Interview with Ed Brzychcy, President Blue Cord Management

Ed Brzychcy, former US army infantry staff sergeant, three combat deployments, finally found his purpose. Then an injury and PTSD changed all that. So, he took his life's #HoShiMo's and turned them into a thriving business coaching leaders to be more robust, agile, via his consulting firm, Blue Cord Management. #csuite #csuiteradio

Transcript:

Julie:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Conversational I'm Julie Raine. And today I am here with my guest, Ed Brzychy, which thank God he taught me how to say it, because it's spelled B-R-Z-Y-C-H-C-Y. So I wouldn't have guessed it right the first time, but it's a lot easier than it looks. So Ed's with me today, he has a great story to tell. So, first of all, he's a former US army infantry staff sergeant. He has served three combat deployments during operation Iraqi freedom. And today he has built a really amazing business, where he's coaching leaders to be more robust, agile, to create more collaborative teams in their own organizations. And it's all because of his consulting firm that he has created, Blue Cord Management.

In addition, he does lots of other things. He is also a fellow podcaster. He has his own podcast called, Leadership Update Brief, and it's on the C-Suite Radio, which is the platform and one of the groups that I use as well. So we have our connections there too, which is fun. And he's recently published books, Daily Leadership Reflections, which is a 30 day guided journal for new and experienced leaders. He does a lot of speaking. He mentors entrepreneurs via Endicott's fuel program, there's two programs, at Babson, coaching for leadership and teamwork and Babson alumni supporting entrepreneurs, that he's involved with. He's a professional member of the National Speakers Association. He does a lot with other organizations on boards, et cetera. It's really amazing that you have time to do all these things.

But the thing that I love about your bio best is that, because everybody loves a Navy seal, but in 2019, just last year, you were given the Navy seal special warfare operator, chief petty officer Kevin A Houston award, by mass fallen heroes, for exceptionally meritorious and remarkable service to veterans and gold star families of Massachusetts. It is a mouthful of an award, but I am wildly impressed by it. And so let me just start by saying, thank you for your service and I can't wait to hear more about that. So welcome ED.

Ed:

Thank you so much, Julie. It's great to be here.

Julie:

It is. I'm glad that we're able to do this, as I have now recorded, this is my third Zoom podcast recording. I'm an in person podcast girl, I like to look at people's faces. So we can see each other, but it's not the same as being in a room. But I'm finding Zoom to be fun. On your podcast, do you do in person or do you do Zoom or chat kind of thing?

Ed:

I have been, for the update brief, I have been using either Zoom or [inaudible] to do the recording since I got started. So I found that with the dispersion of everyone in my network, it was just a lot easier to be doing it online rather than in person.

Julie:

Yeah, I got it. Yeah. It's been great for me to be able to do that too because you're up in Boston obviously, and nobody's going anywhere these days. And even if they were down the street, this is how I have to do it. We adapt. We are adapting, no doubt. So I'm going to go back to, let's go start from the beginning. My favorite thing to do, tell me where are you from? What did your parents do? What town did you grow up in? Do you have brothers and sister? Give me the whole story.

Ed:

So the whole story. All right. So originally I was born in Rahway, New Jersey, and I grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts. My mom moved my brother and I up there when I was about nine or 10 years old, after my dad had passed, she went up there for work and took us with him. And so not quite Boston born, but certainly Boston bred.

Julie:

Yeah, Well, it's a Boston strong, no doubt. What did your parents do?

Ed:

My mom, from the time I was growing up, she came up, she had a job in research management at a local lab here in Gloucester. And then from there she actually went on to become a school teacher because she wanted to spend more time with my brother and I. And then while she was doing that, she went through night school, earned her CPA and became an accountant, which she started just after I graduated high school.

Julie:

Wow. Okay. And so what did your dad ...

Ed:

They had actually both met at chemistry in college and they we're both chemists.

Julie:

Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Oh, that's great. And so do you have brothers and sisters?

Ed:

I have one younger brother, yes.

Julie:

One younger brother. Okay. Is everybody still in Boston, are y'all near each other?

Ed:

No, my younger brother is down in Texas. He's has a contracting position on Fort Hood, where I was stationed with the military and he's just eased into life down there and enjoys the fact that there's no snow. So I don't think he's coming back up here anytime soon.

Julie:

That's funny. Yeah. Well it's a hard thing to ... You get used to that no snow pretty quickly. My parents live down there too, so I get that. So when you were growing up, this is about military. Is your brother, by the way, is he part of the military?

Ed:

No, he is a mechanic by trade and went down to Fort Hood, stayed with me for a little while as he got on his feet. And then he quickly landed himself a job as a mechanic, repairing all the range equipment that we just shoot the shit out of on a daily basis. So he has a very secure job down there.

Julie:

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the one thing about army training, right? Things will get shot.

Ed:

Especially in the infantry, if you want something broken, give it to an infantry man.

Julie:

That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay. So this military streak, did this run anywhere in your family or were you the first?

Ed:

I wasn't the first, but it certainly hasn't been entirely prevalent in my family and it shocked a lot of people, when soon after high school, rather than trying to continue on with college, I decided to go the enlistment route.

Julie:

Yeah. Why? Well, tell me first, in school did you always think that you're going to do this or what was your plan?

Ed:

There was no plan. High school and I did not get along very well. Certainly my mom being a single mom and I grew up as a latchkey kid in the 90s and got into the predictable amount of trouble that that would entail. And so the military was a surprise. It was one evening, I got a call from the military recruiter just as they dialed down their list of recent high school graduates. And it was, "Hey, have you ever thought about joining the military?" "No, not really." "Well, do you want to talk about it?" "I guess." Okay, how's Thursday?" "Sure. I'll be there." "Okay. Sure." Click. The next Thursday rolls around and sure enough, there's an army guy at my door and the conversation quickly turned to, well, I can get a job. I can have a decent career and I can get out of my mom's basement. That sounds like a fantastic proposition, let's do it.

Julie:

It's so great. I mean, I love to hear that. So the company that I was with before Party City, where I am now, was [inaudible] and we had a thousand shops around the country and lots of body shop technicians. And a lot of them we're making a ton of money and super skilled, but in our world we live in, people are, I don't know, there's a stigma almost, I think, for kids. I've got a kid in college and in high school and there's a bit of a stigma if you choose not to go the college route, which is too bad because you learn such great practical skills. Skills that are in high demand and very few people, these trade skills that you're taught in trade schools, but also in the military. And I think there's just far too few people there, that we've done a disservice to ourselves as a society. So I'm always really in awe and just admire people who overcome that idea of some stigma and choose that path. Because I imagine for you, people were like, "Oh." I mean, I'm sure you felt something.

Ed:

It was in the late 90s at the height of the Clinton era, the military was certainly on the forefront of almost no one's mind back then. So certainly, it turned a lot of heads, it surprised a lot of people. But like you said, college isn't for everybody and I know at 18 years old back then, I was so not ready to go to school and go to college. I just didn't have that maturity and quite honestly, I sort of needed that drill sergeants boot up my ass, to just give me a little discipline and direction in life. Turned into a great decision for me.

Julie:

Yeah, right. So let's talk about that. I love that. So tell me a little bit about your experience. Obviously you've, in addition to this beautiful award and recognition you've received in Massachusetts, you spent some time, quite a bit of time, in the service. And so during a conflict, what was that like? Where'd you go? Any big, holy shit moments that happened to you during that time?

Ed:

The amount of Holy shit moments, I wouldn't even know where to start with those.

Julie:

I just did a podcast with another gentleman, Jeff Barnes and he was in the navy for years and he said the exact same thing. I think you must all be able to ... I could write a book. I should just go ahead and get a bunch of the former enlisted, I could create a book. Anyway. So go ahead, please tell us some.

Ed:

I'm absolutely working on that book too. I am. It's funny, the military, there's a guy out of West Point named Hise Gibson who says it best. He's officer type, he's been in the military, he does a lot of research now. And it's the crucibles that you go through. Everything you do in the military, every little bit of training, it's designed to be a little bit, just painful. I see this in the news media quite a bit now, the military did this drill and they failed miserably and it shows the lack of preparedness. And it's the exact opposite case. We train hard and we train in worst case scenarios, so that when we do find ourselves in those, oh my God moments, you know how to react and you have the preparation and you're acting on your training and you can trust the people around you to do the right thing.

So it's such a driving force between how effective we are as a military, that we are just constantly pushing ourselves in new and different ways. And we might run through a drill half a million times, but every time we're taking a peek back at, okay, what went right through that time? What did we not do so well? And what can we continue? And how do we improve that for the next time? And the next time we do it, we're going to throw another curve ball at the soldiers as they're drilling, to get them thinking on their feet.

Julie:

Yeah. While you were going through that in those times, where they're pushing you to the end, did you ever feel like, I can't? Did it ever feel like, this is wrong, I can't do it anymore, physically tested, mentally tested?

Ed:

Oh yeah. You're pushed to your limit, of course you're thinking those things. It's tough. I mean, I earned myself an early retirement. I was injured and found myself at that point where the doctors were looking at me and going, "Yeah, you really can't do the career anymore." And so I found myself, I had just crossed the hump, I thought I had 10 more years to go and little did I know, I was quite literally going to be out processed, not soon there after, to find my own way.

Julie:

How did you get hurt?

Ed:

So over three combat deployments, I've got PTSD, TBI, I've had a couple of ankle reconstructions from some injuries down there, it's it took its toll.

Julie:

I bet they did. And I know that we talk about those holy shit moments, and I'm sure coming back with those kinds of things, you probably still have mini versions of them almost on a daily basis. But I couldn't help to think of going back about the story that you told me about your father passing when you were young. How old were you when that happened?

Ed:

I was about eight years old when he passed.

Julie:

Yeah. And so having been raised by your mom and then having a younger brother, just the three of you, but that male leadership role. I always think that it's so important. I have two boys, so I know it's so important in their lives and I'm certain it was important in your lives and you would have felt that void. Do you feel like the military ... But it's a strongly, it's got that strong masculine element to it. And that even the way that they teach and they train has that disciplinarian and the traditional, not that every dad's like that, but that traditional dad stereotype. Did you feel ever compensated for that? Was there some comfort in that for you while you were going through?

Ed:

I don't think I would ever describe it as compensation, but it was absolutely something that filled the void. I mean, I had a fierce and I still do have a fierce independent streak, but from just growing up like that and largely independent and on my own. But being able to focus that was crucial. And that started right away with the military. There was one time, you hear these guys that almost went in service, but they would have hit somebody or they have some other nonsense reason why they didn't enlist. I mean, my first day in the military, so drill sergeants come around, it's the shark attack, there's yelling, "Pick up your bags, go here, do this, pushups." And I looked at the guy, I was like, "What the fuck? I'm moving. I got it."

And I very rapidly found myself on a shit list for the remainder of the training, naturally so. But it was really funny because at the end of the training, we were on our final field training exercise and this drill Sergeant is coming around. He's literally, probably about five, three tall and wide, this little Puerto Rican guy, just hardcore, Grenada, Panama, and Gulf war veteran, had done all of that in the 80s and 90s. And so he's coming around Fox with a Fox, pulling my little bit of security out there. And he basically is, "Hey Brzychy, come here, come with me." I look back at him because I'm like, I know I can't leave security, I'm doing this and if I go with him, I'm damned if I do damned if I don't. And I'm like, "No drill Sergeant, I'm pulling security right now. I need to be properly relieved." He's like, "No, no, no. Come with me. Come with me. It's okay."

And what happened was he brought about, there was a good about dozen or so of us that were project children for that basic training rotation, and he brought us to the middle of the little area that we were having our training exercise at, near his campfire. Sat us down and basically they looked at all of us and said, "You guys are going to be the good ones." And those of us, we looked at him confused because he'd been riding us hard for a couple of weeks now, we're like, "Drill Sergeant, what do you mean?" He's like, "No, you guys are going to be the good ones. You have the attitude, you just needed to learn how to focus it."

And then he sat down and he just talked with us until the sun came up, just about what we were to expect when we got to our units. What life in the regular army was like, some of the tips and tricks to make sure that we got some rank and kept our noses out of trouble, which we listened to. Some of us listened better than others. And he really came out as just a solid mentor and just in that one night, talking to us, I picked up so much for just building up my career and understood that yeah, there was a method to his madness on why he was giving us such a hard time for all of these weeks. And it was just tough love at its finest really.

Julie:

So are you still in touch with him?

Ed:

Unfortunately, no. He retired soon after that. I think we were actually his last rotation before he retired and then he went back down to, I've heard Puerto Rico and I think he, wow, drill Sergeant [inaudible] would be in his 60s at this point now, I'm not really sure.

Julie:

Just wondering, it sounds like a special relationship and obviously made a huge impact in that moment in your life. So I can imagine that being told that physically you couldn't go on and you'd found your groove and conversation, and now you're feeling like yourself, it's all coming together for you. And then, you've got these situations and you're injured and then the army doc says you can't. And now your plan, the latest plan is thrown out the window. How did you feel? What did you do? I mean, I can't imagine what that ...

Ed:

My first year coming out was really hard. That was probably the hardest time of my life.

Julie:

How old were you?

Ed:

I was 31 at the time. And came out of the service and I thought I had eight more years to go before I was officially over. I was in the mindset I was going to be a lifer, then I'm put out to pasture essentially. So the first year, I'll be totally honest with you, I felt like I was every stereotypical angry veteran that you see in the media or in the movies, just angry at the world, having a hard time adjusting. I was bouncing from job to job. I was in and out of the VA, just trying to get some help and just getting my feet back under me. And it wasn't until, as a last ditch effort because I had tried so many different jobs and so many different things, that I basically was like, "Hey, I've got some education benefits, I guess I'm going back to school, let's give this a shot."

And quite literally it was a rock bottom moment. It was me waking up one morning, looking at myself in the mirror and just going, "Who the fuck am I? This isn't the guy I want to be. This isn't who I am. I can't even recognize myself. And I got to do something different." And so that was the last different thing I could try. And thankfully go going back to school and being a 31, 32 year old freshmen at the time, quite honestly saved my life. It just gave me a sense of purpose again, it just helped increase my knowledge. I learned how to speak civilian. And it just immeasurably helped in that transition and there's so many people that helped me get into school mode and then helped me figure out even how to study again and get ready for a test, to working through the system to make sure I got the education benefits that I had earned, so that school was paid for and covered and I didn't have to worry about any loans or anything. And there's just so many people that made that possible, it was huge.

Julie:

Yeah. And so you found your focus again. Because I love these, these obstacles and the successful people in the world, they find a way to pull themselves up and you did that and went to school. And when you got out, when you were in school, I guess, and then getting out, what did you think you'd do? What was your next plan?

Ed:

So I was going back to school. I basically randomly selected majoring in business as, okay, this will cover me for most things. And it sounds like a fairly general degree, without going so general as the liberal arts route. And it turns out I just enjoyed business and learning about business. Did very well in my undergraduate. Left there, I had a little bit of time leftover, with benefits and I was like, "You know what, let's go for a master's degree." And wound up getting my MBA and was wrapping that up and I went back to the VA. I was like, "This education thing is working out really well for me. Let's go for a PhD? Let's just do it." And they looked at me, they're like, "Yeah, you're tapped out now. You've used enough of the system."

So during my MBA, there was a couple of great things during my MBA over at Babson. The first one I remember sitting in a leadership class and studying leadership and learning the theory behind it and LMX and skills theory and all this. And I'm looking at all these different pieces going, "Those are great little pieces, but that doesn't explain just the leadership dynamic that exists within organizations." And then I was also working on some consulting projects where I was like, "Wow, I really enjoy consulting. I like working with organizations and problem solving, that project mentality where every day is a little bit different." So as I was getting closer to graduating, I was looking around the consulting industry and that independent streak was kicking back in and especially being at Babson where entrepreneurship is written on the wall, quite literally everywhere you look. So it was-

Julie:

Big business. Yeah, great business school. Yeah.

Ed:

So finishing up there, I was like, "Okay, let's put my flag in the sand. I have a leadership background. I understand what I'm talking about. I have some resources saved up where I could bootstrap this thing and let's go for it." And then that started my whole learning cliff in realizing I have an MBA and can write a great business plan and all the strategy, but figuring out all the tactical side of things is a whole other ball game.

Julie:

This was four years ago, right?

Ed:

Four years ago now, yes.

Julie:

Four years ago. So I have to ask, Blue Cord Management, is there a military reference in there?

Ed:

Oh, absolutely. So as infantry men, we had a blue cord on the shoulder of our dress uniforms to designate us and designate our profession within the military. Because truth be told, most of the military is not even combat arms and even few are actually frontline infantry men. And so they give us that to just designate us within our dress uniforms. And so carrying that forward because that's where so much of my inspiration, I've had so many great mentors and leaders that have helped me out so much, it's a really a homage to a lot of them to be able to carry that tradition forward.

Julie:

That's amazing. That's great. It didn't strike me when we first were talking, but then as we're talking now and I was just reading my notes and looking at Blue Cord Management, I was like, "You know what? I bet the blue cord has a significance in military." So it makes sense. But it makes sense also just because what you're doing, even business consulting and coaching for business leaders and organizations, is, yes, it's business, but it's rooted in your experience in military and what strong leaders and good leadership looks like. I would imagine that that's always guiding star for you.

Ed:

Oh, absolutely. It's so important for me because you see yourself in military situations and even in the current situation, I like to say that this is the world's crucible and right now everyone is going through what we used to go through on almost a daily basis with the military, is that struggle and understanding that things aren't perfect and you have to work with what you've got and you need to build your team up around you and take care of your people because that's how you succeed no matter what.

And carrying that forward into some training programs and some coaching and now moving back into the consulting realm for organizations, it's powerful because for a lot of civilian organizations, that's the difference, when they have a strong leadership team, when you have that, especially within the middle management ranks, it's the ultimate competitive advantage because you have people that are more agile. You have people that enjoy coming to work because they know they're taken care of, they like their boss, they like their role. They feel that they're contributing to something bigger and they have the motivation that stems from that. There's so many little things that add up from having that solid core team.

Julie:

Yeah. That's amazing. So one of the stories that I wanted you to share, I'm pivoting off of this. I was thinking about your life and all these incidence, from your father passing at an early age and trying to find yourself in high school and in the military, and then the injury. You've had this tumultuous time. And then I was thinking, he's a guy from Boston, Boston strong, Boston people, true blue Boston people are never pushed. And then for some reason in my head pop the perfect storm, and don't you live somewhere near where ... Hopefully people know what the perfect storm is. So I'm a big avid, the movie ... The perfect storm was, you'd have to give me the year, but sometime in the 90s, was the ...

Ed:

Yeah, it was 1991. My mom had just moved my brother and I up to Rockport, Massachusetts, which was pretty much the epicenter of that storm, it was a very hard hit community. And I remember she was at work, my brother and I were at home. They'd close school down for the day, but she still had to go in. And the roads were flooded and she couldn't come home and we had rented a house that was just across the street from the water. And quite literally the waves were starting to hit the house, the neighbor managed to finally come and get the two of us. And it's just one of those moments where for a young, dumb not even ten year old, I'm looking at it like, "Wow, the ocean's really cool. And this is an amazing place that she brought us to." I mean, you certainly learn how to respect the strength of storms, but also just seeing the power behind it and just being amazed at what nature can do.

Julie:

Your house was okay? It was okay?

Ed:

Yeah. The house was okay, the neighbors houses that were across the street on the ocean side were pretty badly damaged, but our house was fine. And when my mom, we were renting that house as a temporary thing, as we got settled up there and then when she bought a house in town, it was much further inland and up on the hill and away far enough from the water that was outside the flood zones.

Julie:

I can't imagine. I watched the movie with the fishermen. Oh my God, it just was one of those ... They showed the picture of them, the hurricane Hunter is up in the sky. It was a massive storm.

Ed:

It was a massive, massive storm. This area up in Massachusetts, you get those nor'easters every few years, when the low pressure goes just right. And it's just a fact of life up here. If you have a house on the water, you're hoping and praying and make sure your insurance policy is paid up. And then ...

Julie:

And you watch the weather forecast.

Ed:

Yeah, absolutely. You watch the weather forecast.

Julie:

So, okay, I'm going to finish up with asking you, I know nothing about, I know that you've received this award, but I don't know any of the circumstances behind it. So this great navy seal award, I won't repeat it, it's a long named award. But what was it? Tell me about it.

Ed:

I'm a very firm believer in veterans' advocacy. I know the wreck I was coming out of the service and I see a lot of my peers who haven't had the success that I have. And so it's a very personal mission of mine to help out and find ways to support people and show this is possible guys, it's something that we all can get through. Because we look at veteran unemployment rates, we look at veterans suicide rates, we look at the mental health crisis within the veteran community and there's a lot of just struggle there. So finding ways to work, I still work very closely with the organization, Massachusetts Fallen Heroes.

We are creating an [inaudible] platform, where we're building out about 5,200 square feet in Boston, as a veteran business and gold star family member owned businesses for a coworking space and an accelerator center for them where we can give them some workspace, where we're putting together an education program for guys who want to go, the guys and girls who want to go the entrepreneurial route. And so that's been a project that we've been very passionately building for the last few years and looking forward to once things start normalizing again, to picking the reins back up on and continuing that build out.

Julie:

Yeah, I'm a big supporter of some of our local, there's the hole in the wall gang here, there's some things that we do that a lot of our ex-military here are involved in and support. There's a couple of others that are really fitness based, that pay for fitness memberships for the veterans when they come back, to give them a place to go and to focus on. Because it feels great to be able to do something to give back because I'm not brave enough to be one to volunteer to go and do what they have done, but it's also a shame there's so much need and not nearly enough. So congratulations on being such a great advocate for them.

Ed:

Thank you for what you're doing too. It's tough. I think the hardest thing is, it's rekindling the sense of purpose and understanding that you're not the same person that you were when you went in, no matter what your experiences were and discovering that new you, discovering that new sense of purpose and building a community around it, understanding the people around you and finding a good common ground with a lot of them. That's the biggest challenge and having access to a gym, I play golf with the Salute Military Golf association, I love those guys because it's a bunch of us veterans and they do a great job taking care of us, giving us great outings, training and teaching us how to play golf. And we have something that we enjoy together and there's a nice peer group, peer mentality around there, where we can hang out, shoot the shit about our time in the service and we all have that common ground again. It's powerful.

Julie:

It is and I think it's important, you think of the military as such a physical experience, that having these physical outlets is important too.

Ed:

I think it's important for everybody. The military, we emphasize it a lot. But especially, I mean, you and I in our roles now, they're so cerebral at times, being able to get a little bit of exercise in and using that just to stay focused and stay energized, is critically important.

Julie:

It is, it is. Ed Brzychy, it has been a true pleasure to speak with you. And again, he's the president of Blue Cord Management and more importantly, even than that, is a true class act veteran of the services, not only historically, but currently in how you give back, so it has been a pleasure having you on. Thank you for joining me. I wish you the best during the season, this is COVID season. Hopefully we get through this quickly. But just thank you again for all that you have done and continue to do in support of our military.

Ed:

Oh, thank you so much, Julie. I really appreciate the time on the show.

Julie:

All right, great. Thanks.

Ed:

Thank you.