Tyler, Texas. My mom, Willeen Steadman, I have never met my dad, so I believe his name's Carl but I was raised in a single parent home, had a loving, supporting family, grandparents or grandmother. You know, my grandfather passed away before I was born.

 

And that church family, St. Louis Baptist Church, my grandfather was a pastor and so he pastored at St. Louis. And so we had a strong church community there in Tyler. And so when I was a little boy growing up, you know, deacons from the church would come pick me up and take me to get a haircut.

 

And I know that sounds kind of, I cannot stress even now, kind of looking back on it, it makes me a little bit emotional because just being a young man growing up in that environment, nobody wants to sit at the barbershop with their mom on Saturday morning, you know, especially getting those.

 

First, few haircuts, etc. And so to have men in the community kind of step up. And many of them were actually military veterans. Wilbur Chris from the Korean War was one.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Sadly, he passed away, I think, back in 2017, but he come pick me up, take me, get a haircut and stuff like that.

 

And so community was always a part of my upbringing. But I bounced back and forth between Tyler, Texas, where my grandma lived, and my aunts, and uncles, and Brian, Texas, where I actually ended up graduating high school. So I spent two years in Tyler, then I spent. Sorry, four years in Tyler, then four years of Brian, Texas, then four years in Tyler, and then four years of Bryan, Texas.

 

And mainly, it was because of my mom's job. She was a special education teacher, worked her way up to special education director. And then we had to bounce around a little bit. Growing up and not having that kind of, you know, father figure in the house, you start to create your own kind of version of different males that you look up to.

 

And a friend of mine was named Jason McKinley, and our parents worked together in Bryant. And when Jason was a senior, I was a freshman in high school, and he decided to join the military after graduation. And so because I looked up to Jason and he literally taught me how to shave, you know, when he decided he wanted to go to the military, I said, I want to go to the military.

 

But my mom growing up and, you know, being an educator, it was real important for her to push me to go get my education. And so that's how I discovered about, you know, rotc, started doing some research there. Texas A and M was in our backyard and had the Corps of Cadets.

 

And then I got exposed to the Naval Academy just by a random, you know, English class where our teacher made us present our kind of five and ten year plan. And I was a sophomore at the time. And the person that went ahead of me, you know, he talked about this thing called the Naval Academy.

 

And at the time, I was standing up saying I was gonna go to Texas A$M, do the Corps of Cadets. Back then I wanted to be a Navy SEAL even though I couldn't swim. But once I found out about the Naval Academy, I got curious. He just so happened to have a brochure.

 

He let me take it home. And then that's how I kind of fell down that rabbit hole of the Naval Academy. People ask me this question a lot, though, about what led me to do military service. And I think for me at the time, you know, it was an Aspirational identity.

 

Right. And I think it even applies to my boxing background where there was a poster of like, you see the Special Forces, you see the Marines and the Navy SEALs, and you're like, I don't know what they have, but I want it. It just looks so confident, right?

 

And you can see it. And then you're like, I want to get what they have. And so you start doing your research and you end up joining the military. And then one day you look up and you become that Marine infantry officer, you become that kind of combat veteran.

 

And it's all very surreal now. But that was one of the things is, you know, I didn't grow up with a lot of confidence. Yeah, I grew up being labeled at risk, youth, you know, fatherless home, all those different things. But there was something about that service member that eluded confidence, even though I had never met him.

 

You see the posters, whatever. But then you start to go to the events, the college events, you start talking to recruiters and they kind of have a swagger about them. Yeah, actually, the Marines, Marines are suited and booted. And so I wanted that. And that's what kind of nudged me to go down that pathway.

 

I will say too, I grew up and with my mom and my sister, and my sister did end up going to college, she went to UT. But yeah, I grew up in a single parent home seeing my mom fight like hell to keep us out of trouble and, you know, on the straight and narrow path because in the environment I was in, there wasn't too many male figures around.

 

Everybody I knew would live with their grandma, their aunt, you know, my high school basketball coach, Coach Jones, him and I are like this, you know, because it really was like, I, I, I don't know how to say this is my first time trying to articulate this, but like one to many, essentially what it was, you know, you had a lot of fatherless athletes, fatherless kids at my high school.

 

But our coach, you know, he was like a father figure to like 50, especially on the basketball team, because you had freshmen, you had sophomore, you had, you know, jv, and then you had varsity. And we all looked up to him in that regard. And so seeing that kind of being exposed to that early, that feeling of like, you're responsible for other people, you know, you're responsible for your community, whatever that community is.

 

That's how I grew up. And so that's kind of been a core part of my philosophy in life. I call it lifting as I climb and my mom, you know, she was a big part of that as well.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah, and since we're on the topic of having a male role model, even though, for you, you didn't have the father in the home, what would you say to.

 

To, like, as a younger self, to your future self, when you think about, you know, having a family, I mean, you turned out excellent. You didn't have a father in the household. But, like, can you express some of the things that you probably wish you. You could have learned from the father or, you know, is there any things that you kind of deal with today that you feel like would have been different if you had a father in the household?

 

Because I know that's a lot of. That's a situation that sadly, a lot of young men in America are going through.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Yeah, man, it was hard because you see potential in yourself in the absence of the validation, you know. So, like, I didn't grow up making the best grades in school.

 

And I know that's going to shock a lot of people seeing the fact that, like, I went to the Naval Academy, and then I went on to go to Rutgers, get my master's, and then being a Hoover veteran fellow. But, like, I was never recognized academically, you know, and at a certain point when I decided I wanted to go to the Naval Academy, somebody told me it wasn't happening.

 

They said, you don't have the grace to get in and stuff, etc. And so that's where, again, I credited to my mom, who just. She put the I believe button in me at a very early age that anything was possible and would always nudge me on that. But now that I'm older and I look back, one thing I'm very cognizant of now is being weary of labels that are put on you that you didn't put on yourself.

 

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: And to be honest, it's something that I'm struggling with, I'm still working past these debt today. You know, my coach calls it cutting wires, you know, because it's almost like this operating system has been put in you, you know, and I. The terms at risk, youth, you know, people like you don't belong here.

 

Pedigrees and all these different things, right? And so, you know, we're going to get into it, but you end up having this kind of like, imposter syndrome. And at the time, like, I think one of my superpowers is I'm just very driven, you know, sometimes tunnel vision wise, though.

 

It's like I put a goal, and I just freaking plow through, you know, because if I stop to think about all that other stuff, you know, it's only going to slow me down. But growing up, like, I did not have the confidence, you know? And I would just say to myself, first of all, you got to surround yourself with the right people.

 

Now, I know that sounds cliche.

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: But, you know, they call me Iron Mike, so I got to say, iron sharpens iron. But it's so true, you know, because you, you know, this theme, even today's episode, is about normalizing excellence when you're around other people that aspire to, you know, be the best or are pushing them.

 

Themselves, it's gonna rub off on you, but sometimes you just gotta see that right? Now, I was very lucky early on that, like, again, I have my mom there, so she helped me to a higher standard than a lot of other kids. They didn't have a standard.

>> Gregory Eason: That's sad, yeah.

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: But surrounding myself, iron sharpens iron, seeing what's possible. And I think the other thing too is. And I deal with this in Newark. Right. So if you would have told me before I moved to Newark and a kid had it rough, right? I would kind of, kind of pat him on the back.

 

It's okay, man, you got this, et cetera, et cetera. And there's still a little bit of that. But I, I really don't jump in and save too many people. I try to empower them to save themselves by teaching them how to accept their current reality. Admiral Stockdale talks about the stock.

 

You know, the Stockdale principle, I think, sorry, Jim Collins coined it, the Stockdale paradox, where you accept your current reality, except the brutal facts of current reality, but have faith that things will work out in the end. And sometimes we're in these environments where it seems so impossible, you know, like it's a herculean lift to get into the Naval Academy or go to college anywhere, you know, to hit that score on the sat, but accept your current reality, it's like, hey, you might not be where you want to be yet, but if you keep showing up, you keep doing the work and you have faith that things are going to work out long run, that belief that triumphs everything.

 

And so I try to empower kids in my immediate circle to just kind of, you know, hey, I know life is hard. I know you don't have all the resources and, you know, you don't have a lot of money and stuff, et cetera, but it is what it is, you know.

 

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: I know that sounds harsh, but it's truth. Because for us out here in this world, man, especially me, you being entrepreneurs, nobody's saving us, it's hard.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah. And I also think, you know, having the ability to show up every day and follow a course of action when you don't see an immediate result is something that is really going to be a defining factor.

 

And whether you achieve, like, excellence or whether you stop before, before you see it. So I think, you put it perfectly, you gotta see your current circumstances, number one, and oftentimes they're not gonna be great. And then number two, you gotta decide that you're gonna deal with those set of facts and make a plan.

 

Even though you don't have certainty of outcomes, which, you know, that's, that's not, that's not an easy thing to do.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Yeah. And I can definitely say that I do feel the benefit of having male figures around, because even in the absence of it, cuz I did it the hard way, right?

 

I didn't have any. And you know, when I was going through the infantry officer course in the dead of winter, when I was in Afghanistan in the dead of winter. Right. That softness was kind of ripped out of me, you know. And then I become an entrepreneur and you get punched in the face as an entrepreneur.

 

Right. And part of you is like, dang, man, I wish I would have had that tension when I was younger. I wish somebody would have kind of instilled that in me when I was younger. And I'm, I'm still where I am today, you know, because of my family and the support that they put around me.

 

But I definitely, like, there's a certain kind of toughness I think that I missed out on by not having that father figure in the house, if I'm being honest.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah. And it's someone that I grew up in a two parent household and sometimes it's not that you have a dad that's just telling you, hey, you need to be tough and not have any feelings and you just need to suck it up.

 

But it's your dad as a male, your dad is giving you your default settings of how you approach problems and like, you kind of hit the nail on the head with confidence. Like seeing my dad being, you know, a successful pastor, which Pat, all pastors are entrepreneurs, but he was a full time pastor and most pastors have to work, you know, job and then come to pastor because most churches aren't able to, are, aren't large enough for you to do that as your day in and day out job.

 

But kind of seeing the way he approached that subconsciously gave me a set of kind of like a default principles of how to approach life successfully. And, you know, something that I hope, you know, other other young men can have, even though, you know a lot, sadly aren't able to, you know, experience that.

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: And I have to imagine at least having your dad in the house had to provide a certain level of benchmarking so you like, you knew what was possible for you, you had something to look up to. Whereas for me it was, I didn't know, you know, it was like, it's like Star Wars.

 

It's like the future's blurry, you know, And I think that's even what they kind of hint at in, like, the movie is like, you don't know what you're going to become. You don't really have anything to benchmark off of. You've got all these kind of different. You got coaches, you've got pastors, you've got teachers and stuff, etc.

 

But at the same time, you don't have that one definitive to kind of look up to and be like, I can be like that. I want to be like that. And so throughout my life, you're kinda journeying, and it's unfortunate, right? Is you start to put people in a father figure role.

 

That. It's not that, though. You get what I'm saying? And you gotta have the mental awareness to separate that and be like, this is my teacher. This is my coach. This is my X, Y and Z. You know, Uncle Phil, Fresh Prince of Bel Air. You know, there's a lot of stuff online where people say, like, people don't know how many kids Uncle Phil raised, you know, because we were living vicariously through, you know, Will Smith.

 

You know what I mean? Looking at Michael, Phil and some of these other television characters that represent the father figure kids like me didn't have.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah, and I guess the kinda wrap it up, when you say, you look at other people and then you got to realize, no, this is a teacher, know this is a coach or even this is an uncle.

 

The thing about having a father that's yours is it's a certain level of ownership and commitment that most of the time only somebody who's that's their blood and that's their DNA is gonna fulfill. And I guess if you don't have that, you look for it in some and someone else.

 

They can be like a fractional father in certain instances. But, you know, like, growing up, you know, if my dad said he was going to pick me up from, you know, football practice, like, it was there. Honestly, growing up, it was a shock to realize how many people didn't keep their word because my dad said he would do something.

 

You know, it's. It's not even a question. So kinda that level of certainty, I think it can't be understated in the ability to have that growing up. But if you're okay with jump into a thing that we that we have of normalizing excellence. Where did that come from?

 

And I guess at one point in your journey post-military, did you feel like excellence was something that you had to normalize? And I guess what kinda brought that about in you?

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: So excellence is one of my favorite words. It's one of my favorite words cuz me, it represents an aspirational identity.

 

It's not that you're guaranteed to get there, but it's something that you're striving to get to. And I have this term called uncommon humans. And the first time I got exposed to uncommon humans was at the Naval Academy. You're sitting in the classroom and one of your classmates got papers all over the place, and he's sitting in the back of the class and stuff, etc.

 

But then you come to later find out that he's graduating number one from the Naval Academy.

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: And he's captain of the hockey team, and then he's gonna go off and be a Navy SEAL or pilot or something like that, and he's also a aerospace engineer, and then you go on to Rhodes Scholar and all this other stuff, right?

 

In the environment I grew up in, I didn't get exposed to that. I was in regular classes. But because my mom was a administrator at my high school and I said I wanted to go to the Naval Academy, she knew how important it was to get that AP on your transcripts.

 

And so she was able to get me into AP classes, even though technically I didn't have the grades for it. And I didn't really know much about AP in the first place. But that classroom was radically different than the classroom that I was in previously, and I got a little whiff of it there.

 

But when I got to the Naval Academy, it was kinda like the next level. And so then once you start getting exposed to these things and you move out through your career, being an infantry officer or graduating Academy in general, people are getting out, going to get their MBAs.

 

They're going to grad school, and they're going to all these different things. And you can feel a little bit of imposter syndrome, too, because part of you is like, man, these guys are so special, that, and ladies. And what do they have that I don't have, and stuff, etc.

 

And so rather than kinda feeling like the woe is me kinda mentality, I start to try to mimic the behaviors of people I aspire to be like, habits from here, habits from there, etc. And it was really me about kinda taking ownership of this concept of excellence and what it means to be excellent.

 

And even though I might not always feel it inside, I'm gonna strive to achieve that. And then the concept of normalizing excellence is sometimes you just need to see other people or be exposed to other people to know certain things are possible. So for example, when I was at the Naval Academy, I made up my mind I wanted to be an infantry officer, but I didn't see any infantry officers that looked like me.

 

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah, yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: And the first two African American infantry officers] I met, Cedric Jefferson and Maurice Chapman, I remember when they walked in to Dry Dock, which was the restaurant we had at the Naval Academy. And these were my superheroes. I might as well have seen LeBron.

 

But once, and I already, again, you already know what's possible within you, but you just kinda hit the I believe button. You're hitting the I believe button, but then you see it and it's boom. Or when I was at a entrepreneur event a couple years ago, and it was by the Institute of Veteran and Military Families and was held in New Jersey, and they had a session about growing a scaling adventure.

 

So I walk in that session and there's four PhDs that look like me.

>> Gregory Eason: Wow, yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Instantly, what do you think I want? I want a PhD.

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely, yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: You know, because just kinda getting exposed to that and so to kinda bring it all full circle, it's just a aspirational identity.

 

It's so powerful to me, because we all know how hard it is to keep striving in the face of constant adversity, but it's just a way to think about kinda life and pushing ourselves.

>> Gregory Eason: And I think one of the things that I pointed out from what you said about normalizing excellence is not the times that you don't get to it, where you use that to define you.

 

But you're a boxer. If you're in the fight and you're trying to be excellent, eventually it's gonna become a habit, and it's not gonna be a steady state. It's always a fight. But the ability to wake up every day and keep fighting to be excellent seems to be a part of your character and almost a part of your DNA.

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Yeah, and the other thing was, it's all nice and dandy to talk about this when we're sitting in the ivory towers at these nice schools and whatever. But when you're building a venture from scratch and you're walking around confident, acting as if, people looking at you like you're crazy.

 

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely, yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: You ain't got no customers, you're going from zero to one. But that doesn't mean that we have to show up raggedy, that doesn't mean that we have to not try our best. And so it's, yeah, man, I don't know. It's just a powerful concept to me, and I think it's something I want to write about more.

 

But it's just, I don't know, man. I think for me, again, when I think about my background, I really didn't hear the word excellence. Nobody really pushed me that way. But being at the Naval Academy, being exposed to so many amazing humans, people that are doing great things in the military, out of the military and stuff, etc., I just decided I wanted what they had.

 

And it's crazy to say this on this platform when y'all are probably looking at us. You're like, both of y'all went to the Naval Academy. You both veteran folks. What are y'all talking about people had? But you, We know imposter syndrome is real, and when you grow up with a chip on your shoulder, and that's what I'm struggling with now, Greg, is letting go of the chip.

 

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah, and when you kinda dive into the imposter syndrome, when you're doing what, when do you feel the imposter syndrome? And then the chip on your shoulder, I guess, is how it presents. So I can, what situations do you feel the imposter syndrome, and then in your actions, how does that present?

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: So I have a peak performance coach. Her name is Melissa, and I meet with her at the start of every week on Mondays.

>> Gregory Eason: Yes.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: And I was telling Melissa, so much of what we do, especially at this age, I'm 37. I do a lot of things off of instinct, but that instinct has been built up over time, so whether I come up with a plan and then I start executing the plan, and then I trust the plan.

 

When I am off, I start second guessing everything. It's like, why am I going down this rabbit hole? Did I make a mistake? And sometimes it could be something simple as trying to get a new client. Or it's been a while since you've got clients, because very passive about entrepreneurship, I do business coaching, I do a bunch of other things.

 

Or even a funder for Ironbound, right? It just feels like the world is squeezing on you and everything is hard, and you. You don't feel confident. It's like the opposite of beast mode, essentially. That's what she said. She's like, when you're feeling like that, you're not feeling like you're in beast mode, versus when I'm hitting everything, get that workout in in the morning.

 

I'm feeling good. Challenges that are coming up, right? It's like, it's not throwing me off my game because I'm. I'm focused, I'm executing, you know, but it's like two different kind of feelings. But when I'm not feeling super confident and I still have to show up that imposter is in my ear.

 

He's like, you don't have an mba. You know, you, You. I think there's an author, I forgot her name. Psychology, she calls it parts where sometimes we will be stuck from something that happened in our childhood that we're still carrying with us today. So like that teacher that tells you you're not good enough to get into the Naval Academy.

 

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Then you're in a situation and you get rejected for something. Now that's taking you back, despite all the progress you've made, despite your age, with a single word or phrase, somebody has kicked you back, you know, 30 years. And so it's that and being aware of that, you know, anytime I'm operating at the edge of my own competency, where I'm having to constantly having these mental talks in my head.

 

You got this, Mike. You got this.

>> Gregory Eason: Yes. And so, yeah, I think we haven't delved into ironbound, but ironbound is a not for profit. And you interact with youth in Newark, New Jersey, and you teach them boxing. But also, I know being not being confident in a boxing match can get you hurt.

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Correct.

>> Gregory Eason: And so for some of, let's say you have a new person that comes into Ironbound, and they want to learn how to box, but they're not a boxer. How do you get them to overcome their imposter syndrome, to be able to perform in the ring when you have, quote unquote, live rounds coming at you?

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: So I think that's what's so powerful about boxing, particularly for the young men and women that we serve. Because, you know, how many people can play on a basketball team? Like 15, maybe.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: You know, then you talk about football and track and some of these other sports, but in Newark, New Jersey, where Ironbound Boxing is located, you know, you got 50,000 kids running around.

 

You know, there's not enough programs for them. And so think about the kids that are not going to be playing basketball, running track, etc. And, you know, I was not a star athlete growing up, so I didn't have people in my ear telling me I'm great, pumping me up, etc.

 

You know, and I definitely Wasn't getting it in the classroom. So where did that confidence come from? Grace of God, you know, essentially, right? But in Newark, you got those young men and women, they're in the same situation, you know, they're living in the projects, right? They may or may not come from a two parent household.

 

Finances are tough, right? And then now they're having to go through life and the same thing, not really getting it done in the classroom. They are searching for confidence. And what we do with Ironbound, that kid walks in the gym, they might not know how to box and stuff, etc.

 

But it's like that analogy I gave at the beginning. Who does the boxer represent? You know, what does it mean to be a champion, right? That is an aspirational identity a lot of these kids were looking for. They didn't know jack about boxing, but they know if I go in a boxing gym, I might get what they have.

 

That's the same thing that led me to box at the Naval Academy. I wanted what they had, right? That naval academy boxer, that brigade champ, etc. So you help kids get confidence through small and incremental progress. You know, they come in one day, they can't even keep their hands up.

 

Then you teach them a basic boxing stance, Then you teach them a couple little things, and now they start to make progress, et cetera, et cetera, and it's addicting. And then they get used to making progress, right? And then you go from never boxing to now they're sparring for the first time and then they get better at sparring, they get more confidence.

 

Now they want to get the first boxing match, right? So it's like a building process, right?

>> Gregory Eason: And, and one of the cool things you said was they get used to making progress and going off the theme of normalizing excellence. Would you almost say excellence? Because excellence is an abstract term.

 

But would you define the verb of excellence is getting used to making progress or is that, is that not how you view it?

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: No, I think, I think there's definitely a progress to it, but maybe even with that, right, it's like success, right? How do you define success for yourself, you know, especially as an adult when, you know, you ain't getting on panels and, you know, the, the days are over of the metals and the shiny objects and stuff, right?

 

Like, you don't get rewarded for doing your job, Essentially, some people do, but for most of us, right, we get up every day, we attack it, we attack it, we attack it. And sometimes the only people that know how hard we work or the only people that recognize our efforts are our immediate family and team members, etc.

 

And so, for a lot of listeners out there trying to define what success means for you and your professional career and your business with your project, you know, it's on you. Just like excellence is, like what does excellence mean to you? You know, I know what it's not.

 

You know what I mean?

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: It's not enough for kids. It's not going to the gym. It's not doing your row work. It's not skipping, you know, your nutrition and your meals. It's not listening to your coach. That's the opposite of excellence, you know, So I think it's a little bit abstract, but I will say I know it also gets a bad rap at times because it feels like, I don't know, sometimes people.

 

If you throw excellence around people, it almost feels like you're talking down to them, because people start to project and they start to look at themselves and what they don't have, you know, and it can seem like you're kind of putting these people on a pedestal while you're thumb of your nose down at us over here.

 

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah. And I think that's a great segue into breaking the chain and kind of redoing the wiring in our heads. And so, I mean, I would assume if. If you are in a situation and you may feel maybe so distraught that you can't even have the concept of excellence being talked about around you because your circumstances are.

 

You're just trying to make it to the next minute, to the next meal, to the next night. What are some tools and frameworks that you have as it relates to kind of breaking the chain of maybe like, we call it the mundaness or mediocrity.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Yeah. And I want to define even breaking the chain for a lot of people because we're using a lot of lyrics that y'all might not have heard of, you know, some music and stuff, etc.

 

But it's essentially like dropping a chip, you know, breaking the chain is dropping a ship on your shoulder, like nobody cares. So what? You know, you're grown now. All that stuff that happened to you in childhood, for a lot of us, it's like, you know, you've had a lot of experience now, but still carrying this weight.

 

And so, you know, you talk about frameworks and stuff. Like, I think back when I was moved. First moved to Newark, so I got to bring people up to speed on this because I know we. We kind of start riffing, but I have to bring you all up to speed.

 

When I was at the Naval Academy, I got exposed to the sport of boxing and I became a three time national boxing champ, two time most about boxer, captain of my boxing team. I tell people I didn't win three national championships boxing a bunch of midshipmen. I spent a lot of time in inner city boxing gyms in Baltimore, D.C, New York City.

 

And the reality of the day was that the kids in these gyms did not have the same possibilities in life for those of us that were coming out of the academy. So Naval Academy, you box, but you graduate from a world class institution, you serve your country as an officer in the military, and then you get out, start your own business, work in corporate America, go to grad school, et cetera.

 

That is not normal in inner city amateur boxing. So when I graduated from the academy, after I served our country, I relocated to Newark, New Jersey, where I started the Ironbound Boxing Academy. And during that time I was running a boys home, essentially at a private school in St Bennett's Prep.

 

Sorry, at a private school in Newark called St Benedict's Prep. I was a glorified house parent. So I ran a residence hall with 70 teenage boys, primarily black and Latino, living in the heart of Newark, New Jersey.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: My peers, you know what they were doing?

 

They were going to Harvard, they were going to warden, right? They're doing all this other stuff and I'm getting knocks on my door at 12 o'clock in the morning, waking me up to go, you know, put out some nonsense, right? And I was not printing money, I'm still not printing money.

 

A drastically different world, you know. And I just kind of had this vision in my mind. I want to start this, you know, free amateur boxing program. And people would tell me, like, what are you doing? You know, and this is early on, early on, right? Like ironbound was like grassroots.

 

We're still grassroots, but I'm talking about table and chair grassroots. Because we didn't have a boxing gym. I used the residence hall to train kids how to box. I train them out from in the grass, I train them in the residence hall and stuff, etc. So I'm hitting that I believe button because I have this vision of what's possible.

 

But my immediate peer group, my peer circle, they didn't have. They didn't see the vision yet. You know, they were just supporting me because of our background, our service together and stuff, et cetera. But I'm sure deep down they're probably thinking like, yo, is Mike going through it?

 

>> Gregory Eason: What's he doing?

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: What is he doing? Over time, I approached the city of Newark about starting a free gym in town. I asked for a space. I said, if you give me a space, we'll outfit it ourselves. And that became, you know, the Ironbound Boxing Academy.

 

But like, those early on messages, I'm telling you, the imposter syndrome was real. You know, I felt like I was missing out on life, and I was really contemplating, like, did I make the right choice?

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Because when you do go down this pathway, we talk about change makers.

 

Right. And so this is who we're going to be targeting. You know, a lot of on this podcast. Teachers, you know, people working in, you know, economic development, you know, people working on the front line of health. Right. These aren't always glamorous jobs, and people are getting older, you know, and just the reality of what comes with that, because sometimes you can be benchmarking against other people in their professional careers.

 

This person is making half a million dollars plus a year.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: And you're over here working in a classroom somewhere, right? Those things are real. And, you know, it affects people, and it's something that can be real, just like real challenging. But, you know, thankfully, again, just hit an I believe button and I believe button, and you fast forward now, you know, 10 years later, people start to see some of the progress we made with Ironbound, you know, the Dick Sporting Goods Foundation.

 

You know, we've gotten support from the UFC and some of these others. I've been able to be on, you know, national television a couple times, but that's later. Like, that's 10 years down the line. That wasn't, you know, those first couple years. And it was very, very challenging, you know, to not to stay, keep myself motivated.

 

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah. And I think one of the. The hidden things about, you know, giving back is. And there's a book in a movie called Bonhoeffer, But Deirdre Bonhoeffer, 20th century theologian, he also during World War II, returned to Germany because he didn't believe that what was going on there was right.

 

And he ended up dying in a concentration camp. But he wrote a book called the Cost of Discipleship. And basically he says, like when you're called to do something great, basically, oftentimes it kind of the requirement is death, but is sometimes that death isn't always like physical. But, you know, the nicest house is the biggest car, the most expensive, you know, shoes and.

 

And watch to. To truly make a difference in people's lives. And, you know, being a son of a pastor, you know, when you're making a difference, it doesn't always come with a rainbow and a pot of gold. At the end of it. But when, when you typically when people ask, you know, hey, hey, how's Mike?

 

Or, you know, they'll say, he's a good man. He's a decent man. And, you know, that's kind of some of the best compliments that you'll get. So yeah, we call those eulogy virtues because I think a lot of times people can spend their careers trying to get cloud on LinkedIn, right?

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: They got all the different resume stuff, but at the end of the day, when you're dead and gone, that's not what people kind of talk about. You know, they talk about the impact and stuff you made. And I think even a lot of people listening to this podcast and people even interested in what we've been doing with the veteran fellowship program, you know, they're going to be leaning more towards impact because I think that's just something that I see with a lot of transitioning veterans.

 

You get out of the military, you've been kind of very mission driven.

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Working on stuff bigger than yourself. And it's like, how do you kind of find that way, you know, in civilian world? But at the same time, people are getting out. They have families, they have kids, they have things that are responsible for so staying true to yourself while also making sure, like, your basic needs are being met.

 

And, you know, everything was getting amplified, even going back to, you know, we're talking about before, because when I was building Iron Bound, social media was already kind of out in existence. But think about over time, it was really taken off. Yeah, so people are you're constantly seeing what other people are doing while you're sitting there dealing with a disgruntled parent in Newark for a free program for us.

 

You know what I mean? Like a free program for a free program. Yeah. People call your phone all day, every day. You're like, is this it? Is this, you know, this is what I signed up for. But I think it's just the reality of, like, what it takes, you know, And I've had to.

 

I mean, you talk about keeping a free boxing gym open in the middle of a global pandemic in Newark, New Jersey.

>> Gregory Eason: That has to be tough.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Talk about nobody was coming. Newark was a ghost town. People think I call myself Iron Mike because I act, because of my accolades in the boxing ring.

 

No, I start calling myself Iron Mike because I had to give myself a pep talk when the NBA got canceled. And I knew it was a rap for ironbound. No businesses fell for primarily two reasons. Number one, no market need, which means no one's buying what you're selling.

 

And number two, they ran out of cash. And virtually overnight, there was no market need for boxing anywhere. And the reality that we were going to run out of cash was very real, you know, and at the time, my income was earned teaching boxing to companies in the New York City metro area.

 

So I had a social enterprise. Right. I had the for profit model on site boxing classes in New York City and the nonprofit, the Ironbound Boxing Academy in Newark. And so seeing both of those things just wiped out, man, it was very, very rough. And I had to give myself a pep talk, get up off the canvas, literally and physically and get back in the fight.

 

And I was able to do some things. I taught myself how to podcast, hence how we're here today. You know, I started helping other people podcasts as a way to earn income for myself. And I got exposed to some different business models, profitable business models that I was able to grow in and serve the veteran entrepreneurial community, which I'm very passionate about now.

 

Helping what I call underdogs and misfits, enjoy and succeed in business while still carrying that legacy forward with Ironbound boxing.

>> Gregory Eason: Absolutely, and then you have a final concept that I want you to dive into, talk about the gap and game.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: So Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, Dan Sullivan's this world business coach.

 

He's been doing it for like 50 years, runs an organization called Strategic Coach. And then Dr.Benjamin Hardy is a writer, organizational psychologist, et cetera. They came together to write this book called the Gap in the Gain. And Dan Sullivan had been teaching this concept forever. And essentially what it talks about is sometimes we can ignore the progress we've made by focusing on the gap, which is we're here, but where we wanna be, we're still not there yet, and it still seems so far away.

 

And sometimes when you look at it and realize that you can instantly fall into kind of some self loathing instead of looking behind you and recognizing how far you've come. You know, when you think about even us right now being on this platform, when I think about where I came from, to be here today doing the things I'm doing, I would have never imagined in my life.

 

I never imagined I would be an entrepreneur. That wasn't even like I saw entrepreneurship growing up, but nobody called it entrepreneurship. It was just, to be quite frank, a bunch of failed businesses.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: You will see people in your family, my mom had a flower shop she was trying to do.

 

She had some other stuff she was trying to do, but it was more survival mode. Anything else, it wasn't thriving. People were just doing stuff just to keep the lights on and pay the bills and feed me and my sister. You know, I never viewed that as entrepreneurship.

 

So, like I didn't want no part of that. But versus kind of what I'm able to do now, I just, it seems so beats are quite frank, impossible. And I have to remind myself that even now I'm recording this podcast in the co-working space in Harlem, cuz of rally entrepreneurships.

 

I have a co-working space here, not my fancy desk setup like I had before, mainly because one remote work is here. So I'm kind of moving around just a little bit more.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: And it's like 6 o'clock everybody's gone from the office. So I'm here solo dolo getting this podcast done, but that's the reality of what it takes to see it as an entrepreneur.

 

And I'm very blessed to be able to able to do this because I've gone through pandemic. Then we had some people say it was a session or not. Now you got AI here taking jobs left and right.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: You're constantly kinda having to bobble and weave and stay in the fight.

 

But I'm here.

>> Gregory Eason: And I also think one concept in the gap in the game is that there's a level of gratitude that you have from noticing that. I mean, you aren't where you started. Right. And, and that should be gratitude. But looking forward is a level of faith and hope that you're gonna get there one day.

 

But what, what are your thoughts on how gratitude can be a tool that helps you appreciate where you are and motivate you to move forward?

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Listen, I write in my journal every day three things I'm grateful for. 99.9999% of the time I woke up.

>> Gregory Eason: Yes.

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: I write that every day I woke up to see another day because sadly, even from our peers at the naval camp, we've got people that are no longer here.

 

You know, had people that didn't come back from Afghanistan with us, you know, family members. You know, I lost my uncle at the end of 2023, and, you know, he would always reach out to me on Veterans Day, you know, and when I, you know, even going back, I.

 

My boxing matches my freshman year, my mom had a. My sophomore year, my mom had a stroke. So she's been bedridden and paralyzed ever since I was a sophomore in college at the Naval Academy. Right. So when I was fighting and competing, I'm competing for the national championship, I had to find people to call that I could just talk to when I Came back from Afghanistan.

 

Right. Didn't have that father figure to pick up the phone and call, I had to call peers from the academy and stuff like that. And to still be standing here today past all that, right, That's a huge accomplishment. You know, even more recently I did something. And again, as for the listeners, you're going to hear a lot of stuff, you know, as we continue with this series.

 

But I, last year I completed a trip to Everest base camp. So I went to Kathmandu, completed the nine day trek, got a photo I'll probably share with everyone. But that was so far away from anything I would have ever imagined growing up as a child, you know, And I completed that and you can't take that away from me.

 

I've also done Machu Picchu, I've done all these other things that are amazing. But again, I just have to remind myself and be grateful, you know, that I was able to participate in those things, that I took action in those things, that I got those things done. You know, even with the Hoover Institution, got to travel to Tbilisi, Georgia with my cohort.

 

I would have never gone to Tbilisi. But again, that theme of normalizing excellence. Ever since that trip, I keep pushing the limits of travel. Last, over the holidays, came back from Vietnam in Thailand, my first time going out there. But I'm so interested in seeing these other parts of the world just because I got exposed to it.

 

And so that's my new normal, you know, and that wasn't always the normal. And so, yeah, just trying to practice gratitude in everything that I do.

>> Gregory Eason: Yeah, and I think the gratitude it's such a big piece because even in America and I know we have a ton of volatility at home overseas, but even the gratitude to being a country where your hard work can lead to a better outcome for you your family and, and your community is something that I think no matter how much strife there is in America, is something that you have to be grateful for.

 

I traveled to other countries and seen how hard it is if you didn't grow up in the right class of people there, there's no way for you to go from being an inner city kid to becoming Iron Mike. So, yeah, I think the, the gratitude piece is huge.

 

And also on the health piece and I grew up in, in church in, in the south, and when old mother of the church would get up and say, you know, I thank God for a reasonable portion of life, health and strength, you know, the older I get. And you see, you know, like, life happens and, you know, certain people you went to school with aren't here or certain diagnosis that are things that people will have to battle until the end.

 

And you just realize how, how blessed you are to have the opportunity to, to do a couple of things you said, like to fight, to try to be excellent, to try to, you know, to break the chain of whatever we had to do and our limitations from the past, and to realize there's a gap and a gain and we've come far, but we still have a bright future ahead and, and the gratitude can help us achieve that.

 

>> "Iron" Mike Steadman: Man, 100%, and I hope our listeners out here, one of the reasons, again, we want to do this podcast is just kind of set the stage by introducing you all to me as the host of the series. Because, you know, even what we talked about, this concept of normalizing excellence, I think we started with one what is the reality of growing up without a positive male figure in the household?

 

And you don't got to be a rocket science to see that a lot of young men and women, right, are lost out there, but particularly what's going on online on these platforms with, you know, and in any society, right, that's very volatile when you have a lot of young men lacking guidance, et cetera, et cetera.

 

And so by some of the work I've been able to do in Newark, right, I can bring an interesting perspective and also my lived experiences of what that entails, but then also just kind of take off our armor a bit for those of you that are listening, that are veterans, that are kind of probably dealing with a lot of the stuff that we talked about about that transition, you know, staying the course when you're trying to be a change maker, you know, when you're trying to do a social good for the community and still keep the lights on, look after your family and stuff, et cetera, and also stay appreciative when it feels like, you know, just this world of, like, constant uncertainty.

 

And so we're real honored to kind of have you here with us on this journey. And again, we're just getting started. This is just episode one, but I wanted to expose you all a little bit, kind of where I'm coming from and some of the lens and the place I'm sitting as I'm going to help to kind of guide some of these conversations.

 

And I also know that a lot of you that are tuning in are either friends of the Hoover Institution or your veterans that are heard about this program called the Veteran Fellowship Program and you're interested in applying and so we really want you to do so. We want to encourage you to do so so you can get exposed to other veterans like Greg and I as well as you know the amazing resources that the Hoover Institution provides through the Veteran Fellowship Program.

 

And so we'll leave a link in the comment section. You can go to hoover.org/vfp and apply from there. But also we'll have some more insights to follow later. But I think for this inaugural episode I think we did a great job for all you that are tuning in, we appreciate you.

 

Until next time. Peace love. Have a great rest of your weekend.