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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162: "Opportunities are not just going to present themselves to you like some kind of Hallmark movie." After the JAG Corps with Tom Welsh - Part 1 of 2

Jen Amos invites her guest co-host, Scott R. Tucker, for a two-part interview with After the JAG Corps podcast host, Tom Welsh. Tom opens by sharing his motivation to share success stories of judge advocates separating or retiring from the military. He credits Scott for his advice early on to "start talking because no one is listening." In ending part one of his interview, Tom hints at the importance of networking as part of your career progression strategy.

This episode is also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/u7XWcOrsnak

Connect with Tom Welsh and Subscribe to his podcast

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomwelsh5/
• https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tom-welsh/

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Scott R. Tucker 0:00

All right, you got to be done by 515. Or sorry,

Speaker 1 0:03

315. Just gotta run my kids. Yeah, soccer. So I mean, if there's something that we need to clean up on the back, and I can always come back, but if not, I'm going to the pool.

Jen Amos 0:14

No worries, no worries like wallet

Unknown Speaker 0:15

business in the front party in the back.

Jen Amos 0:18

There you go have it. Awesome. All right. All right. Well, I am incredibly excited to come back here for season seven of holding down the fort podcast by us bet wealth. I'm John Amos. And I'm here actually, with my husband, Scott, our Tucker, who's co hosting with me today. So Scott, welcome back to hold down the fort. Well, thank you for having me. Yes, and we are incredibly excited because someone already just let out a deep, deep exhale here. But this is actually I'm really excited to be speaking with Tom Welsh today. I've heard great things about him. He also is a fellow podcaster. So I didn't do any prep for this, because you're talking to fellow podcasters, like we just talked, so it's just going to be a very easy conversation. And so with that said, Tom, welcome to holding on for it's

Speaker 1 1:03

great to be here. The best advice I ever got was from Scott who said, start talking because nobody's listening. True.

Scott R. Tucker 1:13

Nobody cares. Until they until they do. And it's like, unless you try, you're never gonna find out.

Unknown Speaker 1:19

That's exactly right.

Jen Amos 1:20

Yeah, I mean, at the very least talking just helps you with your public speech or public speaking, I like to say that the best way to find your voice is use it. Because you know, like what Scott says here, like, no one's listening anyway. So you might as well use that opportunity to sharpen your craft and find your end, find your message.

Scott R. Tucker 1:39

In the rest, like any sport, or any talent that you're trying to improve, it's just a matter. And that's what, that's what we see struggle of coming out of the military. It's like, since there is no SOP of exactly what kind of steps or what to do, you got to figure out how to put in your own reps and whatever the task might be. And this is just one way to communicate and get the word out about yourself a little bit more.

Jen Amos 2:01

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, before we dive in to our exciting conversation today, I thought I'd open up with a fun icebreaker question. So the question of the day, Tom, is, what do your favorite shoes say about you? Oh, wow. I'm gonna ask Scott to because I feel like Scott would give a great answer for this. But go ahead and tell him

Speaker 1 2:22

my favorite shoe. You know what? Easy to slip on and easy to kick off. Because I'm lazy.

Jen Amos 2:31

Easy peasy. Like sandals.

Speaker 1 2:32

Yeah, I'm not at the sketcher stage, but we're almost there.

Jen Amos 2:36

Oh, my gosh, it's so far. Yeah. Yes, go ahead. Well,

Scott R. Tucker 2:40

I mean, there's I saw, I still got no joke. At my gym the other day, some guy walked in, just straight up steroid guy, just absolutely huge looking dude. And he had designer crocs on I mean, they were nice. I mean, he was in tight jeans, tight shirt, like he was, you know, gold chain and everything. But then his shoes. We had white shoes. When I looked closer. I was like, they were crocs. But there were those cool like, pointy ones. I never seen anything like it. But for me, not crocs. For me. It'd be just no shoes barefoot.

Jen Amos 3:16

Because yeah, I knew you were gonna say that.

Scott R. Tucker 3:19

Are there what do they say is like if you're walking around in shoes all day, you're basically walking on plastic or something, you know, the whole the whole world's plastic however, that quote goes here. And I was like, yeah,

Jen Amos 3:33

there you go. And also, I found out that if you at the end of the day, if you take off your shoes and like your your feet are relieved to be out of the shoes, it means that your shoes are probably bad for your feet, because they're like structured in a way to, like mess up the bone structure down there. And, you know, like for women and heels, for example, you end up getting bunions, because especially if you wear heels all the time. But anyway, that's a conversation for another time.

Unknown Speaker 3:55

With bunions, that's your next podcast.

Jen Amos 4:00

Yeah, let's talk about going to the chiropractor for a whole year to fix those. But yeah, that'd be a conversation for that podcast show. But Awesome. Well, Tom, I, you know, we've heard I've heard about you, I know that you are connected with Mike Wallace, who was recently a guest on our show here as well with holding down the fort. But I thought I'd ask you first and foremost, how do you and Scott know each other and more importantly, like how How did you even know of him? So let's start there.

Speaker 1 4:25

Yes, funny. You should ask him because I was thinking about this yesterday as Scott and Mike were talking about their connection. And I think Scott and I linked up via LinkedIn well before we connected through or with Mike and I don't remember I think Scott probably just reached out and I said sure. Okay, he looks trustworthy and linked up with him. So this was this was before the whole US vet wealth pitch or anything like so Scotland approached me as you know, as a as a business opportunity. I think I arrived at wanting to learn more from him just by seeing his stuff and, you know, experience and talking to other people. And that's how we ended up. Sort of aligning. And then Mike was just a wonderful addition.

Scott R. Tucker 5:16

Speaker 1 5:37

Yeah. I was in Garmisch, Germany, when we connected now I can almost I can almost see myself at my desk in the army housing there, where my computer was like, yeah, yeah, click Yeah, sure.

Jen Amos 5:50

So what made Scott trustworthy? I'm always curious about that, because it's like, it's good feedback for the messaging we put out there. If you can recall, I know this is like a couple years ago.

Speaker 1 5:59

Well, I think the first thing that that brings it is is his military connection. I can't remember. But the fact that probably I looked and saw that he was a West Point grad. And I know that just because you go to a service academy doesn't mean you're the you know, the best thing since sliced bread, but I had a kid at the military academy. At the time. I still haven't talked to him since then. But anyway, you know, there's a certain amount of credibility that comes just with that brand, if you will. And I think I just checked out his profiles like, Yeah, this is somebody I'm willing to connect with.

Jen Amos 6:34

There we go. Well done. Well done, Scott. Hey,

Scott R. Tucker 6:37

well, that I mean, that's sort of the I mean, yeah, having the West Point thing is handy. But I also, I remember, at the time, my LinkedIn profile, I remember I think my quote was I helped the one percenters serve our country become the 1% to influence it. And people kind of say, well, what does that mean, intriguing? I was like, I don't know. But it seems more motivating. Because we always hear this whole, you know, you served your country, you're part of the 1%. And then give me my handout. Where's all the things for free? Are there more, and it just, it's like when I you know, notice people that who were have potential to, you know, be the high performing senior leader that they were on the app mean, they were high performance senior leaders in the military? Why aren't we thinking about that, and post military life? And that's what's so cool about, you know, not just Mike Wallace, but Tom, doing the podcasts and also being a realtor on the side. It's like, yeah, these are the types of retirees I want to be connected with. Because it's not just, you know, get Hey, where'd I put my resume and get that next job and just wait for another 20 years, you know, there's probably a face for that time in life for most people who haven't had a chance to kind of jumpstart it like Tom did. So that's why it's like, Ooh, you know, this is really exciting.

Speaker 1 7:52

Yeah, I'd say, Scott, your quote, and I'm going through this, I just watched all three seasons. That's like a TED lasso quote. Here, the TED lasso of podcasting, man,

Scott R. Tucker 8:03

there we go. No, you're

Speaker 1 8:04

Jen Amos 9:22

Yeah, I'm curious for you, Tom, when did you have that realization? Did you have a close to your transition? Or maybe years before? Because I feel like, you know, when we do talk to transitioning service members, it's very, it feels very rushed, and last minute and so to have the mindset that you have, I think it's quite fascinating. So when did that come for you? Or when did you have that realization?

Speaker 1 9:44

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's amazing going from, you know, talk because no one's listening to now. Oh, my goodness, I gotta keep this momentum going. I got to make sure that I have, you know, an episode coming out every week or however however frequent you publish it, because you don't want that momentum to die.

Yeah. Tom, who you focus in? Tell us a little bit about your show. Like how are you in it? Who are you interviewing? Are you success stories? Are people going through trend? Jack's going through a transition or firm people at firms maybe hiring? Yeah. Tell us a bit more about who the audience is and who you serve? Yeah.

So most of the people I've talked to or people that have successfully made the transition to something else. I've talked to Scott, for example, I thought that was part of the well, that's use Scott. So you know, I talked to you, I've talked to you. I've talked to Mike Walsh. But these are things I think as we go through the career progression, the transition process, we need to think about so most of them have been focused on success stories, people that have jumped from point A to point B, because I really believe that we don't know what we don't know. And there's probably 1000s of Judge Africans who have moved on and are doing something successfully. And here's their story. I mean, if you take, if you take the DOD, the military lawyers, it's a pretty big law firm. And we have hundreds of people leave every year, which means there's 1000s in firms and companies in government that can share that success story. But yet we have no infrastructure, no networking, to bring those people together. So for me, it's, it's a platform to have those informational interviews that I was always afraid to do, and just put them out there for other people to say, Huh, I never thought of that. Or, Hey, that's a great idea. Or yeah, I knew that. Whatever the case may be, it's examples of Judge advocates who are successful in the afterlife. And you know, I've also talked to folks like, executive coaches or career coaches. So I tried to mix it up, but most of them have been people that have that have served and gone on, and it's mostly been retirees. But I've also talked to people who have left at a younger age, neither have affiliated with reserves or jumped out. And there's, there's different demographics for each I mean, somebody leaving the service at 30, or at 45, even have probably more opportunities are able to take a little bit more risk than someone such as myself that have served for 30 years and have a couple of kids at home. So that's where I've seen the value in the podcast.

Yeah, absolutely. I think being able to tell that success story, because I think when it comes to a career, military families transition, there's that big unknown in the civilian world. And there's that big fear of like, this is all I've known, this has been my life in the military, and to transition out, like, what could that look like? And I'm curious to know, Tom, if there's a common thread with all the people you've interviewed, who you deem as, like, successful, they had successful transition, what was a common thread you found for that to have made that successful transition?

I'd say most of its networking. You know, as I've interviewed people, they've had someone who has either understood what Judge advocates do, or were judged advocates themselves, and are willing to take that risk. I've learned, for example, that just like everybody else, we, we want people that look like us. And so that's the same with whether it's a corporation or a law firm, when they advertise a billet. They want somebody that graduated law school and has been in a basement of a law firm doing the same scope of work, whatever it may be for years, and we know Okay, now the next move is to come over here, and learning just how hard it is for us, as a military, even at the lawyers to break into the corporate world of the law firm world, because we don't look like civilian lawyers. We have not specialized most of us in one particular thing, but have jumped from thing to thing to thing. And as we come in and say, Yeah, we have a history of continuous learning. They want somebody they know they can put in that seat and will no transactions or contracts or negotiations from the very start. And they're somewhat hesitant to take a risk on it. So the networking drumbeat is something that has, as resounded very loudly.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's the reason why we're all talking today, because of the networking opportunity that at least we all found here on LinkedIn to be here.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny couple years in 19. In fact, Scott, some guy from a company reached out to me and said, hey, you know, I saw your profile, you know, would you be interested? And I said, Well, you know, I, it's gonna take me a year to get off active duty, forgot about it. And then someone I talked to yesterday, after we got off his saying, you know, hey, if you're thinking about this, look, this company, well, it's the same one, and they've got a job advertised. Now, I think I'm going to be up against the same issue with networking, but it's like, okay, I reached out to that guy who said, Yeah, I moved on. But these are the things that why it's important just to talk to people because you hear it again and again. And again. You don't know where that little ball is going to end up. And who's going to make that connection for you?

Yeah, I mean, the magic of LinkedIn. And this is what I was kind of screaming about back in 2019. When I was trying to encourage more people to be posting more often because Yeah, nobody's listening. But you're still showing up because the average CEO or or person you want to be connected with that, that person the influencer at a company or other any sort of organization only has about 1000 connections. pins on LinkedIn. And only about 1% of users on LinkedIn, do any sort of active posting and stuff. So if you're connected with that person and doing some sort of posting, you're trying to be useful, but just the fact that they're more likely just to see your name pop up more often than not, is is a way of networking. That's, that's just because in their network, you know, they, they might not know you or anything, but they're still gonna see the name and the headline, if you do those things, right? Hey, this is the modern world we're in. It's just, that's the new or it's part of the resume process one way or the other, whether you like it or not the highest paid people in any industry are those who are most well known. So, you know, we're not trying to become famous. But we got to compete in the, you know, in the in the game that we're actually in, versus I think what tends to happen, is people just getting out and saying, Alright, what do I do next? Oh, I have to put my face up on LinkedIn. Okay. And then they just stopped there. How is how have you used LinkedIn? For your podcast? How are those things working for you? And have you gotten anybody from your show that said, hey, you know, I've learned something and tied them together, I landed a job because of the way you connect to them.

I did have one person come back. I mean, there's been a couple, I think, but one, I'm thinking off Thomas eyeball who landed a job at T Mobile. You know, he sent me a message early in January and said, hey, you know, I applied some of the stuff that you that you put in, you told me and we were in a four block class together. So I had him on right away. But while the his story was fresh in his mind, and, and I've applied to T Mobile a couple of times, but I'd also interviewed someone else AT T Mobile, another former Jag. And so you know, I hear from people saying, Yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's been helpful, but I've also heard from people who, either they were a guest, and they've had a number of people reach out of them out to them from out of the blue, which is what we're trying to do, or people that have, have heard someone on the other end, and reached out to them to ask questions and brought them you know, their, their post military career a little bit more focused, because as you guys were saying, yesterday, trying to figure out what we want to do is a huge part of it. The dogs out

that's really funny.

The risk of podcasting right there. Yeah.

And, and the beauty of editors is they Yeah, you know, our editors really good and cutting stuff like that out. I do want to make a comment, Tom, about like how going through tap and your transition experience, you notice that? It wasn't necessarily designed for, for jag officers. And, and so I find it fascinating that you, you saw this opportunity to fill in this void by creating this podcast. Can you talk a little bit about that? And kind of your your sense, your like the calling to create your show?

Yeah. So like I said, I came up with this idea during a blue water advisors cohort, still put it off for six months. And I kept waiting or anticipating for someone else to steal the idea. It just seems simple. And so right in front of me, like, how come somebody hasn't done this yet. And so there was sort of a multifaceted perspective as I did this. One was, first of all, we think there's a magic time to do that, start doing the the informational interviews, we think there's going to be a light that's going to go on and says, Okay, now start talking to people. And when left to our own devices, we don't do that we keep putting it off, we keep finding excuses. So this was a forcing function for me to start holding those informational interviews. And again, knowing that others like me are not going to do it, to make them available to other folks. And to do that. And the other part of the perspective was is something Scott alluded to earlier was getting my name out there was getting my brand out there. And you know, I don't have any specialties I've kind of been a mutt as a as a judge advocate doing a little bit of everything. But now I'm known in in jag circles as sort of the podcast guy. Yeah. And so now I'm having you know, greater conversations and greater reach because my podcasts than I ever would if I was just going out and trying to apply for jobs and talk to people.

Did did you was part of that, you know, not getting started early. This kind of fear that I hear people say like, well, I'm still active duty. I can't put myself out there yet because of security clearance or my boss or, you know, all these all these. They're fake almost fake rules that we kind of think we have on active duty. Did that affect you at all? And what would you say to other retirees who are a few years out about getting to kind of start really putting again, just putting their name out there? Hi, cat.

Oh, I thought I heard a bell. But anyway,

that's witty. So Scotty wasn't so much that I felt that it was a service constraint, if you will, though, I did have the Navy jag Pio asked me that you clear this with anybody?

Well, yeah, so you're not a rule follower. So?

Well, good. Yeah. But I knew the rules, too. You know, like I did, for example, when I was designing, getting my designer art my, for my cover art, I reached out to the Office of Naval Research, which does patents and that kind of protection said, Hey, can I use the Navy JAG corps emblem, they're like, No, so I had to pay the guy another 10 bucks to change it. So I wanted to make sure i square with that. But, but to your point, you got to they, everyone needs to realize that. And you know, this is that. If you have if you drop dead tomorrow, have a stroke. If you get run over by a tank, if you're in an aviation mishap, you're going to be more than they're going to move on, they're going to bring somebody else in to do the job. And you really, really owe it to yourself to be doing what you need to do for the future, because no one else is going to do it for you.

Yeah,

I mean, you know, that's one of the things we hear often about, you know, why isn't the military retirement process or the trans transition assistance programs, you know, better? You know, why is everybody upset when we come out and thinking, hey, they didn't help prepare me better? Well, it's the military job that when our nation's wars, not get you a job. And at some point, we just got to stop following orders.

Yeah. And I really, I was really fortunate, in a sense that between the time I came up with this idea, and when I actually launched it, I moved from y'all office of the CNO. I was so I one of the into in six to National Defense University, where when I wasn't teaching, I had the bandwidth to put towards my podcast to put towards my career progression. All those things, my real estate business that, you know, last year, when the academic year came to an end, there was almost no connection with National Defense University until we had an off site right before the school year began. I mean, there was emails and there was teams meetings, but I was doing most of that from the comfort of my own home, when I wasn't walking the Camino, in Spain or a Boy Scout Boy Scout camp are doing half a dozen other things that we did last summer.

Yeah. I wanted to I wasn't sure if you had something want to say, Scott? No, go ahead. Sorry. Okay. All right. Cool. I, I wanted to comment on what you just said, where eventually you get to a point where you have to look out for yourself and your family, and you got to be in control of your future. Because it the point you made that stood out stood out to me is that as a service member, you are replaceable, you know, should anything happen to you will be replaced. And so yes, we can follow the rules and all those things, but to know that you are replaceable, I think it adds a different perspective here and really stresses the importance of, you know, thinking for yourself and to stop following orders. And I know for you, Tom, like, I know, You've known Scott for a couple of years now. And now you're officially one of our clients as from what I know. And so let's talk about I want to talk about like, in addition to goodness, your real estate business, your podcast show, and I'm sure all the other amazing things that you're doing. Tell us about what it's like or tell us about how I guess our company us that wealth and working with Scott has has supported, you know, your post military life.

So as I Looking ahead, the message that resounded with me with us vet wealth was you need to take ownership of it now and make these financial decisions, not as you're going out the door but beforehand and when I started really talking to Scott about this, I was trying for a soft landing in the sense that I was flirting or working with one company that if they offer me a job, my goal was to put in my papers and try to be able to service in six months and I had a lot of leave time that that I would be able to just do leave and start working right away, and it ended up not happening. But as I talked to Scott and realizing, hey, you know, this takes time to get through this, the insurance underwriting, it wasn't long, but it takes time, it's just not an automatic signature, you need to pre plan you need to execute ahead of time. So like all of this sort of happened earlier than I would have liked in a sense that if you're doing it from a straight financial aspect of six and a half percent of my monthly retainer, check, you know, the, the, the idea would be okay, I reached I tired December 1, and I start with us about well, for the following month, and I'm only writing whatever, you know, less than I'm writing for the the Thrift Savings Plan or not for saying, but the Survivor Benefit Plan. But it didn't do that. And I was like, Okay, I got to do this now. Because if the opportunity presents itself, this piece is in place. And I don't have to worry about that. And which is what I did, it's in place. I've already submitted the paperwork, for example, for all the financial aspects of retirement, you know, it was kind of funny, because now you have to digitally sign everything, I had to get a witness digitally signed that witness my digital signature, interesting. What then, then I have to print it out and give it to my spouse to go get notarized to make her election. All that's done. And now I'm just trying to finish up the fiscal part and the final paperwork part, and then do my out processing and in the US. So that back to your question that allowed me to, to look at the financial aspect to look at what happens if if I die, which we don't like to do. But, you know, I had a father in law, he spent 22 years in the Navy, develop cancer and died at 59. And he was a first class petty officer and he's six and watching my mother in law go through that experience of justice Scott talk about of one day, your, your husband is getting a full retirement check, and he's working, the next day you're on your own, and you've got to wait a few months until you get that 55% retainer, which, especially, you know, it's not easy to do, even if you have other resources. So the idea that if I step out here and get run over by a truck, you know, December 2, or whatever, that there's an a non taxable death benefit coming, that my wife would be able to then set up financial management, everything else to take care of herself for the next 3040 50 years, whatever the case may be. That's huge. That is really huge to say, Okay, I've got that part. Taking cap now there's more to it. And anybody who gets the book will understand that there's more to it because term life if you keep the same policy for years, it gets more expensive, but understanding that my financial needs now are not going to be the same thing and 25 years, which if you went for example, survive benefit plant you're committed to that. This gives you freedom to invest and to use the money and all those things. So to me, it's really about streams of income liquidity and contingency planning at this point.

I'm actually curious, did you ever run into anything around you know what happens when a service member passes away on active duty and how the spouses collect all the benefits and stuff back when that whole DIC the dependency indemnity compensation lawsuits were going on? I have no idea if that would ever come up in your wheelhouse but like we have a friend who's an admiral spouse and is over a year later is still not received in SBP payment because of a paperwork snafu and it's you know, the lawyers involved and all that kind of stuff and it's just you know, if we can take that opportunity to privatize you know, that's the message you know, if you can qualify if not, then you know, good we're glad we have the backup as the Bennett benefits of backup and in that regard,

yeah, no, I've never done I mean, the only thing I ever saw on active duty is when you had someone imminent death situations where they're trying to retire them on active duty and I can't remember all the ins and outs I mean, and I was I mean I was at out in the field and the net or navy personnel command when hey you know the enemy death and how they jumped to the and they did amazing work. It was really amazing watching, for example, the everybody seemed essentially stopping for E four e five to get everything done to take care of the family, but I never really had to deal with those aspects of because as you know, most most retirees are, there's no connection with them, and they don't really get the services of an active duty judge, Judge Advocate anymore.

Right, right. Now, I just curious, we don't get to talk to many law, lawyers and activity who might know that kind of stuff. But now, I wanted to ask you kind of on the on the privatization side, you know, thinking about the idea of just saving for retirement, and, you know, what are your thoughts? You know, now, how has it changed in the last few years, or what you thought your post military life was gonna look like, versus now that you've got a couple of, quote unquote, businesses, you know, it's, it's, it's a business one way or the other. And in what you could even do with your podcasts, like you could start doing consulting or, or host events, even, you know, you're the, if you're the JAG podcasting guy, you that can go so many different ways. So, just any thoughts on kind of what's changed for you? And in as in, what do I want? You know, what I always hear people say, What do I want to do when I grow up? Or I don't know what I want to do when I grew up? What have you. Yeah, so

yeah. So, you know, I used to think, when I was having a lot of fun, you know, whether it was living in Garmisch and skiing just about every day, you know, for PT, or, or being deployed somewhere thinking, hey, this, I can't imagine life being any better than this. I mean, I've got my family, we're traveling, and I've got a good paycheck, you know, and I kind of thought, you know, after I retire, you sort of already had your fun, and you're just waiting to die. But since then, I've realized that, man, there's a, there's a whole new world out there. And it is a chance to explore, somebody said, you know, how many how often you get a chance to redefine yourselves in a life. And here I am, I don't know, I still don't have a job lined up, I have an interview on Friday, when a government sign I have a couple other irons in the fire. And there's a little bit of nervousness, but it's also a tremendous amount of excitement of, you know, door number one, door number two, or door number three, and you have to keep plugging away. But I really think like, wow, you know, as the kids leave the nest, here, we're going to have the opportunity to go visit them or, you know, go, go, maybe my wife and I do something that we haven't done for a while. And the financial obligations, which we've taken on willingly of sending kids to school, and all those things, those are going to be gone. And you know, now it's like, here's a chance to keep working, making money. And not to for the sake of making money, but to do those things that we want to do. And and, you know, and talking to guys like Mike and others. There's a tendency, I think, for especially government lawyers, military lawyers to say, Well, I'm gonna go government, it's easy. They know what we've done. It's an easy transition. And, you know, you look at, for example, Gs 15, in DC, I think the top of the pay tables like 180 385,000. That's it, you know, if you were if you were fortunate to come in as a GS 15, step 10. Which you're not, that's, that's your ceiling right there with cost of living adjustments, whereas, you know, you talk to people who have made it to the outside, they're like, oh, yeah, you know, my bonus is 1520 20 25% of $200,000. And you realize, Okay, I've been doing this game, changing my whole career of switching from one job to another, there is some money to be made. And it's not a poor quality of life where you don't get days off. I mean, with COVID and remote working, you're hearing that a lot of these places are in Hybrid Hybrid situations anyway, that you're going to have the flexibility that you're seeking.

Yeah, could you even I mean, I heard that people during during like programmers during COVID, they were getting fully hired by two different companies. And the companies didn't even know it.

I just read an article about that some guy was an IT guy. He was working for three companies as and he still is he's pulling in $300,000 a year. He's paid off his mortgage and he's put money back for kids school and, and the article I think, was in a magazine entrepreneur, online. He was talking about how you got to be smart about it and how you need to never turn on your camera. Because and you need to block out you got to be religious with your Outlook calendar so that they can see private or something that they're not trying to schedule meetings. And he basically said having one or two trusted agents and basically saying that None of these jobs take up more than 33% of his business time.

Yeah, that's

crazy. I

mean, and that's, you know, my point with bringing that up is kind of like our, you know, we often misunderstand our value for what the salary is going to be. And I was going to ask, you know, do jags? Not? Not? Are they not aware of how much they could get paid? Because I mean, as activity officer, I was always thinking, yeah, if I make six figures in the real world, that's good enough. That seems like a lot. And I kind of just stopped there. Even when I got into finances, I was still so young, I just couldn't even fathom the idea of making a multi six figure income. And yet, that's almost required right now. And then you don't even need to spend as much time doing it. And you could pick up side gigs, or I'm not saying go out and get two jobs and lie to the other one. But, but the ability? I mean, what you did is you use your free time, and are I think, some people think, oh, no, I got a job eight hours a day, whatever it is, even if I'm working from home to not even think outside the box to go, don't worry about saving more money in your 401 ks and stuff, you're trying to develop a talent or skill set to go make more money. You're because then eventually you quit your job if you want, or that job is going to end anyways. Do you want to have something else on the side? Not for everybody. But that's what I was seeing you recognize an opportunity to see extra value? You know, where else? Could you see retirees doing something like that? Maybe?

Yeah, I guess part of it, Scott is I think a lot of jet, you know, depends on the situation. And if you're doing Comm, for example, I'm thinking of a guy right now who retired his Navy captain and went into government work, his wife is a lawyer on the outside has been her whole career makes pretty good bank. So between her his retirement, the kids are out of the house, that it allows him to stay around something he knew, and make some money and have something to do and you know, I'm sure they're doing fine with investments. Or, you know, you look at somebody else, for example, who, you know, maybe did litigation, and all they wanted to do was litigate. So I think it really comes down to individual situations for me. You know, my wife we chose, we decided that she was going to stay home, you know, she originally was going to work. And then we ended up having five kids. And then after about the second one, she said, you know, my primary job is to be a mother to these kids, I'm going to be home with them. And you need to go out and make the money. And we've been able to do that. It's it's worked for us. And I joke with her, you know, I want to be a kept man now, but she wants to be a woman. So, you know, that's that's sort of how we've lived our lives a decision we read. So it's incumbent upon me to find that next step that will allow her to continue doing that. And, you know, she wanted the she still likes the idea of job security that comes with working with the government. But she's also realized, you know, talking to a friend that's in the corporate world of there's money to be had out there. And his life is pretty good. And so, again, not not paint any of us as money hungry, but to be able to work to live instead of living to work.

Yeah. No, that's,

that's what I would say is like, you've searched for it, you've earned it, like you're collecting the pension, and hey, and oh, six pensions pretty good. But unfortunately, it's not. It's not what you probably thought when you committed to a career in the military, like, Oh, I'll retire around 50. You know, I did the math. And that seems like it'd be enough. Well, that was probably 1020 years ago, when the dollar was worth more. So you know, seeing an opportunity to make more money is almost, you know, required, or it's like, why not? Take advantage of the opportunity, if it's going to be there to earn more money. And if, you know, let's not forget about it, and especially as a Jag, so many people are coming out of the military and your skill set skill set is leadership. Well, how do you translate that and quantify that? Yeah. But you know, as a Jag or a doctor, you've got a unique opportunity to least at least have a label on it that translate infantry officer doesn't translate as well. So, you know, you get what you earned? I say, absolutely.

You know, and one of the things that was helpful was couple years ago, a colleague I worked with, introduced me to this military to civilian calculator on dinkytown.net. Where you go in and you enter your annual pay your allowances, what state you live in, whether you pay state tax, and then you go over and you figure out okay, here's where I'm going to live here. As the number of dependents I'm going to have, whether I'm taking survivor benefit all that, and it tells you, this is the amount you must earn to accommodate the taxation that you're going to have, for example, on your pension on your job, and I think, I think for like an O six, with 30 years, if pay and allowances came out to like 170 180,000, the equivalent was like 240. Yeah. Because, you know, I'm going from West Virginia, where there isn't, I am not taxed on my active duty pay that most likely, at least for a couple of years, gonna be residing in Virginia, which does tax military retirement, which does tax, you know, whatever job that I have. And all by the way, you're going to be paying personal property taxes on your cars now, and all those things that you were able to, to get away with under the servicemembers Civil Protection Act, you can anymore, you're exposed. And so and it also is a motivator of, Hey, what is out there, what's down in Florida, what's in South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, all those states that don't tax military retirement to say, what is the best financial situation for me, as I get ready to go out the door? Absolutely.

Yeah, I want to make sure that we wrap up in a timely manner, I know you gotta get going soon. Tom, I do want to ask you, it sounds like you and your wife are very in sync in regards to the roles you want to play in the family. And, you know, you you, because you are a client of ours. One thing I want to one thing I want to ask about is, you know, we we are constantly trying to find ways to articulate this solution to let's say, a military spouse. And we, we tend to struggle with that. And so I'm curious, in your experience, and work and speaking with your wife about these financial decisions, like how did that conversation go when you said, you know, we're going to privatize the pension?

Well, again, she had gone through the experience with her mother of seeing the delay between death. And all that getting settled. And knowing that it Scott and I've talked about this about the inability to plan or to invest in cars, unless you have a, a war chest or contingency chest already to get you through that period, you're going to be scrimping and saving, and probably not paying some discretionary bills or not paying them in full till you get that 55% kicked in. And you know, my mother in law had to go back to work and all these things. And, you know, my wife has skills as an editor, but truth be told, it's not gonna be enough to probably provide full time. So if, if I buy the farm, you know, I want her to be able to go visit grandkids. And so the, the conversation was much, much easier than I anticipated, because I was like, you know, part of me was like, almost Open, she would say, No, I want to security and be like, Okay, well, thanks, God, I tried but but she, she completely got it. And and I've talked to other people, flag officers, General Officers I stood with, you know, and they said, Look, we we did same thing, we didn't have kids at home. But we did a policy, we did investments, we did this for that, because as as Scott points out six and a half percent to get 55% of your retainer. The only way you make out is if you die shortly after retiring, and I really don't want to do that yet. Yeah.

Yeah, we don't want we don't want that to be the only outcome and the only, quote unquote, positive outcome for you. And it's just great to hear that, you know, choosing to work with us, you're able to increase your positive outcomes, which is something we like to say a lot in our company,

ya know, I'm totally at ease with my decision. And, you know, I'm just just looking for other opportunities. I'm excited to, to finally start doing whatever I'm going to do next. I've kind of, you know, even within the EU, it's, it's stuff that I've done, you know, for a few years to ethics and stuff. I'm ready to do something completely different, which is one of the reasons I've been looking on the outside to see what's out there.

Yeah, I mean, from jag to realtor slash podcaster. I mean, what's next for you?

I don't know. But you know, it's funny. There's an admiral I work with and unfortunately, she's going through some cancer issues, but she posted today on on LinkedIn, she would she gets she likes to be an extra and movies and she was in a man called Otto with Tom Hanks. And so, so it's like, yeah, so you know what, maybe I can go be there you go. Thanks for selling.

Tom Walsh and Tom Hanks. Thanks. There you go. Well, Scott, any final thoughts before we you want to share with Tom, before we wrap up here?

No, I just just really, you know, honored to have gotten to know you, Tom, and just really appreciate you, you know, as I was exploring, you know, my start my small business a little bit, yeah, might have been a couple years ahead a little in launching the ideas of doing podcasts and YouTube writing books and stuff, but you're one of two people, and the only one who's actually really ran with it, and started your kind of own thing outside of the whole finance world or military. You know, I'm gonna get you a job, but just like, hey, I'm networking, we're all trying to network, something's missing and filling a gap. And at the same time, let's see what happens. And just putting yourself out there. So just really cool to watch. I'm glad it's worked out so well. And I'm sure there's so many other people who have benefited benefited from your show, and haven't reached out you haven't let you know, because it all just happens. You know, in the ether, you don't even recognize it. It's like where did I hear that thing and, and that's just if you don't put it out there and never would have happened. So thank you for doing it. Man.

Let me wrap up with this. The best thing about our relationship is it was never defined by becoming a client. And you were very upfront about that as hey, look, go with me, don't go with me go this option, Don't go this option. But at least look at it, at least consider it and make an informed decision, which we all say we want to do. But somehow with the internet, we've all gotten more ignorant. But, you know, my relationship with Scott Tucker has not been defined by insurance or US vet wealth. It has been a vet to vet connection and what you see what you get the authenticity and the genuine eye, the authenticity, it's leave that echo, edit the rest of that out there, just like you meet with the majority of military veterans.

Yeah, that's I just saw so many gaps in people just saying I don't know what I do after the military. It's like, you know, there's so many resources, how do we not know it's a well everybody's situation is unique and different. And so niching down or finding that your niche area of interest is what's gonna help so whatever it might be, whether it's coming out, you know, as a Jags, you want to talk to other Jags or you're trying to get into a completely new industry. You're gonna go find those people, but if it doesn't exist, then you got nobody to talk to. So you created something totally new. That's gonna just continue to help out many Jags and the other ones and so for what little part I had and helping that show gets started. I'm hoping that those Jags keep me in mind if I ever need them.

We need lawyers. Awesome. Tom Walsh, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate having you on here on hold down the fort.

Oh, this was a blast. Thanks for having me. Wonderful. Okay, and then hang on

one. One second. We just end this