210: Scott R. Tucker and Mike Wallace Discuss Military Retirement and Financial Planning in an Unstable Market

Jen Amos takes a break from hosting to showcase US VetWealth's Founder and CEO, Scott R. Tucker, and Blue Water Advisors' Founder and CEO, Mike Wallace.

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-isNQnJ0kpA

In this replay episode of 'Take A Knee' Live Show, Scott and Mike discuss various aspects of military retirement, financial security, and career transitions for veterans. They emphasize the importance of building a 'war chest,' managing post-military income streams and navigating financial uncertainties, such as market downturns and economic changes.

The discussion includes insights on making informed decisions about retirement funds, job security, and the impacts of industry fluctuations on career opportunities. They also highlight the significance of continuous networking and staying adaptable in the civilian job market.

Read our Monday, December 2nd, 2024 newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/98c0c4a5850e/holdingdownthefort

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Do you want to do more than “follow orders,” think outside of the box, and manifest your dreams? Then you’ve come to the right show! The award-winning podcast, Holding Down the Fort by US VetWealth, returns for Season 8 to highlight motivational stories of personal growth, financial awareness, and autonomy in our military community. The show is hosted by Jen Amos, a Gold Star daughter, Veteran Spouse, and Entrepreneur.

Our show continues its partnership with The Rosie Network by featuring Service2CEO Graduates every Monday! Read more - https://issuu.com/therosienetwork/docs/2024notablesmemag/24

We're also excited to be featuring replays of the "Take A Knee" Live Show with US VetWealth Founder & CEO Scott R. Tucker and Blue Water Advisors CEO Mike Wallace, which discusses career progression for military retirees. Tune in every Thursday!

Our main sponsor, US VetWealth, proudly offers Life Insurance and Annuity Strategies for The High-Income Military Retiree. Let's help you capitalize on your above-average health and substantial income-earning potential for post-military life. For a free consultation, https://usvetwealth.com/

In the Fall of 2023, Jen Amos was sought after by InDependent to co-host the 8th annual InDependent Wellness Summit™. In August 2022, Jen Amos' work on the podcast was recognized by Disney Institute and she was hand-selected as the only non-Disney employee to moderate the first Military Spouse Employment panel for the Veterans Institute Summit. March 2022, former co-host Jenny Lynne has voted the 2022 Naval Station Norfolk Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year. November 2020, Jen Amos was awarded “Media Professional of the Year” at The Rosie Network Entrepreneur Awards! The show continued to collect award nominations in the following years. In September 2021, the show made the Final Slate in the 16th Annual People's Choice Podcast Awards for the Government & Organizations category. In November 2021, the show was an Award Finalist for the 5th Annual National Veteran & Military Spouse Entrepreneur Awards. December 2021, the show was a Golden Crane Podcast Awards Nominee. September 2022, the show was a Finalist for the 13th Annual Plutus Awards presented by Capital Group for “Best Military Personal Finance Content.”

Holding Down the Fort has also been featured in multiple media outlets including Military Entrepreneur (M.E.) Magazine, MOAA’s Never Stop Learning Podcast, The Leadership Void Podcast, Lessons Learned for Vets Podcast, Sisters in Service Podcast, Get 2 Vet, Blue Star Families of Dayton & Southwestern Ohio, Legacy Magazine, U.S. Veterans Magazine, The American MilSpouse, VeteranCrowd Network, It's a Military Life, VirtForce, Military Veteran Dad Podcast, and much more.

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Jen Amos 0:00

Music. Do you want to do more than follow orders? Think outside of the box and manifest your dreams? Then you've come to the right show. Welcome to the award winning podcast, holding down the fort by us that wealth. I'm your host, Jen Amos, a gold star, daughter, veteran, spouse and entrepreneur. For season nine, we continue our partnership with the Rosie network to highlight motivational stories of personal growth, financial awareness and autonomy in our military community. We're also excited to continue showcasing our partnership with blue water advisors. Now let's get started.

You Welcome. Welcome. Hope you're having a great fall season. I sure am, because it's cooler. I said this in like a past episode already, but I'm genuinely enjoying it when you had a very, very, very hot summer with an injury. You really appreciate one, when you're recovered, and two, when the weather works for you, not against you. So I'm grateful. I'm counting my blessings. So this episode, I will not be here. I mean, other than this very moment and in the outro this episode, we are showcasing our partnership with Mike Wallace. You were familiar with him in the last two seasons, or the last season, season eight, specifically, we partnered up with him. I mean, he's a brand partner of ours here at us, but wealth and it just felt very fitting to share the replays of him and Scott, my husband, talking about career progression, which is all about, you know, finding employment in post military life. One thing I realized about hosting the show is that it's good to have a variety of inspirational stories about entrepreneurship and employment, because I've come to understand that, you know, I've just lived this entrepreneurial life for so long, and I love it a lot. I love this lifestyle that I sort of assume that everyone else would love it too. But I recognize, I recognize that everyone has different priorities, and that employment is equally as necessary as entrepreneurship. It's just various ways of making a living and providing for your family. So last season, we introduced Mike Wallace and blue water advisors, and it was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope you did too. Anyway, we're bringing him back this time for just once this season. So hope you all are okay with that, of course, if you always want to watch replays or even real time live shows with Mike and Scott, you can check out our company's YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash at US VW TV. That's us as in United States, US VW as in vet wealth TV, us, VW TV. And there you'll be able to see replays of live shows, live streams that Scott and Mike Wallace have done. If you want to listen in more on getting tips and tricks for career progression, specifically for military retirees seeking employment in post military life. Highly recommend that you check those out this season. We're just going to feature him once. I think that we need to have that balance. You know, we featured it showcased him a lot last season, and this one, I felt like this, this one episode, because we're only featured him once. I felt like this was a very fitting episode to showcase, you know, on this show, because in this one, Scott and Mike discuss, by the way, I know that the last two episodes ago, we had another mic. So just to be clear, Mike Seybold works with us. He's our life insurance case design specialist at us, fetwealth Mike Wallace, so Siebel and Walt Wallace. He is our he's a partner of ours at Blue Water advisors. So different mics, okay, you got Mike Siebel and Mike Wallace in this episode with Mike Wallace from Blue Water advisors. Scott and Mike discuss various aspects of military retirement, financial security and career transitions for veterans, they emphasize the importance of building a war chest, which you can hear more about. Of course, in this episode, managing post military income streams and navigating financial uncertainties such as market downturns and economic changes, the discussion includes insights on making informed decisions about retirement funds, job security and the impacts of industry fluctuations on career opportunities. They also highlight the significance of continuous networking and staying adaptable in the civilian job market. So if any of that sounds of interest to you. I hope you enjoy this conversation with my husband, Scott and Mike Wallace. I love taking these times to just showcase them so that I can take a break and focus on other initiatives. So thank you. Thank you all for allowing me to take that break. I hope you enjoy this episode and I'll chat with you later. Enjoy you.

Speaker 1 5:03

Scott. All right, we are live. Welcome back to another episode of take any I'm Scott Tucker here with Mike Wallace from Blue Water advisors,

Unknown Speaker 5:12

good morning.

Speaker 1 5:13

Yeah, you can follow us. May I always forget to say this, Hey, make sure you're following us both on LinkedIn, but also on YouTube, we go live with this whenever we go live on our military retirement Bluetooth channel. So go ahead, head over there. Subscribe. I've got tons of other videos about military retirement, all the insight that insights that Mike has shared on this show, and my wife Jen has broken those down into you know, other videos, and we're gonna have you know more stuff coming out there as well. So subscribe. There one. Scott,

Speaker 2 5:42

are you tracking these? This is 26 this is 26 really? Yeah, wow. Okay,

Speaker 1 5:50

Speaker 2 8:04

because what I've basically seen over the last 15 years and work with retirees when they're coming out, even the best savers, pales in comparison to what can be made in post military income streams, sure. So, you know, to bank, hey, I'm just going to have this retirement account. And what comes, what may it's going to it's going to be a big nest egg. Like, yeah, of course. You know, to have savings, we got to do that. But it's really, really hard to stay disciplined over 30 years, even if you get it on autopilot, then you don't know what, what opportunities you might have missed out on to, you know, gotten in on Google early, or whatever it is, and so it's impossible to for everybody to be their own, you know, investment guru, especially when you're competing against the big money managers out there. So the only game in town, oftentimes, is things like Thrift Savings Plan for 1k in using some sort of money management and just seeing how the market does, and hopefully, when you're getting out to actually use the money that it has in crash. But since that's all out of our control, it just, it just really is we can have. We can organize the stocks and bonds and manage it over time, and then they're going to change the interest rate on a whim, or they're going to just print trillions of dollars, and the inflation is going to go up. So what we can control are those next 10 years to really find a good fit, try to make good income. But that's where I hear most often, Hey, Scott, I just want to take advantage of this opportunity to really, you know, maximize my streams of income, and that's the advantage of having the pension via disability along with a second career, but being okay with you know, the other uncertainty that's coming right now is might not land that job right away, not might not be able to have confidence to put money away, or, even worse, maybe I need to use the money I've saved, But unfortunately, because I've only been saving for retirement, all that money has been locked into accounts I'm not supposed to touch until age 60 or 59 and a half is the, you know, pre the non penalty age. So what I advocate, in addition to, hey, go get get more money, is this is why we call it the war chest strategy, you know, build up a war chest to give yourself that asset, you know, that buffer zone, to not just having a more emergency funds, they probably already got that, but to have an opportunity fund, to give yourself a chance to use money in those 10 years if something else better pops up, and you need some moving room to either find a New Job, start a business, additional investments on the side that aren't a traditional investment, because those doors start to open up, especially if you are on because here's what I hear when these types of things happen, you know, people say, oh, I want to get out of the market. I've, I've saved this much. I don't want to lose it. And so people maybe they go to cash, or they have, they reduce the risk their portfolio. And then the market bounces back, and they end up missing that. And so since you know that is just, you know, adding the stresses and, you know, trying to you make those decisions. So yeah, I think you're right, you know, those next 10 years, I'm glad. That's why you focus on that, and you also focus on, hey, you know, if you do go through the blue water program and get some help and get some alignment, the chances of getting that income quicker, maybe negotiating a little higher, is gonna work in your favor. And

again, aside from the, you know, financial investment strategy or strategies to protect, as your words, hey, I've got this war chest, you know, how can I leverage income to protect what I've already built and diversified some of these things and and I love your approach, you know, for the listeners out there, right? What I would say is, Scott, your approach has always been very mathematical, right? Let's just this is, let's just remove the emotion from it. I've shared with you my own personal experience when I went through my transition right, and discussions on SBP and again, not to turn it into a discussion whether you should or shouldn't. It's all very, you know, personal and tailored decision to the individual. But I wasn't the recipient of a very non emotional, mathematical discussion. I was the recipient of a very emotional Hey, you know, there was a big push that you guys just need to do this. And, you know, I just didn't appreciate the approach. And in my own case, I made a decision, you know, that was not, you know, informed, and I love your approach that you spend with our members. It is very informed, right? Let's talk about the math. Let's take a look at this, right, in this period of time, you know, with some earning potential in front of you, what what is, is in the realm of possible in this time period, right? And I love how you you approach that. But you know, for also, kind of like you opened the door and you alluded to this, you know, for Blue Water members stepping into career progression. You know, there's some other things to think about. You know, leading indicators the market going through big changes like this. You know, as you're sipping, you know, a cup of coffee and you're watching the Morning News or whatever it happens to be, right, as you are stepping into career progression, there are other ramifications. It's kind of like what you and I talked just briefly before the show, pre show discussion. I said, Man, if you are stepping into career progression and it's been your life, desire to go to work for Intel tomorrow. Ooh, I'm gonna tell you. Have you seen the recent, you know, story on layoffs? Man, they're letting 15,000 people go, right? And so the conversation segues to, well, what do you say, Mike, that you don't like Intel? You don't think I go, No, no. It doesn't have anything to do with what we like or what we don't like. It goes to mindset, right? And you are likely to discover, hey, I'm still going to tell you to chase your dream if that's where you want to go and what you want to do, but you may not get there in the next 120 days, right? It may take you longer than four months to pursue or turn that vision into reality. But look at the big stories we've seen right in the tech sector. It just continues to roll out. Not long ago, what metal let 11,000 a Facebook letter fell 1000s has let a lot of people go look at the recent Google story that just came out their channel. I know they're challenging this ruling that the you know those monopoly ruling, you're the monopoly ruling, right? Interesting. Think about the impacts you know that that is gonna have, right? Microsoft is going through some of their similar challenges as well. Look at Boeing just hired a new CEO. When we say, to do your market analysis, and to do your quantitative deep dive, understand what's going on in the industry and the landscape that you may be interested in pursuing, right? And this is where it matters to you in your next success to ultimately generate revenue for some period of time, right? You have to take a look at that, right? And it goes to the mindset, right? Hey, historically, I know a lot of people that have landed with this company X Y or Z, but now Company X Y or Z is going through some major challenges. Is that going to affect my timeline as I pursue this company? And the answer may be yes. Maybe it's no, but the point is, you have to look at the environment before you just jump in. Does that make sense? I mean, these changes in the stock market and things like this, they have real implications, especially to members who are making that that next step and pursuing some industry or company that is affected by these changes, right? An interesting one that, again, you and I teed up just briefly, if you are way interested in the energy industry, and the energy industry's just very exciting, right? Well, again, not to turn this into a political discussion, that's not my intent here. I don't want to go one side or the other, but we have right the potential. I mean, you know. What the issues are. They're polar opposites. Man, on one hand, you've got, you know, an administration that wants to make America energy independent, and we're going to drill, we're going to open up all these other kind of things, and then you got another side of the administration to say, no, no, we're not going to do that. It's going to be renewable energy and solar panels on your roof, and wind farms and, you know, whatever, all that stuff. It's same energy industry, different approaches, different sides to this. If you don't think that that may have some impact on the oil and gas energy industry or even something here locally in the Hampton Roads area, like Dominion Power, or some of these kind of things, right, depending on our government and how it is driving and maneuvering, those are impacts that could affect Blue Water members in pursuit of their next success, just based on policies that are being outlaid there. So again, I'm not trying to say, live in fear of these things. And hey, this has been my lifelong dream to go do this thing. I'm not saying come off your lifelong dream, but you better have the right mindset, and you better understand what's going on and changes to the landscape, right? Because it's, it's certainly likely to have an impact on the amount of time required for you to make that next step. Does that make sense? I mean, and we've been talking about that,

well, let me, let me ask you this, because often you hear chaos creates opportunity, and you hear something like 15,000 job laid off. Like, what kind of jobs are those? Are they going to be line workers? Or these companies are so big, it's possible to even fathom how they could have, you know, 10s of 1000s of employees, like, I have, it's like, oh, we just, we don't know what they do. Like, how do they do that? You know, how big is their executive team? Like in why is that the easier layoff than a line worker, for example? But you know, from the mindset perspective, can this kind of chaos create opportunity for retirees to, you know, shifts how they're thinking about things? You know, I

think so, right? I mean, and let's look at it not from a negative, but maybe let's look at it from a positive, right? As you're seeing these shifts, you know, as maybe one industry may be impacted negatively, right? Are there other industries that are impacted positively, right? And moving in an upward trend, and those are exciting opportunities as well. Scott, you're like, Hey, I'm looking at, you know, let's just say, for example, startups in the defense industry. Look at companies like, you know, Andrew, look at companies you know, that that are stepping into that typically, if you think old, big, lethargic, moving companies in the defense industry, you know, and I'm reluctant to kind of name names here, but you get it right, the old dinosaurs that aren't very agile, and now you have a new vibrant company which is well funded in a startup led by an individual who doesn't approach the defense industry historically like some of the old, well established players do, and is much more agile, and use of off the shelf technology, it happens very rapid, and I can deliver results quicker, you know, under budget, with a product that, for all intents and purposes, pretty much works and meets what the government needs from it, right? But that's exciting, right? Is in a very agile manner. It's not going to be bound by these sites. So as you look at these industries, you know, where one is challenged, and maybe others are thriving, right? That can be, you know, for members stepping into career progression, you're like, hey, I'm interested in this industry, but I like how this company is being agile and pursuing this. Maybe I want to look at them, right? Yeah, it can be exciting, right? I think the point is, I would just sum it up like this, look before you jump, right? I mean, I think that's fair. Look before sometimes

we get too confident. These companies are big and robust and and kind of like the military. It seems like the military and they can be as stable, but military is not going to do mass layoffs. Might do some downsizing, but we understand we're probably the ones, uh, managing that at this point. So okay, I

think that's a that's a good way to look at it. And then the last thing I would say, you know, for our members, this is, yet again, a reinforcement. And we put this out at every cohort we do Scott, and we try to reinforce it. But it's, it's, it really is hard for our members to adopt this. And the bottom line up front is, never stop looking, right? You know, you're stepping into a new phase of your life. You're never going to stop looking. Hey, here's a news flash for everybody. You don't have a placement officer, you don't have a detail, you don't have a community manager, you don't have a monitor, whatever your brand of service is, assignments officer, whatever it is, you don't have any of that in your life anymore. 100% of all of that rests on your shoulders, right? So you never stop looking so just because you land someplace and you get a job and you're now pulling in revenue, and then on your side, I'm engaging with Scott. I'm figuring out how to build the war chest. I'm figuring out how to protect. You know what I have? Right? It's the structure of the. Revenue that's coming in is equally as important as the revenue itself. But here's that news flash, you're never going to stop looking so what does that mean? That means you continue to be building your network. You continue to show interest into other opportunities out there, maybe other industries, maybe other companies, right? You continue to have an interest in that. We have had members that landed right, received an offer, accepted an offer, went to work for a company, and in short order, due to some of these fluctuations we're talking about, have found themselves now thrust back out into a career progression, again, right, due to some of these changes that we're discussing here. So and now they feel like they're starting all over. Well, it should never be starting over, right? You're gonna start once, and you're gonna continue to do these things. I get it. Are you ready? Here's this word forever, right? And you know, you hit the nail on the head when we're wearing the uniform. Do we all really have time to prep for this next step most of the time, no, right? We put ourselves last, our loyalties to the job, to leadership that we're serving at that point, to the team that we're with. Man, I'm going to do this to the bitter end, until all of a sudden we're like almost out of time days, right? And then we go, oh, man, I got to get prepared to get a job right here at Blue Water. We recognize that right and part of us building this vibrant network of like minded senior leaders who are now stepping in and making up the blue water network that now spans hundreds of companies across many different industries, with key insights that we have into all of those we can give members a very quick inject into that network, right? Because we know they don't have time to build it themselves.

See, I think that's the opportunity that they have working with blue water, to not get stuck in the weeds of, oh my gosh, the stock market's crashing, or this company's lost, or they just did a bunch of layoffs, because that's all in the news that that's coming later, after it's already happened, where you're given the ability to connect directly with somebody that's already in the company. Can they probably give you some heads up? Hey, this actually looks like we're growing over here, or could be we're doing some downsizing before, just waiting to see if it's going to happen. Yeah,

absolutely, you know, we've had members that have landed squarely with some really good companies. In fact, we had just had a member out in Seattle, not too long ago, landed with a consulting company out there that was not long ago, acquired, merged and was acquired by another company. So not only did they they land, but now all of a sudden they have to navigate, oh my gosh, our company's being acquired by another company, which is there are some awkward challenges in that, if members haven't been through that and you're curious about it, I'm happy to have a conversation with the offline. In fact, I can put you in touch with some of our members who have navigated that and understand what those challenges are. So there's some unique things. But again, the landscape, right, we're coming from. And again, don't beat me apart on this I, you know, I want to say fairly stable landscape. In the military, I get it, there are drawdowns and sometimes, you know, we offer early outs and some of these things. But for the most part, right, the environment was fairly I would use the word stable, if that makes sense, right? I mean, I get it. We travel, we do a lot of things. We're in the military. We do this. But your job security, you know, is pretty good, right? For the Las, stepping into this new environment, and to your point, in the whole point of the discussion here, right? You're living in an environment I think that is potentially more affected by a lot of the changes that you're talking about here. Right? Companies get merged, acquired, right opportunity goes away. Company goes through big layoffs. Maybe companies go through big growth spurts. Right? There's opportunity. You got to be looking for that as well too. But again, I come all the way back to what would we tell our members, look before you jump, right? That's important. Look before you jump, and we talk about it in the market analysis phase, as a quantitative Deep Dive. That's a college kind of deep dive book report kind of thing. You know what's going on in that industry. You know the strategy and the outlook, and is it a healthy environment? Not healthy environment, understand right, what it looks like before you take a step that direction. And most importantly, is it going to preserve right the big rocks in your strategy, right? And if all of that aligns and it looks good, and the healthy and the environment looks healthy, and it's a good fit for you, then by all means, let's target it and let's pursue it. But if it's a some company that's going through some big changes, I'm not saying let go your dream and you don't want to follow it all. I'm saying is, hey, you may need to adjust your mindset, right? That company's going through a massive layoffs, and they're on a hiring freeze that may not become a reality in your life in 30 days, right? You may have to take like. Nine months to a year until a company works through that, and we've had members that have experienced all of that, right? And so look before you jump, is what I'd say, Yeah,

I think the moral of the story today, you know, if we're going to do quantitative analysis, typically, quantitative analysis is what you're doing with the financial advisor, looking at the stock portfolio, which, or if you're doing your stock analysis, which one should I buy, which fund is good? And the reality is, if you're looking at the quantitative analysis of your new opportunities to replace your military income stream, that's we can have more control over, yeah, and give yourself, you know, something more positive to look forward to, versus just seeing what the market's going to do. Got to play both games, of course, but don't let the one stress you out when you can really take better control of your you know, financial opportunity over those next 10 years, because these things are going to happen. So I think here is just to be a place to say, hey, let's take let's acknowledge the emotions, but recognize that there's people we can talk to that have been through various situations, and we want to be a resource for that. And as such, Mike, let me show real quick this new webinar I'm going to launch, which, oh yeah, kind of, I'm calling it the war chest strategy for a wartime economy, because I'm in the insurance industry. We're always about risk management. And after 2000 I mean, this goes back to, kind of my story a little bit, when I got out in 2008 and, you know, I did not retire. I got out as a newly pinned or, no, I was still in the reserves, but I was 03 when I got out, and so I needed to get a new job, and ended up in the financial services industry. And right then is when the market crashed, like, literally, the month I started Lehman Brothers collapsed, and I said, Who's Lehman? I said, Who's Lehman Brothers? Like I had, I had no idea. And that was a big the firm I was with, you know, all the clients are calling in, my accounts are dropping. What do we do get me out of the market? And it was super stressful for all the firm I was with. Us, all former military officers. So I was looking at them like my senior leader, because they're all old guys. At the time, I was only 30 years old, and so I'm looking at them as, all right, what do we do? And they, you know, it was, nobody knows what to do when the market's collapsing and they're printing money. And, you know, it was a crazy time in 2008 I think we kind of forget, because it's been pretty good the last 15 years or so. Now that could have been manufactured a little bit, but either way, retirement account values went up. Nest eggs went up. Baby Boomers were happy. Baby Boomers kept spending. But the baby boomers aren't going to be around forever, and their assets are going to have to transfer. Fortunately, a lot of that's being transferred kind of out into the ether, so to speak, but it's also means there's not going to be as much spending, and there's not as much money available to invest in the market. So there's just uncertain times. And so we've see this coming. Everything's cyclical a little bit. And so that's what the insurance side of the house is for. And so that's what our webinar is about. We're going to talk about some of the demographic changes. You know how that impacts is how taxes impact this stuff, but ultimately, how this ties back to the situation military retirees face when really, actually trying to answer these questions. This is what I hear most. I don't hear, Hey, Scott, how do I invest my money better? I mean, yeah, there's always a little bit of that, but it's really about first, those emotional things. I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I don't know what I don't know. And then a little bit, how do, how am I doing financially, and what I nine times out of 10, I'm saying you're doing great because you did the career, you earned the pension. Now go get with Mike and blue water, and you answer those other two questions, yeah, so you can find a good fit, and then that's that's what the control is about. And what we want to do is take the financial, the risky stuff, off the plate for for some of your benefits, or your assets, some of that uncertainty, we can help you remove that stress so that you can deal with finding what you want to do next, so you don't have to worry about these stock market declines as much, but no,

but I love your approach on it, Scott, right? Because it's, again, the way it resonates in my mind is it's not just right, securing some follow on, you know, a revenue stream right in pursuit of your next success, but it's what you do with it, right? It's the structure of it. And, yeah, I mean, there are a lot of legacy, institutionalized programs that are available out there, but I would use that word legacy, institutionalized, dated, right? There are many new, more modern, flexible options, right? And I love how you approach this, right? I mean, you know that give, give the member a lot of flexibility, right, in what to do with this, you know, investment of revenue as you structure it, right in your next phase here and and I love the discussion out there. This looks like a great discussion that you're getting ready to kick this off. So just tell us, when are you going to launch this, and when are you going

to do this? Yeah, it should know. It'll be on our website, available anytime. It goes in good with the books as well, and should have it up today or tomorrow. Wow. And I'll put the links out there, and it'll be the main thing I point people to as they're thinking about working with us, because I lay everything out we do so they get their questions answered, and that way, when we do get on a phone call, we can get right to it and address, what are your pressing concerns based on your time because everybody's coming in at a different your time frame, perspective on things, and unfortunately, most of the info, when you're going through a taps program or any traditional New Career Transition Program, they're putting you all in the same box, or you're in the military, okay, so you were going through this, yeah, but when, what order and in what priority, that is going to be super individualized. So, you know, at some point we got to say, maybe it's time to stop following the structured approach to what the military thinks is best for me or some organization. And I'm gonna have to, you know, figure it out myself. So right, adding some certainty around the financial side of it is, of course, you know, the big question here, and when we can't know if we're going to have a job, we can manage what we've already built better, whether that means being more efficient with SBP or tsp decisions, just making sure you've got the right one for you, so that you're not worried about it or it's figured out. What am I doing with my overall financial strategy? I haven't had a chance to look at this. How does this tie into the new job? You know, maybe I'm not. Don't need to be as concerned as I thought I needed to be, and that's why I love having those kind of conversations and people saying, listen, yeah, we can do all the quantitative stuff and run the numbers, but first, let's just address the relev in the room and saying, do you even have a problem? Or is this really a better opportunity? I think I get to tell that second story a lot more often, yeah, and that makes that that's I get up every day. It's more fun. I don't have to swap everybody,

no, and it's a great value add, right? And I love the service that you're bringing, especially to the membership that you're bringing it to, right? I mean, and again, you and I have chatted about this, right? This is why I think our relationship works so well, right? You know, we value the same membership base. We value, you know, that same demographic, but the expertise that we bring to them is completely different, right? But yet we still know, having lived that ourselves, right? We know that it's needed, right? I fully understand that there's a lot about navigating through right, this career progression until they land, and even, for that matter, even post landing, how to onboard a company, how to ramp within a company, and then all the way up to your first year, how are you going to renegotiate your annual compensation at the end of that first year? Right? Like these are all firsts, right? Never before seen events that our members work through, that we're honored to be a part of navigating that space with them as they go through these challenges, right? And so you bring the insight of man, the structure of the revenue that I'm now pulling in, like it's not just a matter just to earn it. But what do I do with it? How do I build the war chest? How do I preserve it? And you know, I'm happy to share personal decisions I made with members, but, man, I don't have the depth in the space like you do and your team, right? And so I just love the relationship. I think it works, right? Because it's needed insight. Our members all need that insight, for sure.

And, yeah, I appreciate it as well, Mike, and I appreciate the opportunity to go up to Annapolis, yes, for your next cohort coming up at the Naval Academy Alumni Association. And I think I saw there might be an opportunity for a lucky taker. You

know, I would love to tell you it's still open, but for the members out there, these fill quick. So it is completely full up. You know, we were asked to kind of help fill the last couple of seats at that event up there, which took us all of about maybe five days. Once we started really advertising it and putting it out there. It's just such a great opportunity in a great environment up there, the Naval Academy Alumni Association up there at Annapolis, just doing fantastic job. Great new building that they've constructed up there, the Flugel Center. We're excited to be, you know, teaching in that space up there for the two day cohort that you will be a part of right up there. So, yeah, we're really excited to do that, it'll be kind of our standard cohort, you know, day one on Wednesday the 11th, and then day two. As you know, we set aside about an hour and a half for each member to meet with them one on one. So if they want to discuss resume or social media presence or networking or whatever it happens to be throughout, you know, the day prior. If they've got any questions, we can do that in a one on one session, as we usher them into the enduring relationship of the Blue Water Network, right? So that's just a great way to, kind of to bring that out there. And so we're really excited about it. We got some neat events planned up there. It's, it's just going to be good. So I'm excited that you'll be coming up for that. Uh. Part of that on date there as well

hang out and answer questions. Yeah, no, it's

going to be it's going to be good. So that's coming up near term also here, and on the calendar in front of me, I think it's August, maybe 22nd 23rd right? We're headed out to Reno tail hook, and we're going to be out there for a couple of days, and gonna just have an opportunity to kind of arc around and just have discussions with members, stay in touch with old friends. See companies out there continue to spread insight around blue water, and if members want to have discussions out there, as far as what they can expect, right? What does it look like again? Never a threat to retention. We're not recruiting people out there. We're just letting people know that when the time is right, when you your family and your navy family decide it's time for you to make that next step into career progression, we're a trusted resource that's there for you, right? And yeah, trusted for a lot of reasons. We've navigated it ourselves. We found success on the other side, and now we're just wrapping it all, bringing it back forward to members, to present it in a current, relevant, credible format, right? So we're excited about

that. And Mike, if there is an organization, whether that's a Veteran Service Organization, or maybe even a company that wants to hire veterans, or maybe have you talk to their HR team, or whatever is, those types of organizations can, you know, reach out to you as well to kind of set up, you know, maybe opportunities similar to what you did to the Alumni Association, right? Or even command, even military commands, if they wanted to have you come talk.

It's a great call out. Scott, thanks for bringing that up. But you're absolutely right. We're available cnaf, which is a navy command, Commander, Naval Air Force out San Diego. They had brought us out. We get a lot of questions, Hey, when are you coming back to San Diego? When are you coming back to San Diego? The short answer is, we'll come back to San Diego at any time. If there is a command that wants to sponsor us and bring us to San Diego, we're looking hard at going to Seattle first quarter of next year, 2025 and we think we're making some good inroads there. But the same challenges, you're either going to need to find a corporate partner who's going to sponsor you to get out there, or some command right? That says, Hey, I'm a large command. We have a number of individuals that would benefit from having, you know, going through a cohort like what Blue Water offers, bringing them into the blue water network. Okay, great. And we're going to help bring blue water out to Seattle, right? And we absolutely do those things, right, just as the Naval Academy Alumni Association has engaged with us and is bringing us up to Annapolis, right? So we're excited to offer those opportunities and, and, and we're, I just love the growth. We're slow, steady growth, right? This is we're about ready to end, you know, we're three and a half years right now, so we're getting close to four years, and the network's continuing to grow and doing some amazing things. So,

yeah, I just wanted to kind of nudge, like, obviously your cohorts fill up, and there's only so many spots, and not everybody can fly out to where you're going to be. But just to remind folks, hey, if you like the idea of bringing this kind of next level approach, talk to those who can provide that sort of opportunity and bring it out to you. Or maybe there's another, even a virtual way of setting some

approved government contractor. We have, you know, we're cams, we have cage could DUNS, numbers, all this kind of stuff. If your command needs some kind of a proposal, we're happy to work that up in a government format. We try to make it easy for our members. We do all those things, right? So, yeah, we're excited, and we're working hard to kind of get blue water listed in a number of resource guides out there. That makes it even easier, you know, for commands to kind of find us and secure our services. So steady growth. Man, that's what we do, right? Yeah,

same here. I've been, you know, all this stuff. I've been working on the launch. It's been years in the making, and it's all I'm always kicking myself. I wish I would have set this up years ago, but at the same time, I want to do it the right way, with the right people, and not bug people too much. So if you do sign up for our webinar one of our books, we're going to be starting a newsletter soon, and you know that'll just remind people to keep them, to reach out to us. We to win. It's a good time and fit for them, because we know there's always going to be something else coming up, especially during military retirement, and you got to prioritize things so like no no rush on our end. But I did well. I think that's good for this week, I'm heading out to Ohio for my mom's 80th birthday on Friday. Oh, great. Good for you. Yeah, no, thanks. But on that, I'll be in touch, and we'll talk to everyone again next week. Make sure again to connect with Mike and I on LinkedIn, and you'll reach out to me if you want to get access to the webinar, and I will send you a link.

Sounds great. Thanks. Scott.

Take care, man. You.

Music. Hey there. This is your host, Jen Amos, thanks again for listening to today's episode of holding down the fort by us. Fetwell, visit holding on the fort podcast.com to access the full show notes of this episode, including resources mentioned and bonus content. Once again, the website is holding down the fort podcast.com, lastly, stay after the outro for a little something extra. Thanks again and chat soon. Bye for now you