Hey there, listener! Thank you for checking out our older seasons! We're adding this note on the top of the show notes to keep you up-to-date with the show. Connect with Jen Amos and get bonus content when you subscribe to our private podcast show, Inside the Fort by US VetWealth, at http://insidethefort.com/

Last Updated: September 2, 2024

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185: Scott R. Tucker and Mike Wallace Talk Military Career Transition and Progression Strategies with Michael Nunziato

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GYwgIriL4E8

Jen Amos takes a break from hosting on Thursdays to introduce replays of her husband's live show, "Take A Knee" Tuesdays.

US VetWealth Founder and CEO Scott R. Tucker is joined once again by Blue Water Advisors (BWA) CEO Mike Wallace to discuss career progression and transition resources for senior military leaders retiring from the military. They are also joined by BWA cohort member Michael Nunziato.

Nunziato shares an update on his upcoming military retirement and how BWA has been extremely helpful in navigating the process. The group discusses the importance of having a strategy and priorities post-military that's beyond resume writing and interviews. Nunziato shares some surprises he encountered in his career progression process and opportunities that came from maintaining his network.

Notes About Thursday Replays of "Take A Knee" Live Show

• The show was formally titled after Scott's latest book, "Don't Forget Your War Chest," which is available for purchase at: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08HJVPW1M/allbooks
• Mentioned events and updates may be outdated. The intent of sharing the replays is to (1) get a glimpse into Jen and Scott's ever-evolving entrepreneurial journey, and (2) to discuss career progression for military retirees seeking employment in post-military.
• Recommended to watch via video - If possible, we recommend that you watch this episode on our YouTube channel as the hosts may reference visuals. Each episode will provide a direct link to the YouTube video in the show notes for your convenience. Or subscribe now at: https://www.youtube.com/@holdingdownthefortpodcast
• To stay up-to-date with "Take A Knee" Tuesdays, please subscribe to US VetWealth's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@usvwtv

Resources Mentioned

• Connect with US VetWealth Founder and CEO Scott R. Tucker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottrtucker/
• Connect with Blue Water Advisors CEO Mike Wallace on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-s-wallace1/
• Learn more about Blue Water Advisors: https://www.bluewater-advisors.com/

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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.

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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.”

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Scott R. Tucker 0:00

Speaking of focus, a that's what we got to do. We gotta we gotta bring it in sometimes everybody, let's take a knee. Let's gather out coach norm today, you know, Mike, you're Mike Wallace and get some tips and insights on the military career progression, process, lessons learned, so on and so forth for especially the senior leaders who gotta get overlooked or in the military transition resources out there. So we've done a little bit of the conversations between Mike and I, before we really want to launch this into a more regular thing. And when available, bring in some success stories. And so Mike, we're really happy to have you with us. And oh, there's Tom wells joining popping in He knows your goal. And so my last name,

Speaker 1 0:48

except Nunziata. Oh, yeah, yep. If you look at it, it really is exactly as it's, as it says, it looks on the yawn, but everybody sees it and gets like crazy on it. And the intimidation factor,

Speaker 2 1:00

you know, and I hope you'll join us here today, right, he's gonna bring us up to speed on some pretty exciting successes. But just tell us just quickly what's going on with us about well got the book,

Scott R. Tucker 1:09

don't forget your war chest, you know, in hardback, copy, get downloaded for free and get on our portal. And maybe I'll log in here at the end of our session here and show people how to do that. I'll bring up a screen share, well, I will drop the link below so people can sign up. Or if you're watching this on LinkedIn, you can just go to Mike or my profiles, and you can sign up for that. You're watching this on YouTube. Or we're also on Facebook, and Twitter, which is not Twitter anymore. It's now it's x, I don't expect anybody to be paying attention to us over on x, because that's just a wild world. Same time, you never know. So, you know, we do that. So yeah, that's what we've got coming out. Basically, we got the book published. And we've been working on our concept of the war chest, right? The war chest is a strategy to tie whatever you're doing financially to the whole concept of military retirement, what's the point of military retirement to stop following orders. But then if all your money's tied up in TSP, and you can't access it till you're 65? You know, what do we do in that kind of in between time? Well, first, you got to go get that high paying job, which is what Mike is going to have to do. So you can play some catch up. And then what I like to help do is when you want to, you know, avoid paying for some of those costs of government benefits if you don't need them. And then maybe recognizing that if you get the job Mike's gonna help you get tie that onto your pension, you know, in a kind of a high income situation. And so maybe when it can you do kind of look at these things and these opportunities different, especially given all the times we're at and how things are changing. So that's what the war chest is all about. And so that's it. Yeah, Mike, you know, thanks for asking. But yeah, I was definitely inspired by what you do. We didn't do all that. I mean, hey, we love doing the live video and stuff. But what we do in the military is get in front of troops, and talk to him. So really appreciate. Well,

Speaker 2 2:58

it's good. I saw you posted that and I just kind of wanted to give it a quick shout out. So I'm excited that you hit that direction.

Scott R. Tucker 3:04

What about what about any any specific announcements on blue and blue water side of things? I mean, I know you're packed on your cohorts. We

Speaker 2 3:12

Scott R. Tucker 4:17

you're gonna need a private jet to fly around all these, these coal military. Well, you just see the

Speaker 2 4:23

whole thing in blue. A lot of aviators, right.

Scott R. Tucker 4:28

Just hop on space a or something. But no, no doubt very excited to hear that. And really, that leads us into today's conversation with Mike. Well, first tell us how did you find out about your blue water? How did you get this process? Yeah. Tell us about yourself first and kind of

Speaker 1 4:45

Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah, well, you know, first off I have to the most important thing is I was the naval attache to Italy and I was at NATO and Italy so norm when you need a translator when you have six weeks, we knows. Yeah, okay. I'll carry your bags if you need it, you know, just to get the get back over there.

Scott R. Tucker 5:03

So last name that I guess he was a tie in? Yeah, yeah. Before I didn't know,

Speaker 1 5:12

what's it sounds a little Irish but you know, you gotta get past it, you know, you kind of get there no I, I was looking at transitioning out of the service kind of towards the end of last year coming back from from Rome and really made any decisions yet, you know, when I was trying to make it more of a family decision, you know, for the really what was the first time in 20 plus your career as you're as you're kind of making those decisions. And I had a really good buddy of mine, Bob Rubin was was, was also retiring last year. And the first thing out of his mouth, when I told him I was thinking about it was to get a hold of norm in the group and figure out what was going on. And I cannot begin to express how important that relationship has been over the last geez, I feel like it sounds like it's only 70 months, but it feels like an eternity norm. I think you and I have a joint calling plan now on Verizon, based off of all the conversations that we have. I

Speaker 2 6:04

love it, though, right? And again, you know, staying in touch with our members, a lot of people go, you know, now that we've had hundreds of people through, you know, how do we meet the demand? And how do we do that. And it's really, you know, we just stay up to speed, the small group allows us to stay up to speed with what individuals are doing individuals that reel us in to varying different degrees, as we progress with them through their experiences, it makes it easy right at a moment, you know what I'm talking about Michael, like, you just pick up the phone and just go, Hey, this is what they came back with, or this is what they said, and we have this dialogue and you know, not that, you know, we are, you know, the end all be all into insight into these situations. But just having been there and done that and navigated that and large part ourselves just allows us to add that insight right at hoc. And so yeah, we chatted a lot. But it's been good, though,

Unknown Speaker 6:58

ya know, I,

Speaker 2 6:59

it's worth it. Right, you're laying out

Speaker 1 7:03

to present 100%? You know, as we're going through things, I think one of the things I appreciate the most is the soundboard, you know, between Norman and horsewomen. You know, I've known horse for a long time to, you know, just just being able to kind of talk through things, because you don't know what you don't know, when you're when you're transitioning out of the service. You know, you have a lot of questions you have not a lot of answers for our Level II tap tries to do a lot of things, but it kind of misses the mark on a few of them. But it helps a lot as well. You know, there's just one of the many tools that you have, if you're trying to do the thing, right by yourself and your family, as you're as you're moving on. You know,

Speaker 2 7:37

I think I could, right. I mean, you know, we thought long and hard about, you know how we wanted to implement Bluewater and the message that we wanted to project right. And clearly, we don't spend a lot of time on how to do your DD 214, or how to do your VA medical or how to do it. Now, we all have experienced that personally, and I'm happy to share with you personal insight on how I navigated that or any one of our career progression consultants can do the same, right? That's the credibility they bring to the table, but the curriculum and what we wanted to focus on, and Scott, you and I've talked about this in the past, right? I just didn't feel that that was the high ground that I wanted to try to stand out. I wasn't gonna tell them. We were you know, hey, we've got the Bluewater approach to doing your DD 214 Or your VA medical or whatever it happens to be, we certainly are happy to have that conversation with you because we've navigated ourselves. But that's not part of the curriculum, right? We wanted to stay laser focused on that next step, right, you know how to navigate that space in your career progression, how to understand what's important to you, and how to preserve those things that are important to you, while you're achieving, you know, that vision of your next success. And so, you know, we've had members in the past come to us and said, Hey, Mike, you know, what do you think about you know, well, Scott, your swim lane Survivor Benefit Plan, or, you know, TSP, or VA medical, or these other kinds of things. And we certainly have a wealth of resources that we're capable of, and happy to kind of redirect people to, and they're a part of the Blue Water Network. And in those instances, we do that, but we just, you know, tap has its place. Each app has its place, and there's some programs and I really feel those are government owned programs. And the government has a responsibility I think personally, to be smart on that to deliver the right message to me so I don't have to navigate their paperwork their players or bureaucracy.

Scott R. Tucker 9:32

But that's what they they should always should be doing. It's not the military's job to get you a job. It's a military job to maybe get you out of the military. Only right but getting back to kind of what you were saying like with your the soundboard that made us think about okay, well what's the difference between the tap and what Bluewater any sort of individualized program Hey, if you're just figuring it out yourself, it's about strategy right? And so itself gets it a lot of that soundboard being had to do with recognizing there's more to this. Yeah, there's the tactics might be in there, how you fill out the resume and stuff. But I'm just curious to sit back and listen to how you guys maybe. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up that soundboard like yeah, to recreate that some of those discussions that were more meaningful or more memorable right now in a way if you're sure anything

Yeah, no, they're they're all fresh in top of mind and they've been ongoing for the last several months, especially in the last couple of weeks, everything's still very fresh things are progressing. And I I don't hit my terminal leave date for about a month or so. And the fact that I had an offer come in earlier is significant and and no small thanks to those soundboard conversations that we had, you know, and for me, I, you know, I my background and all the two nfo turned fayo I've kind of done on wide depth of of jobs, especially in the last couple of years, that have to deal with interactions, relationships, and networking, and holding and strengthening relationships that you kind of you kind of identify and pursue. So that's kind of how my situation came about was going after one of these network opportunities that I saw a huge chance to get in with with this with a medium sized defense company. And we kind of nurture that relationship over, you know, long, long game seven, eight months of back and forth and cheering each other out and getting the right thing that I think is once a being the most important and that's that's the fit. It's

the Gold Star II embrace the message and the vision and just put it into motion. And you really did Miko, you did a fantastic job, all the networking, all the strategy, the market analysis, everything that we lay out, and you walk right through that. And

I appreciate that norm. I mean, that was that was important.

Let me back up. Think back when we kicked up the cohort. And the very first discussion that we have with the group strategy, I can almost see everybody's eyes rolling back into their head, right? Because you know, we're going to really, this is how you're going to start this day, you're going to talk to me for 45 minutes or an hour about strategy. Go back to that time, Mike, and just tell me in your life, was there value in that discussion and taking a look at a strategy and figured it out what your personal mission vision priorities were?

Yeah, sure. I mean, for that thing, you know, it's funny, you put it like that, nor because they did here strategy, and what would you thought about strategy for the last 20 plus years? Yeah. And you know, the strategy in the military is one thing, and this strategy is completely different. So you have to kind of take a step back and go, no, no, I need to get a feel for what they're talking about here. And when it comes down to is, you're building up a strategy for yourself. And you've never done that before. You know, you've built up strategies for Oh plans, you've built up strategies for your airwing staff how to spend up to par and how to go after this thing. But you've never done like strategy for his next stage, that's a significantly different thing. You can attack it. And kind of in the same way, instead of what you want to do for priorities, where your goals want to be, and where you want to be at where you want to live, which is looking at for compensation, and where you want to fit in. And that kind of stuff is is you know, it's the back of your mind. But but it's not there, because you haven't thought about that kind of stuff ever. You know, and maybe maybe before you joined the service, you know, 1000 years ago, when you were actually jumping into it. But you know, for that thing, you kind of made me start focusing on what I know now about myself, right? So what is the toolbox that I have inherent that I've built up over the last couple of years, I think one of the biggest things I've had to get over is my thinking, nor you and I talked about this a couple weeks ago, I was having a little bit of impostor syndrome, as I'm walking through these, these these conversations with different companies, you know, because you pop up the resume, which you much better than what an eval is, or further up looks like. But you know, it's very fluffy. And you got some great information in there. And you know, and you read it, you hopefully you're impressed yourself, because that's how I kind of marked them like, Oh, I've done a lot of stuff. That's awesome. You're hoping that the people that are reading are doing the same thing, you know, but at the end of the day, Am I really that person? Am I really going to jump into that day one in the company and go, I wasn't full of it. When I sent you this stuff, you know, I do have the background, you have a thirst for knowledge. And it takes a lot of soul searching to make sure that you are ready in order to jump in there. And that was one of our conversations that we had as we were coming up, you know, I know, I

just right, just just named back and forth that it this is a unique environment. And this is what it's going to feel like and don't be so quick to solve your future employers problems, let them make the decisions and assessments, right. I mean, I think we as honest brokers in the military when we're engaging our potential future employers, and I won't say everybody, but it's not uncommon for us to want to solve, hey, I'm a really hard worker and I learned really quick so if you hire me, I'm going to step in and learn this. But if you take a step back and translate, you know what your future employer hears it is you really just told me that you don't know what you want to do? Or how to do it? Right? I mean, there's a little bit in the delivery, right, but our membership just like you, Michael, right, infinitely talented, infinitely capable and having worked in the corporate environment and haven't been surrounded by those individuals, I would stack up any one of our members, yourself included with a work ethic and the drive and the insatiable appetite for figuring out problems and being able to do that route a full spectrum of challenging environments. Right. So but you I just love to hear you say that, right, that there was value, you know, in the approach there, and it's kind of a maturation process for your brain, right, it is a new environment.

Yep. And then you have to, you know, kind of be a sponge, when you're doing that, you know, I think one of the big things that you'll see, you're gonna talk to colleagues and peers that, you know, in the same situation, maybe haven't thought through things as much or, you know, have been working so hard right up to the end, that they haven't been able to give themselves the time in order to, to have that conversation with themselves or your with the group, they just continue to harp on as well. You know, I already have a lot of experience and I'm right at I'm, I'm the guy and it was like going in there, I was leader the Navy for 25 years, I'm going to be a leader in our company. And you'll take a deep breath bit and kind of reassess where you're

at on your LinkedIn profile CEO equivalent CEO equivalent, right? Like, there's a little difference there. Right? And

that tells me this from both both you guys perspective, how is that still a confusing thing for people coming out of the military, you know, in this day and age, with all the connection that we're in, you know, you think that it had bled out, you know, you have everybody's out there more, and we hear feedback from people that are out there. But it seems like maybe we're just we've been deployed too much that we don't pay attention to this at all, until we're at a retirement briefing, like because that holds people back. Because then they're, they're kind of going into their new job. And you know, I'm upset, I'm not I'm not happy here, whatever it may be, they didn't give themselves a chance to just, you know, readjust to a new environment. So I'm just always curious, what do you think's going on? How do we? Or is that the way it is?

Yeah, it'll know, I think we've all got you kind of knocked there, Scott is that people will have given themselves the opportunity to retire, I'm not light enough, physically, just kind of mentally, and get there, whether that's, you know, your own self onboarding process or, or departing process, whatever you want to call it, you know, from your time in the service, you know, one of the things that I would I would push out to people is that if you were sitting at the end of your time in the military, you're at Monster retirement, or you're to retire in six months or retirement, you don't have to know what you want to do. 100%. But I hope you prepared yourself enough to do with the right skill sets in order to do something that you want to do productively, because I've heard a lot of people that, you know, did this one thing for 20 years, and they're like, I know that that's what's gonna get me there. And I'm like, Yeah, but you can't do that one thing, when you get out into the real world, and you had these other opportunities you could have utilized, you just failed to do that. Because you didn't have the time to think, how am I going to set myself up in the right way to get make the transition, you know, whether that's if you want to go into the defense industry want to do contracting, take the last six months before you leave, and jump onto defense acquisitions University, and start taking classes on military sales and acquisitions, and these kinds of things that you can jump in there, there, but nobody knows them about them, then definitely go over them and each app and you know, but there's things that you can start looking at to go okay, this is where I want to go, this is where I can do it, you know, go to oh two Oh, yo, which norm you we've talked about before and you the PMP course or do jumping ship, the method course for business development, there's so many things that are out there, that we just don't give ourselves enough time mentally to jump in, because we're still just scratching for those last couple of weeks and months to go in there. And I'm still feeling that now I have, I have five weeks left, before I hit terminal. And I'm in this whirlwind of of things going on. I'm trying to make sure I have my physical checklist and my mental checklist of things I got to do. But I would say that mentally prepare yourself is not just a phrase, you actually have to do that. You

know, Scott, and it's so important, because you know, if I could stereotypically look at our members right now, the one thing I feel safe and sane about every single one of them is if they arrive at a position that they are not happy with, they will not stay, they will leave. And so I come all the way back to the importance of having a strategy. And Michael remembers this working through that market analysis, understanding qualitatively and quantitatively, is this a good fit for me? Is this going to preserve everything that I put in my strategy bucket? And do I have alignment here? And if you do, right, there's a good chance that when you pursue this to an offer and you now land there, there's a better than average chance that that will be a good fit for you because you've done the legwork upfront, and you've heard this before Michael so I apologize at the risk of going to be redundant but we Scott we go over with our members and you have to say it out loud for to sink in, hey, heads up everybody a little bit of foot stomping, you no longer have a detailer, you don't have a place for officer, you have no community manager, you don't have a monitor. You mean, depending on what service you come from. There's nobody managing that career for you. Right? It's all you now. And if you let that sink in, you know, and I'm not to say that when we were the uniform that we didn't have aspirations on where we wanted to go, we certainly weren't right. But I think we would all agree that you had people overseeing your career and lining up those next hurdles, and opportunities for you to step into and compete against, so you can get to the next and the next and the next right, that goes away. Now, well, having a strategy is important, because hey, these big rocks are important to me, and figuring out what those big rocks are actually building your execution plan around preservation of those big rocks, right? I think that's absolutely,

but I was gonna say, just real quickly, I actually don't think it does go away without a strategy, the risk is you end up at another institution that's gonna love you into their system, and they're gonna put you through what's probably going to be some level of mediocrity, and you're gonna get capped out, you know,

hearing in that case that come back to me first, if you get there, you're unhappy, it's unfulfilling, you're not going to stay, I mean, the pedigree of individuals that walk through our door, and of our members, I'm confident in saying that if you get someplace, and this is not what you thought it was, or this is not a good fit, you're not gonna stay. And I don't wish that on anybody, because that just thrust you back out into this career progression space. Right. And it's time and in this next phase, Scott, you and I know right time is money, right? And if you're burning more time, that's less income to put it into the war chest or wherever it is, you want to put it. Not that at all has to be about money. But in this instance, a lot of it is about that right there. So that there's a finite earning potential, right. So

when I think the real money problem is at least from the financial perspective, you know, I get two questions. Usually when from a retiree is, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I never approach so hey, there's, we have a strategy. And that is, I don't know what I'm worth, even if I do. And it's like, okay, well, we can equate the military paycheck, we could do all that kind of backwards planning math. But really, I think part of the strategy, at least what I did for myself, personally, is I remember telling myself at one point, Scott, give yourself the permission to go find out whatever that means, you know, just something. So I started exploring. And Mike, I'm curious, it I know you're still kind of in the process. But is there any, it's kind of surprised you in a way that you weren't? Like, as you're coming up strategy? And I went through this? Like, what's like, holy cow, I didn't think I would be that guy, or whatever.

Yeah, actually, I've had a couple of things that have popped up, you know, aside

from Goobie, Michael, aside from

whatever comes to mind,

but much happened. I've written this out for three weeks. So this is everything, it rains, it pours with things and with decisions and whatnot, universe,

conversations. One day, I go, like, what do you know, you guys won't believe this, I'm moving out of this house and moving into another I'm like, as if you're not already busy enough, you throw in a move, right, and throw

it at a move right in the middle of it. And we like to keep things interesting.

And that's what we're trying to do life insurance in the middle of that, you know, it's like,

exactly, you know, this, I would say, you know, I had an idea of what I wanted to do, what I want to be like, yeah, what I want to do when I when I retired, I'm 100% away from where I thought that was going to be if he asked me that question seven months ago. So that's, that's something in itself, you know, I didn't really know where I can land. I knew I wanted to do security cooperation, I really big international relationship development. I don't know what that means. You know, I don't know how to put that out into the into the world as the you know, pick me and help, I'll help you with your international issue building. You know, you know what that is, you know, no matter how many things you put on your resume that say that so, I mean, that's something that you're you're kind of starting to come in there. When I was talking before about the imposter syndrome thing. You're the other side of this, that actually, man, you know, you do have a lot of unique opportunities that you can push out into this thing. And when you push out that first note on LinkedIn, we are up and I did very, like, stealthy on my first one. I think like two months ago, when I just kind of pushed out to the world, as I've decided to retire, like went off on a different complete tangent, but I had those like three or four words right in the beginning of it, you know, and I started getting all these messages your way what's going on? You're getting out, you're retiring with gloves, like I was like, Yeah, you don't want to follow them, or whatever. But I started getting people to come from my old network in this thing, you know, hey, what do you think about coming over to State Department and jumping in with this European Affairs thing? Hey, what do you think about going over here? I can use somebody like you at this point. And as I started to kind of realize that I said, wow, you know, I actually do have a base that I can go off of that I can roll into too. And I think with that, well, I think the most important thing I've learned, especially in the last couple of weeks, is that the network that you built up, cannot stop when you land, or even are about to land, you know, because you've done all this work over the course of months, and over a year to get into this position and do all this stuff.

That's awesome. I think women's listening in and Steve, if you're listening in, I didn't say Michael to say that he said it all. Great student and listening, landed now what you got to keep doing. Right. So yeah, I love Thank you. And that's it. I

mean, you can't, you know, just because this thing came in, and I'm in the process of of the acceptance of this, I don't cancel the meeting, as I was going to have next week with my State Department friend, or I'm not going to can't because just like like, like Norm said, I'm very confident that we're I'm landing, I'm going to be very happy about the team is great. And that was my most important thing was the fit that I was going to go into the team that I'm ever going to throw out. It's small, but they're they're amazing, a good mix of for military and some in some straight up BD defense industry guys with good leadership. And it's exciting to me to jump into that. But on that note, you know, you got to be ready. You know, but you gotta be ready, because as you guys said, That's correct. Yeah, who's in charge of your career now? Right. So you know, you have to keep maintaining those opportunities to push out there, whether it's just to build your network to do the current job that I'm about to go do or to build the network just in case in the next six months, next year, the next two years, you're kind of expanding out and doing other things. And maybe you actually know I'd like to jump into this thing now. And you know, if you go and do that, and you haven't called somebody in two years, because you've been in your job, yeah, you kind of screwed, you know, Sunita.

Yeah. And they still need something from you just because you land it, you know, it's a reciprocation. Can I be something interesting there, Michael. And Scott, I wanted to just point it out for you. A lot of individuals that do reach this point, don't know what they want to do. And Mike, you said it very succinctly, like, Hey, I don't know what I want to do. But I'm gonna go out to the world. I'm saying, hey, my, you know, I'm stepping into a transition, or as we like to say, career progression. And as we do that, then we espouse you start coming across opportunities, just like you explained it, and we tell our members, you're going to come across these opportunities. And I'm not saying that these opportunities that you stumble across are presented to you, they may be the best thing. But there is a process and your market analysis to assess these things qualitatively. And quantitatively, I'm aware of this opportunity, but prove to yourself that it is a good fit, you owe it to yourself to do that, instead of and I love this analogy, being like a third grader stepping out on the playground or recess and standing there until somebody picks you to be on their kickball team, and you go, Okay, I'm gonna go, you know, be on your kickball team, just because you pick them. That's a horrible way to approach your career progression, you might get lucky and find a good fit. Mike, I think you would agree with me. Yeah, that may line up. But it absolutely may not. And coming all the way back to what I said earlier, if you are not happy, you will leave. And I just don't want that for any of our members. It's not to say that you have to stay where you're at, you know, for ever, right? That's just that's not the point we're trying to make. I don't want you to be thrust out because you made a bad choice. I would rather you progress and mature and then either seek a different role in the company or some additional responsibility wherever your, you know, personal mission vision priorities, or your market analysis takes you to at that point, but be deliberate about it. Right. And I just, I would I would say that's probably the what we espouse and what we put out. And I say that right, Mike is I think that's pretty much more of it. Well,

let me get your guys thoughts on this, though, to expand on kind of Mike's thoughts on continuing to network. Because what I often suggest to people, at least from a strategy perspective, when they do tell me, I Scott, I don't know what to do when I grow up? Well, it's like, go explore, and maybe not explore for opportunities, per se. Yeah, obviously, if an opportunity comes up a job opportunity, sure. But if you really don't know what you want to do, as he grew up, the job opportunity is more of a stepping stone to get that paycheck, while we're getting out of the military. If it's few years, whatever, if you like it, don't like it, you're gonna figure that out one way or the other. But that whole, what's my strategy to really kind of, you know, find it is that I know that what I'm doing on a daily basis, I'm serving those whom I meant to serve and being compensated well, for whatever that means. And I thought that's one of the best things about LinkedIn is it allows you to network well outside of your comfort zone, pretty easy and quickly, even if you're just commenting on somebody's posts, they're going to notice it, they're going to appreciate it you know, and so knowing how LinkedIn can work one you might connect with these people. But if the strategy is to be curious, thanks, Tom for joining us, man. Take care if the strategy is to literally just be curious, not think of it as how are some of these people do it that's what happened to me. I started to notice veterans out there weren't necessarily retiring high rank people. They were making a bunch of money. just doing a YouTube, you know, show or a podcast or had an online website business or something like that. I was like, how did you just do on this? They're not none of this, you know that bringing none of this stuff up? And whether it's small business or just you, how do you go from that first post military job to that kind of next level stuff? Well, there's somebody on LinkedIn that's done it before. And a lot of times they're out kind of do what we're doing right now they're teaching it in some way, it's just a matter of noticing the various different ways of, hey, it's not just, you know, go get a job nine to five anymore, you know, from like, was said at the beginning, it's like, we got to really explore, you know, what are the true possibilities of getting out of the military, and one of them happens to be you're typically getting, you're going through the military transition process. Hey, how do you do the resumes? How do you network interview? Yeah, we got to train for that stuff, too. I'm just curious, what do you guys think about I mean, Mike, that's what you did. You went to the corporate world, but now you're on your own started a business kind of doing the next thing, you know, door guys give themselves permission, enough to be curious at that next level stuff, so they don't get happy, unhappy, and then stay, you know, just disgruntled or something like that were to get bad for everyone down the road. So I was like, throwing that kind of idea out there. We're talking about, you know, building sinuate networking and being part of the community right.

Now. It's a fair ask. And, you know, my hope would be that blue water, and all that we're trying to build and bring to the table here for our members would really reinforce or encourage members, don't be afraid to, you know, to think way outside the box. There are a lot of rewarding government contracting jobs, defense industry jobs, you know, it we have a lot of pilots that want to get out and just pursue airlines, I say just pursue and that's not what I mean, right. I mean, it's a logical step, it's focused.

Yeah.

That's just, you know, a, we all need talented people to fly us around the world to various different places, we got to go, I don't want there to be not talented people doing that for you know what pilots Tell me. But the point I was going to try to make them kind of along getting around to it is if somebody wanted to step out of the fenced yard and said, you know, like, Steve Lehman is a great example, Hey, I want to pursue Amazon, or like myself, or I want to go to Microsoft or I want to go, we've had members go to meta, and Facebook, we've got members that have pursued Deloitte, Ernst and Young and some of these big KPMG. And so these startup companies we've got, you know, Bluewater members that are out plugging in with private equity efforts, and some exam builds. And, and it really all comes down to and Michael hit the nail on the head. It's all about network. It's absolutely all about networking, earning trust and competence within that network. You know, there may be some people that disagree with me on this thing, you're gonna spend a lot of time building a resume, and we start our resume segment upfront, we apologize to you in advance, I go, you're gonna spend a lot of time doing this, it's your ticket to the dance, it has to be good, you got to do this. But you know what the lifespan is only about 30 seconds, once you're in the keep pile is I don't want to start talking to you, right? It's lived it's, but But you got to have a good one to make that connection, right? In addition, with the networking that you're going to build, so blue water, we want to be that bridge, if you want to think big and go deep and leave the reservation and go to some Silicon Valley startup, whatever we envision today that we're going to have a network that you're gonna be able to plug in to do that. And I'm excited about that. Because I think the pedigree of our members, Michael, you know what I'm talking about, right? You guys move mountains move heaven and earth, there's nothing that what we lack from your counterpart, who has never wear the cloth of the nation is what? It's the network. And that's what we want to build to level that playing field. Right? So we bring our individuals and I know, our active duty men and women don't have time to build a competitive network. That's okay. You're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah, we're gonna build this for you. And we're gonna plug you into this network, and you're gonna be successful as you go forward. That's, you know, what we want to build and Michael, congratulations to you. But you know, right. This is a little bit like The Godfather, I don't need anything from you today. We're just gonna serve, serve, serve. But tomorrow is somebody and they go, hey, I want to do what Michael did. Well, who's the most current relevant, credible point of contact we have in the network at that time? Yeah. Right. It's, it's gonna be a cycle. And were likely to call and just say, would you make time to have a conversation with this person? You know, and and of course, we did that. Yep. We're all cut from that cloth. Right? We don't tell anybody but it's it. Blue Water amplifies that because we have resources. We have instructors we have you know, message. We have a lot of that to make this one on one informational, Landy reports and all these kinds of insights that we preserve here we we make a very powerful connection, right? Anyway,

so I would get paid Yeah, no, I would also, you know, I think the biggest problem that we have, and I certainly had it too, is that kind of that fear that that might talk to the norm talked about a little bit too. Yeah, you've been indoctrinated into a system for such a long time, you know, then you've been in this in this lane for such a long time, maybe you been into aviation, if you went to foreign area officer, he became an intelligence officer or HR, but you're still on this like stovepipe, right of what the what that what that is, and you've been doing that for such a long time, and you're trying to expand there, and you're afraid to do that, because you need to pay a mortgage, because you need to get your kids to school, yeah, to, you know, do all this stuff. So you know, when you're doing that, that's a consistent fear that you have that I need to do something quickly, or we're not gonna be able to, to provide for my family. So maybe one day, I want to do that. But today, I gotta do this. So I can, I can get there. And that's, you know, sort of trying to be able to set yourself up, I think the strategy kind of helps with that. Because you you kind of list out the things that you've done in your past your career that you enjoy doing, you know, this is really the first time that you can do say, I love doing this, this, this and this, when I was in the Navy, I hated doing this, this, this and this, and the Navy, you know, and I don't want to do any of that. Now, you know, for me, I, you know, personally, I love being a department head and a squadron. I love mentoring, you know, junior officers, that was a fail. You know, I love that, that being a division officer and doing that stuff and love the opportunity to lead people, I do not want to do that. When I get when I move in. I don't want to lead a team of 100 people, I don't want to, you know, manage their career progression that comes in there. And but you know, and that's me and but there are people that want to do that they loved it so much that that's their most important thing they want to do. And when you push that those lists out, and you go, this is what I loved. Right? Now you can take that and present it to your advisors present that to your network and go, Hey, this is what I love. Yeah, what is this? What does this mean? You know, and for me, it became what what do you think about program management? Oh, okay. What do you think about business development? Okay, you like, Okay, so let's start pulling on that and going with that, and you start realizing that actually, you know what, I really want to do this business development thing. I love talking to people, I love engaging with them. I love building up relationships and find opportunities to do things together. I think that's where I want to be at. If you asked me that seven months ago, I just

popped in and said to you, Michael, right? It's like it, it doesn't have to be forever, right? There's no one way doors in this new world, right. And maybe you will continue to grow and mature in a role that maybe gonna open some other doors in the near future, you don't know what that is, right? But you got to take charge of it and manage it. Because you know, you're never detailed, you're not community, if you get on Mark, you don't have any of these things. So be okay

with the freedom that freedom is the mean, you've never you've never had it before. Be okay with what that freedom? Yo, yo, yo, Jen's common spot on be okay with going, you know, just just today I had I had coffee with with an old NATO colleague of mine works the State Department, and they're developing a brand new Defense Security Cooperation service that they're going to run out of DSCA in, in DC here, you know, it's gonna be a grassroots day, we're going to manage all security cooperation all over the world. And you know, I love doing that kind of work. And maybe I want to jump into that in five years or so. And that opportunity could be there to go in there. You know, just because I take a job offer today or tomorrow with this company, I didn't close the door to what I could do in five or 10. That world,

and you're giving yourself the freedom to stay connected. Right. And I love that right? Love that. Yeah, it's not can I go back and just address one thing you said, Are you, Scott, you mentioned as individuals are stepping into their transition or career progression. And, Michael, I'm interested in what you think about this to you'll remember, we talked about this at the cohort. But Scott, many individuals go you know, you know, I don't know what I'm worth, right. And we kind of enter into that conversation. And I lightheartedly engage in a conversation. I look at everybody in the in the room, and I go, Listen, here's a newsflash for you, you're worth a gajillion dollars a year, every single one of you in here are worth a mountain of money. I've seen the work and the dedication and the efforts that you do your worth that, but I reinforced to our members, that is not the question that you are searching for that you need to answer the question our members need answered are in the consideration of the companies that you are pursuing. What can this company compensate you for making this role and responsibility? Right, and filling this in this geographic area? That's the question that you need answered. And I'll stop there, Mike, but thoughts on that did that. Did I say that? Right. Did that resonate with you? Yeah.

100%. I mean, that that kind of goes into that fifth conversation that we continue to have. And, you know, I think one of the things that we talked about earlier on in the cohort, you're looking at these opportunities, you have these three pillars that you can you can look at, right? So you know, you gotta be able to stay in location. You want you to be able to make the money you want, you're gonna be able to be happy and do something that you want to do with your life. Right at If everything in a perfect world works out, you get all three of those things. But more than likely than not, you're probably going to get two of them. Right. And you know, if you want to, if you if you love Tucson, Arizona or you love, you know, Toledo, Ohio, well, you're not going to get either the job that you want, or you're not going to make the money that you want to make it. And

let me just interject real quick. But recognizing that, Scott, yeah, we call that a misaligned strategy, right. In other words, you had a strategy. And now all of a sudden, you're looking down at your market analysis, and you're going, I can't do this job that I wanted to do in this area, or I can't make this much money in an area like this. So you know, something is not aligned, right? Either your strategy has got to change, or what you're pursuing needs to change. But that's where the realization comes out, right, for our members. And they go, Okay, I got it. Right, when you pursue these opportunities. And Michael, you work through that, you You did that on another? Yeah, right. Yeah,

I, you know, for me, it was, you know, I've had, you know, some some great mentors and advisors over the course of the last few months that have tried to put things in, you know, I moved over to be a fail, and a very successful I'm, but I still have an aviator brain. So I need to, like, see pictures and get a mentality of things and how I look. Yeah, you know, and I guess kind of, like, kind of work through it. But, you know, they came back and said, you know, you know, if you're looking in defense industry, and you want to be in a big company, you're one of the primes, and you're looking at that you have to be okay, and understand that if you get hired as the business development guy, that's going to sell this cup to this country. That is your job. That's your job, when you show up on Monday, that's your job on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, for as long as we're in the company. If you go to a medium sized company, and you want as a BD guy to sell this cup on Tuesday, they're going to say, hey, also, you're going to help with the plan to buy the handle for this cup on Tuesday. And you're going to help us capture this this thing on Wednesday to come in here, find the right coffee for the cop on Thursday, you know, and you kind of get in there. And there's no wrong answer to what you want to do with that. It's just what do you want to do? Do you want to be the guy or girl that's in charge of this one thing? And this one program? Or do you want to be the guy or girl that goes in and goes, I want to soak up as much information as I can. And I want to be able to get my hands and everything in there. And you have to ask those questions to yourself. So you find out the right fit is in this place. And that's really what it comes down to, you're going to be happy going to work every day doing some good work that you can be with some great people that you've met in order to attack the problems.

Let's come back to our name Scott and Mike right you guys remember this blue water environment, right? I mean, and knowing that if you're on a ship in the middle of the ocean surrounded by water, Safe Harbor nears point a land lies in any direction you want to go. But each of those individual directions, unique logistics, unique distances, unique everything, and so to is everybody's individual career progression. Listen, we've been doing this for almost three years now. I have yet to see two career progressions that I go, Oh, yep, that's a repeat. This is exactly the same. They're never the same. They're we're talking people, you're talking personnel, mission, vision priorities, here's what I want to protect. Here's what I'm interested in. Here's where I want to do it. Right. Here's what I'm happy with, you know, compensation wise, they're all different. We haven't seen any of them the same. And that just comes back to the process, right? What may be a fit for you isn't going to be a fit for somebody else. And nor should it be right. They're all individual. Right? And, Scott, you've dabbled around with this enough. And you've kind of been to a few of our cohorts. You get that right. Everybody brings their own strategy on Hey, this is what I need to preserve in my, you know, career progression going forward. And that's the way it should be right. Anyway. Yeah.

Here's the kind of I think it's wrapping up an hour. It's a great quote to close this out. I don't know why this is from cat. My friend over there in Stuttgart, right? Oh, yeah, I didn't name there anyways. But, you know, she just listened to our passion. And I think, you know, forget to have passions when you're an active duty military, and that's fair and understandable. And it sounds a little, you know, hokey sometimes, but, you know, however you define it, it's, we've seen the miserable veteran, we don't want to be that guy, you know, and so, it doesn't matter. I trust me from a financial standpoint, if either your health or you know, just your unhappiness, those can go down some dark paths, and the money ain't gonna you know, don't don't make any kind of note now guys, that was that was an awesome conversation to sit in on appreciate sharing your tips. And for those watch me we've had about 10 or 11 people watching live this whole time. So thanks for Emery for showing up to you know, watch us kind of get this off the ground. And so Mike, thanks for joining us. Welcome back anytime you're sharing having more insights throughout the process. Thanks. And if anybody else wants to jump on with Dortmund I'd like to share some thoughts It's because if every single one is different, same thing I see in my space, everybody tries to tell everybody to do retirement planning the same way. And it's like, well, that doesn't make any sense. If, you know, if we don't want to use our money, you know, we're getting out of the military. Again, the idea is, it's time to stop following orders. Now that that was a bad thing. But at some point, you literally have to hit to start creating your own ones. And then that's okay. So,

AWS over here. Thanks for putting this together. Love these things. Right, Bert?

Yeah, this was awesome. Thank you very much.

One of the ways I was I was thinking about, you know, when we were talking about earlier, it's like kind of paying it back, you know, hey, I want to share some tips. Some of the best ways to share with those coming behind you is to keep building that network. You know, it's like, hey, go get better at it. You'll find better PT or whatever that means. Because there's always going to be you know, that remember that first day you shut up? It's like, network, what's that? I thought it was gonna be handed to me. So there's some other person in that same boat. And then like I titled the last show, if you don't know, you know, who didn't know that try to be the guy who knows the guy, so to speak, right? Yeah, it's like, alright, well, I'm just gonna know a bunch of people until I figure out what I want to do or who I want to be it at some point it just love it come useful in that regard. And, and so that's a lot of different ways to pay back but also

appreciate you. Thanks, God. This

is great. Thanks for the invite to this awesome doing it. Yeah, it's

awesome. And congratulations again to you. Well done, sir. Appreciate it. You bet. Thank you.

All right. All right. Close fun. Glad we were able to do it. We'll do it again next Tuesday. Love it. Take care all in the broadcast. You guys can hang out for a sec.