- Hi and welcome to smartfem and friends.
I'm your host Lea Woodford and with me today is my
good friend Jeff Senour.
Hey Jeff, how are you?
- Hi Leah, how are you?
Good to see you.
- I'm really excited about this segment because
- Well, thank you for having me, it's a pleasure.
- I am just ...
It's my pleasure.
For those of you who don't know, Jeff is a pilot by day
and a rockstar at night.
How does that happen Jeff?
- I don't know, two sides of the brain that work in
opposite directions, but yeah, I get to live both of
my dreams in life.
- Well, can we talk about that because being a pilot,
it's not something that you can just do, there's a lot of
education and there's a lot of things that have to
fall into place.
Can you talk about how you became a pilot?
- Yeah, I started out when I was five years old basically
is when I first got the inspiration through my dad.
My dad took me up flying in a little piper cub and I
remember that and then as I grew up, he was a private pilot
and we'd go for rides.
So, I had that bug in me since I was young, but I didn't
really know if I would pursue that as a career or not until
I really got into college and then it was one of those
things, wow it's pretty hard, it's pretty long journey to
get there, lots of hard work, lots of failure.
I didn't my parents were well off but not well enough off
to like, here you go, here's a free ride and so I had to
figure out how am I gonna do this and I just decided one day
I met a guy in college that was an instructor that said hey
lets go up for a ride and that was it.
I said this is what I have to do in life.
- And you've done it in a couple of different ways.
Can we talk about that before we jump into your
rockstar life?
- Yeah, I've got my ratings and I've worked my way up
getting my hours down to a point I used to take my buddies
and we'd rent a Cessna 172 and go up for a ride and I'd log
an hour you know like wow, I got another hour.
So, we'd split the cost and then I eventually got into
a flying corporate jet so I flew a Learjet.
That was my big break flying a Learjet for a company out
of and I flew lots of movie stars and CEO's and different
very affluent people around.
- I heard you just flew one of the politicians around last
week or a couple of weeks ago.
- Yeah, yeah, Cory Booker.
Yep, picked him up in El Paso, really is a nice guy, real
nice guy and so I did that for years and then over time I
flew movie producers, eventually got asked to be in screen
actors guild, you know one thing leads to another.
It's like I tell my kids, if you treat people nice and
with respect and honor, that's gonna open up doors so doors
open and you're like, hey we need a Learjet scene where
you'll do a fly by in Fall guy or Night rider so I got
asked to be in screen actors guild and then I eventually
flew a camera jet for a Hollywood designer camera systems
Bob Netman, and I flew air aired photography for years
and we filmed the blue angels thunderbirds, McDonald,
Douglas, Boeing numerous featured films and my journey
went from there.
- And weren't you a captain at Southwest Airlines as well?
- Yeah, I tell people I had to grow up and get a real job.
(laughter)
- Everybody knows about Southwest Airlines.
Can you tell me about your experience at Southwest?
- Yeah, when I decided to take that plunge and try to be
and airline pilot, I did a lot of research and my choice,
because of the culture and the company was Southwest.
I would have gladly hired at any of the major airlines,
but Southwest, I love the culture of it because it was
started by Herb Kelleher whose and icon and from the top
down that's where it started.
He treated people with respect.
Their mission statement was treat the employee first,
they're my first customers.
If I take care of them, they're gonna take care of
our customers and so that culture, it's like a big
family basically and that's what I wanted to be a part of
and so I got hired, I remember interviewing when I went
to ground school to get my top rating, they went around
the room and asked well, what do you do, what do you do
and I was this oh, I fly corporate jets and next to me,
well, I'm a blue angel and I'm..
And I'm going, I don't have a chance.
I'm never gonna get hired at this but it taught me that
if you believe in yourself then you're not gonna know until
you try so if I didn't try to get the interview and get
the top rating and spend the money to do all of that, I
would have never known and fortunately, I got it and I
remember the call when I got the call so 25 years later,
I retired last November
- And now you're working for elite.
- I'm working for elite.
Which is funny how people meet because I was getting my
flight physical at the same doctor Paul goes to, your
husband, and I was telling the doctor that getting my
flight medical and he said you know, what are you gonna
do after Southwest, and I said, well I wanna fly something.
I'm not quite sure what I'd like to do some corporate
flying and so he said well, I know this guy that might be
interested and so he introduced us and one thing leads to
the other and here I am flying for elite now.
- And now you're on camera with me.
- And now I'm with you, exactly.
- Okay, which leads me to my next question.
Lets talk about what it's like, what's the life of a
rockstar like?
Let's talk about that.
CTS, called to serve, lets talk about that.
- I've been a musician most of my life.
My mom was a violinist and I got the music gene from her.
And, all in high school I was in rock bands.
I wanted to play guitar, the Beatles inspired me like
many of us and I remember thinking wow, I wanna play
guitar and it's funny how life can go where you might be
told by somebody that you shouldn't do that or don't even
try.
I think much of the world is a naysayer kinda attitude
in a way like oh, you don't wanna do that.
You don't wanna fly.
You'll never get a job.
I even had a guitar teacher years ago tell me that I was
kinda small, my hands were, and so I probably shouldn't
maybe play guitar, I should maybe probably do something
else and I remember saying to my mom I don't care what
he says.
I'm gonna play guitar even if I can't play it very well.
I'm gonna do that.
And so, you just believe in yourself and you keep pluggin
and you keep trying.
I've been in bands my whole life and then about 25, 30
years ago I started writing music and I got hooked on
writing because it's a way to express your heart and soul,
whatever that is.
Some people write about getting drunk in the bars and I
tend to be more of a message about life of kindness, and
love and understanding and treating each other with respect
and so, I got hooked on writing and formed CTS, called to
serve about 15 years ago and we're very patriotic.
I believe in our country and we're not perfect but it's a
great place and we owe a lot to the veterans who serve
so I've written several songs dedicated to our veterans
and our first responders and we made our mission to do
things like that so we've played in the Pentagon, to
Pearl Harbor.
- That's amazing.
- We've even played on aircraft carriers.
We've played on the USS Midway a couple years ago for
the oldest Pearl Harbor survivor so it's always been my
honor to get to do those shows and bring people together
and the power of music is, there's 12 notes in a scale
of music and every song you've ever heard comes from those
12 notes which is phenomenal to me, the math of it.
So, you can take an audience of a thousand people and
you can make them laugh, cry, dance, sing, clap and leave
them with an uplifting message of go out and live your
dreams.
Go out and become the greatest you can be in this world.
This gift called life is so short.
- Well, and I think your message is so important now
more than ever with all the divisity and negativity
that's going on in the world right now.
I love your message and I love your songs but being a
military brat myself, what you do for veterans and your
non-profit just blew me away and first of all, I wanna
thank you for that because as we both know, freedom isn't
free and the price is high.
- Yeah and well, just because I didn't serve in the military
I wanted to be a fighter pilot, and I wore contacts and
they said well, you can sit in the back seat and I said
I don't wanna sit in the back seat, I wanna fly the plane,
and so I didn't serve in that respect and the Vietnam War
had wound down so I was in this interim time but just
because you don't serve in the military doesn't mean you
can't give back and serve your country and I feel that's
what CTS does.
We serve through our country.
We donate a lot of our time.
We help our veterans.
We're honored to play for our veterans and the first
responders so that's our way of serving you know I think.
- Jeff, one of the things I've noticed about you,
whatever you tend to go for, you seem to get (laughing)
You've been a pilot, you're a rockstar, how do you do
that and how do you go after that and can you tell
especially the millennials who seem to be struggling with
this right now, how can they go after their dreams?
- I think one of the biggest lessons we can give the
millennials and the young people today is the fact that
anything good takes a lot of effort and work and you're
gonna fail along the way.
I think learning to fail and fall down is one of the biggest
lessons we can learn but unfortunately a lot of our society
today where you get a trophy for showing up.
I joke like I don't get a trophy when I make a good landing,
it's just my job.
- (laughing) right.
- So, teaching young people that, I have kids that are that
age and I tell them, a couple of them are struggling right
now financially, but they're toughing it out and I go these
are some of the best times of your life.
You're gonna learn about yourself.
You're gonna learn about what makes you tick and when you
do succeed and you get that dream home, whatever that
success is to you that you're gonna appreciate so much more
than if it was just handed to you.
- Well, you know, and lets talk about that because so many
people hand the keys to the kingdom to the kids.
I mean, lets face it, we have kids with iPads at three
years old and we've had a ten year study.
We see what's happening.
What are your thoughts on that?
I mean, you're a dad.
- Yeah, well it's easy cause we're more affluent than our
parents were and the generation before so it's easy to
spoil our children.
We want them to do well.
We don't want them to suffer, but sometimes tough love is
like hey, you're gonna have to suck this up a little bit and
you're gonna be fine.
It's just a matter of life is not fair, it's not gonna be
always fair.
It's not always about you.
It's not always about what you deserve or what you're
entitled to, it's just that, it's kind of our right to
breathe really and then the rest we're given free will,
we're given hopefully a healthy body.
I think our health is one of the biggest assets that we
can have.
That we wake up every day and I'm just as guilty as
anybody else but I try to wake up a lot of times and go wow,
what a beautiful day you know, I'm here, I'm here another
day, it's a gift and so treat it as such rather than going
through life...
I tell people, it's kinda like flying.
Flying is determination, it's discipline as you know,
it's all of these things but so many people put their life
on autopilot and they just, or they park it on the ground
and a plane on the ground just rots.
It doesn't do anything.
A plane was made to fly.
It was made to soar like a bird and so don't park your
plane.
Get it in the sky and don't put it on autopilot you know.
Be the captain of your ship and you tell it where you
want it to go.
Whatever that dream is, try to find your gift.
We're all given different gifts.
You know, I'm terrible at golf
- Me too.
- So, that's not one of my gifts.
I wish I was better but that's not my gift.
Some people are extremely gifted so what my gifts were,
flying and music, try to find your gift, whatever that is
and try to use it for something good, let alone make a
living at it.
That's even the most amazing thing and so I feel blessed
that I've got to make a living at something
that I love to do.
- Several things that you love to do.
- Exactly, yeah.
- What's one piece of advice you wanna give our viewing
audience for going for their dreams?
- Just believe in yourself, work hard, find mentors that
are willing to take you in.
Again, good manners, respect others.
Good manners to me will open more doors than almost
any education because you're going to be polite to people,
you're gonna talk to people, just being able to converse
in today's world because so many people can't even
- It's all this
- Exactly
- It's all this
- So, being able to look somebody in the eye, converse
with them, show an interest in them and just work hard.
Just be determined and know that you're gonna fail.
Walt Disney was fired.
Oprah was fired.
The Beatles were fired from record labels.
If you read those success stories, you realize
- There's always failure.
- There's always failure and they never stopped.
They kept going and that's what you do, so that's my advice.
Just don't give up.
Don't ever give up.
- Jeff will you come back.
- Absolutely are you kidding, I would be honored.
Leah, I can't thank you enough for being on.
Your show is amazing and I watch a lot of the episodes
and you just do a great job so I'm pretty proud of you.
- Well, thank you.
I love what I do.
- Yeah, there you go, so we're still gonna go up in a jet.
- Oh, we're going up in the jet.
This has been Leah Woodford with smartfem and friends.
Thanks for watching.