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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191: Scott R. Tucker and Mike Wallace Share How to Reframe Your Mindset for Success after Military Service

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1cAHgb-YDSA

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 share findings from a recent networking event.

They discuss how networking is important for career development and transitioning out of the military. With BWA, Mike aims to help with the transition process through individual coaching, networking opportunities, and data-driven career insights and resources. They discuss how reframing one's mindset from following orders to seeking better job opportunities is important for a successful transition to civilian life. Lastly, they emphasize why military retirees should maintain networks after landing new jobs.

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• Mentioned events and updates may be outdated.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

Alright, looks like we are live on LinkedIn, and the YouTube earthly view of the internet. But welcome back. Hi, I'm Scott Tucker here with Captain retired Mike norm Wallace. Welcome back from the land of the pilots, or the naval aviator aviators, from what I've heard, says an army guy. I like hearing about all the cool things that other services do in their, in their networking space, you know that the even in the military, we all have our own unique niches, whether it's having gone to an academy, or special forces, or pilots or whatever it's like if you could tap into a subset of your community, and not just be yet another veteran. Like, that's kind of the point. So look forward to hearing a little bit about how the event went any new insights, you gleaned any surprises, it

Speaker 1 0:54

was a really good gathering at the tailhook convention right there in Reno and went out. Last Wednesday, we had good days all throughout the week, Thursday, Friday, Saturday morning as well, until we started to kind of break down but it goes through Saturday. And most people kind of, you know, hit their return travel Sunday morning, usually, but

Scott R. Tucker 1:19

it was it was a big event. That's

Speaker 1 1:23

and and from what I understand, talking to attendance, right, you know, the orchestrators of the event, they said they had some record attendance, you know, on the Navy's part. So it was really good. And a lot of industry out there as well, you and I talked briefly about that, right. And some of the government contractors, defense industry agencies that are out there and other support services, right, a little bit in the financial sector out there, we saw a number of companies that were sticking their toe, you know, in that pool out there to kind of bring some insight and everything. So maybe we figure out a way to get us to that wealth out there next year. Right, as, as we kind of head that direction, it was a little bit of a different engagement strategy. Our Blue Water career progression consultants, Steve Lehman, he went out with me, and you probably remember, prior year engagement, right? Yeah, if you've been to these events, but we had a table, you know, you haven't yet kind of handouts and everything, and you just wait for people to kind of sit passive engagement, if you choose to do it that way, with will to kind of seek you out. And then you know, we had a breakout room once a day where you know, people come and, you know, kind of hear our thoughts on career progression. And, you know, that's been that worked. Okay, I should say, you know, for the first two years, but we didn't do that this year. 10. Scott, we, we pretty much took the passive out of it and went active, if you will, you know, we were absolutely engaging individuals, you know, one on one, so it was a long days for us out there. And, you know, the feedback that we got is, you know, there's not a large portion of the audience that comes to that event, you know, talk about what's next in their life. But what we found is, they may not be excited to have that conversation overtly. But you know, they very much want to have that conversation, one on one, right. And, and so we kind of met them on their terms. And we had tons of those engagements with leadership, as well out there to several flag officers, we had a chance to engage men who were curious about our efforts. Now that we're, you know, approaching the end of year three, in this pursuit of ours, our brand is pretty well known, right? People understand what it is we're trying to build and how we're trying to disrupt this career progression of this transition space out there and build something better, more effective, more efficient, right? For naval aviation, or really leadership of all backgrounds, right? It's applicable, it's agnostic to your you know, how you serve, right, if you want to pitch into the message and, and the network and the key insights and the corporate partners that we have and go forward. It's here for everybody. Right? We're excited.

Scott R. Tucker 4:02

I think the way you did it this way is more from a research standpoint, hey, like, Hey, let me just go talk to people and learn, hey, what they're looking for, oh, they're not looking for this right now. But they are there, they know they should be. So if anything, you're kind of sparking that fire for them. And a lot of times, it's going to take someone two to three years to have their own and, you know, internal decisions about, you know, what do I want to do next before they kind of remember Oh, yeah, I need to go talk to this guy. So it was your goal to just in general, kind of spread the word a little bit more about about what you're offering is obviously in kind of get that feedback, like, like we just discussed, or are you trying to actively, you know, build out that network and engage with people, like directly are people saying, hey, follow up with me. You know, when we get back home on Thursday, give me a call like if you were coaching someone who was going there as an individual next year. and what are their expectations on networking and follow up and active duty career versus post military career? Yeah,

Speaker 1 5:07

you know, the message for us is pretty consistent on how to approach events such as this, which is really not completely different, you know, than if you were to go into any other major, you know, networking or job fair type kind of thing. There are a lot of industry leaders, there's Heydo, many companies that are out there, and that's probably not the primary reason, right that people, you know, pursue tailcoat good, it really is a community opportunity to come together to get updates on the community to get the latest state of the landscape, right, you know, how our leadership and you know, is engaged in various different ers, et cetera. And those updates are absolutely fantastic. But a very strong, you know, secondary benefit, if you will, is you do get a chance to meet all of those individuals that you may have known from years past and how they're plugged in with various different defense industries, or government contracting companies, etc. And so to answer your first question you like, you know, what's the approach like out there? What were we looking to get out of it? Lots of one on one discussions, you know, we're not really out there trying to reel people in hard, but we just expose them to what it is we're doing. And if they are curious and desire follow on engagements, we let them know how to reach out to us.

Scott R. Tucker 6:26

Let me ask you this real quick. Are they even aware that a service like that is available or even needed? I guess that's the first thing for my problem for what I saw. Most people don't even know until you know, way later in their career, you catching them? Where they're like, oh, yeah, I hadn't thought about that yet.

Speaker 1 6:43

I was surprised more so this year than even last year, the majority of the people that we spoke with, were absolutely aware of our brand and what it is we're trying to know. All right. In fact, I didn't speak with one flag officer that wasn't aware of what we were trying to do. Right. They all were fully aware. They've all heard of our engagement strategy. They've all heard what we're trying to do. But there were some of them that were trying to understand it. Right. I mean, how are you doing this? And, you know, what does the future look like? And, you know, you're trying to get at it to that aspect. But much more than even last year, almost everybody we spoke with was aware of what we're trying to do. Right? Which that's exciting. So that tells us that our brand is getting out there. And Scott, right. I mean, people are aware of us. And and again, you know, just to reassure everybody out there, we're not a threat to retention, there is absolutely no benefit for us to entice anybody, you know, to get out before the right time. I mean, we all wore the uniform you did as well. That is the furthest thing from what we do. Right? We do not try to entice people. In fact, we have individuals that reach out to us and say, Hey, Mike, when I have a conversation with you, should I get out or not? Not going to have that conversation with you? Yeah, absolutely. Not in my swim lane, you know, just not gonna go there. That's a decision between, you know, their family, their service family, right. And in this case, their navy family and leadership. And when that time is right, then blue water is the trusted source, right? We were you we were successful in uniform, we made the transition to various different industries, we have the network for you, because we know you don't have time to build it. And that's the whole reason that, you know, we're inspired to build what it is we're doing it

Scott R. Tucker 8:32

I just got an idea for you know, you know, me, I'm always thinking of new ideas to maybe Hey, how do we explain or pitch the service or value of the service for lack of a better term of, you know, it's like, Hey, where's blue water, going to add the most value? Obviously, in the one on one with the individual coaching? Of course, you know, what you offer there? I mean, I was just talking to Mike Nunes, yada, might find his name. Right. Right. Okay. And he was just like, hey, for the money we spent and what I got out of that I've never seen any I was totally blew me away the amount of value I got from blue water. But, you know, as you're talking to flag officers, he started talking about things about retention, and when do I get out of the military? And then concerns there? From my perspective, Scott Tucker's perspective, you know, having just talking to many retirees year after year for the last 15 years, yeah, I'm talking more on the life insurance side of things. But obviously, I'm here at all the other concerns that are coming up during the retirement window, and it's just I call it decision stress. All right, Larry, is he right? He's listening right now. So I call it at this decision. It's just, I mean, imagine, yes, we're leaders in the military. But you were following orders and SOPs, and now we have to make our own decisions. And yet another thing that we have to figure out just like how do I get a Job is now my job. And so whether it's the individuals seeking out, you know, any of these, you know, Hiring Our Heroes services or whatever it is you're or individual, more individualized, customized coaching kind of what you offer, wouldn't an organization benefit from letting their members know regardless, if they're three months out from military retirement three years out, 10 years out, it's common anyways, why not allow your organization this is hidden to you flag officers to know that hey, you know, Lau Mike to come into your organization, you do some sort of government contracting, that's the cool thing about being a veteran owned business, and allow your leaders to know that there's going to be a resource to stay focused on the the job at hand and military duty. Of course, you know, we know what we signed up for when we're in uniform, we get it, but it's always going to be coming. And so if we're stressed out about it stressed out at home, and we don't stumble into Mike Wallace, until we've already been frustrated, taps wasn't good enough for me now I'm gonna go search it out. Yeah. Like, let's allow those things to kind of, you know, anyways, that's kind of my motivation behind all of

this. Absolutely. And, Scott, you're a big part of that, right. And you and I have been kind of, you know, latched up at the hip there, you know, with us about wealth and your efforts. And I love kind of the partnership that we put together so that we can bring those resources to bear. But I just want to say one thing about what you just said, it's, it's even more than that, in fact, the conversations I had with leadership is not only are we not a threat to retention, but just a riff off of what you threw out there. Right? It's more than that. Imagine a senior leader because, you know, as their workforce progresses in seniority, and through time, you know, there is some concern, hey, eventually, I'm going to have to get a job. Oh, my gosh, what is that, like? And where are we gonna go? And is there going to be a job for me? I don't know. And we live that, right? You know, our career progression consultants, the women, you know, all these guys have lived this same feeling. And imagine if leadership would just take us at face value. Let me partner with blue water. And I could literally go to leadership and imagine the power of an analytical dashboard such that leadership could say, Listen, workforce, stay engaged, stay, Navy stay, Army stay Marine Corps stay, or like, whatever it happens to be base for us. Don't forget to Yes, base force, you know, and don't worry about what's next. Because let me tell you what I've got, I'm building a pipeline for your exit strategy, I have a network for you to plug into. And analytically over the last three years, here's 450 points of contact, here's the breakdown on O fives. Here's the breakdown of the sixes. Here's the breakdown. I know sevens. Historically, these individuals are finding, right, you know, X percentage are going to this industry X percentage or this industry, this is how long it takes them to navigate that career progression or that transition space. In other words, don't just make it a squishy discussion where hey, I think you're going to be okay, you'll figure it out. No, no, put data to it, tell them reassure them that when the time is right, you truly have their back. And analytically, this is what your path is likely to look like, right? I mean, we deal in statistics, right? Hey, if 350 people in front of you, that look just like you and your background, it looks like this. That's what you want to pursue. Well, guess what we not only have good data to share with you on what your timeline is going to look like. But I can also tell you what you can expect compensation wise, I can also tell you how long it's going to take you. I also have a network ready for you to plug into, right. It's just ready made. And we're so excited about this. And so just to kind of take your point, you know, to the next degree, right, it should be you know, more than just another service. This was a service. And when we first started this, we built this, it's grown beyond just Navy, you know, lines, but you know, we built this for our leadership, and we just said, Hey, gone are the days we don't have to be, you know, the recipient of underperforming, you know, legacy, and, you know, institutionalized programs that that continue to under service, right? We don't have to live in that world. And so we're building something different and better. And it's still full of analytics, keen insights, it's a network, we've got land reports, we've got compensation. We've got all of this, we're just removing the fog of war, right? There's no fog here, come here, walk out of the darkness into the light and understand exactly right, the field that you're stepping into. And that's what we want to bring to the table.

Right? We do it on the military battlefield.

You do it on the road, right. You know, it's the same thing. I mean, people don't know what SBP is. They don't really understand it. It's a program it's legacy and institutionalized. So let's face it, it's been failing many individuals for a long period of time, it may be a good fit for some, but it's not for everybody. And, you know, those kinds of conversations, right? And your approach and your analytical approach and discussion to that just removes the confusion, man, it's just math and your point is valid. I know you and I have chatted about this, you know, as much as what I think, you know, the mathematical approach helps remove the emotion out of it. But at the end of the day, you're right, it is still an emotional decision, right and a discussion to have. But the point I'm trying to make is your approach and removing the confusion and just breaking it down into ones and zeros and just say, if this is you, then we think this is a better answer. And that in and of itself, I think helps reduce the stress of it. Because you and that's manageable, you make it understand,

well, that's, that's all either you and I are doing or anybody that's, that's accurate in some sort of consultant role. It's like we have this experience and this knowledge that we stumbled into and discovered in some way, we kind of packaged it together, and we think it can help you make decisions easier. But that actually leads us into the next thing I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on. Because while whether it's your program, my program, or some origins going through the military stay our program I like yeah, right now, there you go. Yeah, the whole idea there, but but he or you're just going through the standard checkboxes of military retirement, you know, my approach, you know, one of my mottos is, hey, it's time to stop following orders, not in like a mean way, just like, literally, you're leaving the military, we don't have to follow any sort of government program anymore. And on the financial side, it means you don't have to tie into the benefit system, if you don't want to, or if it's too costly for you. But that also means, you know, when when everybody got all excited, everyone Google came out with a whole translate your MOS into a post military job. And then all US army guys are saying, like, we don't want to do army job in the civilian world. And maybe you pilots are different. But it was like, No, I don't know what I want to do. When I grew up, what is there to do, and I read this new book by Scott Adams, he's the founder, the Dilbert comic creator guy. And he's also a big like, kind of heavy influence, persuasion type guy. And so he's got a bunch of books out there about success. Anyway, so I was reading this chapter. And I was like, Well, this is exactly kind of what we talk about. And his whole point is to kind of reframe your mindset, on expectations of all sorts of various things. And that's what that's what this particular books about. But you know, I'm thinking about from a, you know, you're getting out of the military, you used to fall in orders, your pay scales, your pay scale, like you can do better than the next guy. But you know, you only get whatever rating you can get, the guy can only have so many top locks, like we know what system we're in. But that's not the system on the outside, we kind of think it is and we understand how we're going to, you know, if we get brought in as a vice president, maybe after a few years, I get some stock of it, you know, there's there's growth, we're so used to that, that one frame of how we get promoted. And his frame in the way we're to do that is to, as he says, Here, your job is what your boss tells you. It is. So therefore, your job is to do a set of tasks for the employer in return for money. And essentially, you're trying to do the best job you can, and you've got an agreement what that money is, and his reframe is no, your job is to get a better job. Yeah, like from day one. Yeah, and you've hit on the a little bit from a kind of a networking standpoint, because we never know that you know, what's gonna happen. And he has a couple of data points here, I highlighted that, obviously, the employer would drop you in a second if it was better for the business. So kind of keeping that stuff in mind, or it will work

environment. Yeah. But at the See, you probably remember me saying this got it just kind of, you know, Iolanda that, I think for some, it hits them upfront, and they realize that some it's a little bit of a surprise, and we say it out loud several times, we look at our members and we go listen, you have no detailer, you have no placement officer, you don't have a community manager, you don't have a monitor, or what was it in the army? Did you guys have assignments, officers or whatever? route your orders? Yeah, somebody. So the bottom line is, is you don't have that the day that you step out. And so if you think about it, you're working to get your next job, or you're going to do some level of performance to qualify you for the next step. Right? People were managing that for you, right in your military into your uniformed career, right. And the fact of the matter is, when you step into this new life, you don't have that anymore. So 100% of all of that, right falls on you. Right? And I think we and many of our members often feel a little bit disloyal. When we have this conversation. When I say hey, I want you to step in there. Don't necessarily focus on just doing the Gob but focus on bringing value Write via invaluable to an organization not only means doing your job well delivering those results, but a little bit more than that right? But never stopped networking never stopped looking for that next adventure that you're interested in. And it doesn't have to be a disloyal conversation. Maybe you love the company you're with so much, and you want your boss's job, or you want an elevated position, right? You want to figure out a way to kind of move up, you love the culture, you love the environment, you love everything about the company. That doesn't mean you want to stay at this level forever. Yeah, and you shouldn't feel bad about having those aspirations, here's something that's very, very popular in the tech community, you know, maybe you need to go to another company to get that experience before you bounce back at a higher level inside the company. That's incredibly, incredibly common. You know, I see that a lot when I was at Amazon, and I would, you know, hire people from Microsoft, and then they would go back to Microsoft, and then they would come back to us and just, it's just this melting pot, and people go where there's a need, right for that level of contribution. And then they get the experience you with me? Yeah. And everybody wins in that regard. Right, we shouldn't feel bad about it.

Yeah. And that's what I like about this reframe approach that he explains here is, is that you're putting yourself more as the as the value add in. And so the frame is, you know, I'm coming to you, if I'm coming in every day to do the best thing I can to either get promoted out of my job, or I'm attracted to another job, that's a better fit, like now it's the employers responsibility to value you or to to be yours to you in a way that fills you up to be paying you what you were, you're putting yourself in again, you're an employer. So because from my perspective, when you're getting out of the military, you know, as a kind of, I'm always our war chest strategy is about the idea that, hey, you're going to be self employed at some point. That's the idea of retirement. So if we can, you redefine what self employment is, that's, that's just increasing your streams of income. So if you only have one employer, well, then there's the risk. But if you you control that environment, then you fire them, they don't fire you, right, and the fact that you already have that first source of income of a military retirement pension plus maybe some VA disability. Now the idea is to stack, stack other sources of income, maybe it's just one employer because you find a good fit, but to allow you to have the curiosity of exploring those other so think about as sources of income, maybe you can have multiple employers in a way that oh, now you're, you're a consultant to you've, you've tapped you mean, you? That's a you did right, Mike? I mean, you were you were with the employer, Amazon for a while then more or less self employed consultant. I mean, same thing

very unplanned, right. I mean, if I'm honest with you, I had no intentions of going down that road. It was, you know, when I left Amazon, out of Seattle, and came back to the East Coast, there was no shortage of companies that wanted to reach out and just say, hey, we'd love to hear kind of what you did there. We'd love to hear your thoughts on process process improvement. And how did you guys approach this? And how did you guys grow and scale and you grew a team from 15 people to 1000s, by the time you left? And what did that look and feel like? And you know, there's there's a lot of interest, right? So the brand when you leave a company like that, right? Especially a really, really good term solid terms. And, you know, there's, there's no shortage of people that are curious about this. But you know, this, this is, you know, for our members, right? It goes all the way back to the very beginning. It's the first thing that we talked to him about, it's like, you've got to have a strategy, right? You got to sit down, and you got to give a little bit of thought about where you're at today. What are the big rocks, you want to kind of preserve, right? What are the things are, are not negotiable in your life, man, I want to do these things. I want to preserve some quality time with family and I'm absolutely not leaving this area. And so those are the big rocks now does my strategy and what I'm pursuing align and support that right. So you really got to back it up a little bit as you do it. But I love this blurb and the page that you're putting up there. You know, it really does it's you got to think about it a little bit differently. Right. And again, I love what you're doing and what Bluewater does the network we've put together we help individuals get the mindset around this right we help them be aware of these kinds of things and you already hit the nail on the head and at will work environment is an at will work environment. You know, if you're working for a meta, do you think for a second if they need to let 11,000 People go, which they did that they're not going to lose any sleep over that. In fact, at our lunch roundtable, we had John Atomists, a retired admiral who now worked for meta when somebody asked him a question. They said, Hey, what does that look like and execution? And you already know the answer to this is It's a Wednesday afternoon, and you show up to work and you get an email that says, hey, we just wanted to let you know that we're downsizing, you're caught up in this thing. And you can turn your badge and your laptop in over here. And thanks for coming. And by the end of that day, you're caught up in the downsides of event. And thank you, right? I mean, it's literally in a lot of cases. Is that quick? Yeah. And all of a sudden, your first indicator recently, you go on and start checking folders and shared drives and other information and you go, Hey, how come I can't access this anymore? How come I can't get into these things anymore? Okay, yeah. Right. They're cutting your access off. And then they're informing you that this is how this goes down. And this is real, right? And we're seeing a lot of this. Did you see the announcement that came out was while we were at tailhook North American headquarters a steel right over here in Virginia Beach, I saw an article they just released 30% reduction in their workforce here, starting effective immediately. And I've been able to kind of reach out over there to see how that's gonna affect a lot of people over there. But that's legit, right? A lot of these companies are right sizing right now.

So yeah, and it's like, we don't mean to be doom and gloom. We're just

there's no opportunity. It absolutely well, yeah, out there.

I'm trying to empower like, as someone who like because I've, I've never worked for a corporation, I was always self employed. So I can bring it I'm not encouraging it, because it's

not for the faint of heart. Right. But,

but I recognize that there's ways to basically this is about a lifestyle design, when it comes to you know, you're not always looking for another job, you don't have to, you know, shirk your existing employer, you know, thinking that, Oh, I'm on LinkedIn now trying to, it's not about that. It's more just about, hey, how do I stay useful to a given network and try to find other ways to add value, one of the easiest ways to do that is just as your networking share useful resources that might come up, you know, Mike, and I might be one of them. But you know, just be the guy who kind of knows the other guys or knows who didn't know, but also from a business perspective, helping the people that could hire you down the road, who are no, help them out. And I tried to figure out what's going to help make their job easier. And that way, it's just kind of, you know, naturally show up for two events periodically, like a tail hook, whether it's locally or traveling somewhere, just to kind of, you know, keep mixing it up a little bit versus just waking up, hey, you got that great job. But now, it's been five years later, and you've kind of been doing the same thing every day for five years, like, oh, you know, I only know the people I work in my cubicle with or whatever. So we just want to avoid that virus. That's all we're talking about. Because that way, if the worst case thing does happen, you know, a layoff, you're already got irons in the fire, so to speak. But, yeah,

you never stop networking, right, ever. And we really try to pound that into our members, you know, hard when they land, one of the first things we send them is our content, right? Landed what now and the what now part is update your resume right now, let your network know that you've landed, let them know where you're at, stay plugged in with your network, because it's not just you absorb information from your network. If you're doing it, right, you're paying into your network. So it'll be you know, ready for your next adventure whenever that happens. And if it comes no notice, and you know, if you haven't plugged into your network in two years, you thought it was hard to get it going the first time. You know, try breathing life back into it after not touching it for two years. And the other thing we tell our members is a this is our network, we're happy to bring you into the blue water network and plug you into the people who are going to help you turn your vision into reality. But you need to be respectful of the network, right. And we've had some individuals fairly recently that aren't making it a priority that are being bad networking, you know, participants and when I say that they're ready to have conversations, we connect them. And then they go dark for two weeks when it's good for them to come up and have a conversation that's not being productive in the network. And that's harming the Bluewater network for those that are following us. So, you know, we'll give you the benefit of the doubt once or twice. But if that continues, right, we're going to have some conversations because and that work is a perishable skill. Right? It's it's a perishable resource, if you will,

when and I think it's great to do those landing reports here on the show, like we did with Mike, you know, so for our listeners out there, if you're ready to come to your landing or board, your share your experience at any insights you have that it's unique to your experience, hiring and how you're considering is still networking. While you're out there. We'd love to, you know, share those stories and insights as well. And we just kind of keep this conversation going and making this a hub for that network. And if we can expand it out into maybe a Well, I think I think what would be valuable for this extended audience is to host a virtual networking event that Add, you know, everybody gets it, you know, a two minute blurb here's who I am what I'm trying to do you know what my timeline is? Yeah, maybe we have a featured employer or experts, Speaker site type of thing I've been in versions of that video, just zoom calls, you know, everybody's doing a version of that, anyways, it doesn't hurt to have yet another one, you know, 20 or 30 people. And it's just practice, like, what I like to say is it's just repetitions one, we got to live with this virtual environment. So, you know, one of the unique things that we can even coach on is how do you look good professionally, in a virtual environment, like, you and I are doing the okay Office version of it. But maybe for an interview, there's some tricks for lighting, you know, where to put cameras, whether or not the sound and micro weird things like that are meaningful nowadays, you know, how do we get on LinkedIn, you know, maybe doing LinkedIn strategy, how do you start posting is anybody gonna see it and comment and be mean to you, you know, to alleviate some of that, just, you know, there's, it's awkward being online, it's awkward for me doing this right now, to be honest, but, you know, we got to pull up a little bit, know

what and what you already know, right. And for the listeners out there, it is awkward. But you've got to get your voice out there, you got to get your brand out there.

So doing it in a networking event on Zoom calls as a safe or safer way to do it also very useful, because we can say, Hey, anybody learned a tip from that, or what ends up happening is, even if we've got a lot of guys also all going through the job hunting experience, right at that one spot sharing tips and insights, but also someone who's like, Oh, I just talked to this company, you might actually want to talk to them, you know, that kind of stuff I'd like to see kind of show,

let me give you. For the listeners, let's give them a huge bit of insight. Here's one of my most recent networking tips are again, you connect with an individual, whether or not blue water connects you with that individual to the company you're pursuing, or somebody else connects you or you connect with this individual by a cold call strategy, which we have lots of information on how to navigate that space, however you do that you make a connection. And one of the things that we expose our members to is, hey, one connection is rarely get a result in my network. I met somebody at Northrop Grumman, and they didn't offer me a job. So I'm moving on, right? I mean, that is you got to have depth in the company, right? I mean, most of the time, we want you 678 People deep and accompany as you're learning the landscape, the environment, the culture, right, you're generating conversations about you on the inside by those individuals, right? And so one of the things that we espouse that members need to do is they need to keep those contacts current, but you know, they don't want to go back because they feel awkward, might kind of want to go back and just say, you know, Hey, how's it going kind of thing. So as you're pursuing individuals in that company, you know, on your LinkedIn page, you can follow companies, right, you can follow them down there. And if you follow a company like that, which you should be doing that anyway, that's a searchable field. And people can see whether or not you're following them or not. So if you're following that company, you also are the recipient of that company's news feed, right? Those current articles that people will post on behalf of the company, right from the company right there putting that information out? That's a great bit of information, to snatch that information up, read it, absorb it know what's going on in the culture, and then are you with me, you can take that article and just forward it back to maybe the last person you talked about, hey, you know, Scott loved our conversation the other day, case in point, I just saw this article posted on LinkedIn about the company, I was wondering if you might, you know, get your thoughts on and I thought it was really interesting Cedric, right? You're, you're engaging in your brand and building dialogue, it's a very safe space. And at the same time, you're bringing value to that individual to making sure that they're aware of what's going on with that as well too. And it's a great strategy to keep your your network tracking and up to speed. Everybody thinks that the biggest benefit in the success to networking is getting getting getting and give me give me give me right where it's almost counterintuitive. bring value to the people that you're networking with, that leaves the favorable impression you and they want to engage with you, right they know looking for a job, you're never going to ask for what they know you're looking for. But don't ask for it. Just continue to bring value continue to engage and learn as much as what you can. And it really is maybe a little bit more art than science in some cases, right? But it absolutely works. So for the listeners out there if you're engaged in the networking battle out there, give us a call happy to kind of talk you through it, but it's legit. That's how you do it.

Right? Yeah, no, we can definitely add strategy or just just find ways to add value. It's a skill set that we need to learn how to do because you got to find your own rhythm of it and and your style, quite frankly, you know, could be going actually posting your insightful tool or insights is, is part of your style. Maybe it's not maybe sharing insights is more your style being the person who knows that people. So no, I love it, man. Cool. I think that's a great spot to kind of wrap it up on and let you get back to your recovery from your travel and your trip. But yeah,

one just pop up here for any of the listeners that happen to be out there, right, we continue to have some pretty exciting conversations, Scott with the Naval Academy's Alumni Association, and bringing a lot of what blue water, you know, delivers, you know, in our cohorts to the academy, specifically up there. And so if you're a Naval Academy grad, and you think this is something that you might like to see in their repertoire of services, right, I don't know, right, to the individuals that are going through their career progression who need it, right. And so we're excited at that opportunity. So fingers crossed, we'll see where it

goes. No, very cool. Well, congratulations, obviously, getting in with the EO G's from the academies there. I don't know the Westpoint a OG. They're very engaged, whether it's a service academy career fair, you're getting there's all sorts of stuff where they're, they're trying to be involved. So I know that they'd be interested in that resource as well. So it'll be cool to get the feedback from navy. Well, that my classmates Oh, actually, a fellow Portuguese major. Is, is the G guy here. You

majored in Portuguese, and I think that was possible, but you did. Yeah. Okay.

I just figured, hey, West Point, this place is sucks. We're all going to be lieutenants. I want to have some fun. And I want to get some good grades. I mean, at the end of the day, we all had to do engineering anyway. So I ended up doing nuclear engineering with Portuguese. I never used any of it. And it because I was in the army that tells the story of the United States Army, right. Oh, that's amazing. All right, guys. Well, now great. Let me see if we had one other chat. Awesome. So Oh, Mike likes idea for the network enough to Okay, cool. So I'm gonna bet that idea around a little bit more, and we'll go from there. We'll see everybody next week.

All right here. Cheers.