086: I’ll Talk If You’ll Listen Podcast featuring Jen Amos

Artwork for podcast Holding Down the Fort by US VetWealth

Episode 13 • Bonus Episode • 5th March 2021 • Holding Down the Fort by US VetWealth • Jen Amos

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome to holding down the fort, an award winning podcast show dedicated to curating knowledge, resources, and relevant stories for today's military spouses. So they can continue to make confident and informed decisions for themselves and their families. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jen, a most a goldstar daughter, veteran spouse, and your host for holding down the fort by us bet wealth. Let's get started.

Hey, everyone, john Amos here, it's just me today, really excited to share this special episode with you. I had the fortune to speak with Tim Brooks on his podcast show, I'll talk if you listen. And he was so kind to give me a copy of the raw file of our interview so that I could share it to our listenership here. So Tim, thank you so much for this opportunity to reshare our conversation, I thought this would be a great opportunity for all of you to get to know me a little bit more. I know that I spend a lot of time interviewing other people, and really bringing to light the education, knowledge, resources and relevant stories for our military families today, especially our career military families, and our spouses. And there's a reason why I do what I do. And I think that this conversation I had with Tim did a great job capturing that. So first of all, in this conversation, you will hear me talk extensively about my experience living in San Diego for about 20 years before I moved out to Virginia Beach. In the recent years, I covered some things about what typically, tourists perceive of San Diego, and what people should know about San Diego, I do get into my background about being a goldstar daughter, and how that impacted me growing up, and how it made me view the military community, at least until I met my husband in which we work together now in us, but was really serving our military community, I share how, you know, meeting him and working with him has given me a more positive perspective on our community. So you'll get to hear more about that, like I mentioned in this conversation, I talked about the history of holding down the fort, how it came about why it came about, and why we're still here today, four seasons later. And of course, we'll dive into us bet wealth, which is the company that sponsors our show, and all that good stuff. So So yeah, I'm really excited for you all to listen to this conversation. And once again, I just want to remind you that the show is brought to you by us but wealth. And right now we are giving away the first three chapters of our best selling book, veteran Wealth Secrets, the post military playbook for obtaining autonomy and financial control in the modern economy. You can actually download those first three chapters today by visiting veteran wealth secrets.com. All right, thank you all so much. I hope that you enjoy this conversation with Tim Brooks on his podcast show. I'll talk if you listen, Tim, thanks again. And to our listeners. Enjoy.

Speaker 1 3:23

Hey, gang, welcome back another episode another week. And this time, not just another guest a very special guest. We have a gold star daughter, host of holding down the fort podcast, which is an award winning podcast. Jim a most Jim, how are you? I

Speaker 2 3:41

am it's great to be here. I'm doing all right. Thanks for Thanks for having me. I'm really excited for our conversation today.

Speaker 1 3:47

I think my face is going to hurt after I get off the call because I've been smiling so much. And looking forward to the interview. And Jen, I guess we can tell everybody we've been kind of planning this for weeks now and save about two three weeks.

Speaker 2 4:01

Yeah, and I just want to thank you, Tim, for your patience. My year has started off really jam packed with a ton of things and I can't be any more grateful considering just the landscape of life today. And it's just nice to feel that despite everything, I'm productive, and I still have the means to serve in the capacity that I can so you know, I just want to thank you for your patience in getting this coordinated because I know that it probably would have been more ideal to maybe do it the week of that you messaged me but I again, appreciate your patience to get this together.

Speaker 1 4:42

Oh no, not at all. Um, actually, you did me a huge favor because it really helped out with the preparation and it gave us a little bit of wiggle room and pay attitude, preparation and effort. Those are the things I can control. So I had no problem being patient and honestly it was kind of like riding a roller coaster. Hey, now I'm at the top and I can't wait to kind of go on the rest of the ride. So although we met on a podcasting network, and we don't really know each other that well, I feel like after listening to your podcast and getting to know a little bit of what you do, I feel closer, especially as a podcaster. There's a lot I think we have in common. But before we talk about that, I would really like a lot of my viewers, especially those who may be active duty military, you know, inactive reserve, you know, anyone who may be a veteran at the moment, I would like them to get to know you as a person. So I had a few questions for you. And I was hoping we can just explore those areas if that sounds like a plan. Yeah, let's do it. Sure. So it looks like you went to a did a little research a little dig in. And it looks like you went to San Diego State University. What can you tell our viewers because you hear all these things about San Diego? How it's beautiful. You know, it's great, it's sunny. I've never had a bad thing about San Diego. Can you tell us anything about that area? That maybe the average tourists What?

Speaker 2 6:07

No. Yeah, it's funny, because I now live in Virginia Beach. And I remember just leading up to the move, my friends would ask me, or actually, my new friends out here when we came out here, and I told them where I was from, they were like, why do we paradise, you know, like, they just jokingly say that there's a lot of good things to say about San Diego, for one, the weather is perfect. I will I will say that. I mean, it really does depend on where you live. But for the most part, being new to the east coast for the last three years. Now. I didn't realize how I took for granted, just just my style of clothing back in time, I didn't have to think too much about bringing a jacket with me when I left the house, I didn't have to think about like staying warm where I remember first moving out here when it first hit like 16 degrees. And luckily my my sister lives in New York City. So she told me before my first winter came, she was like, make sure you get a down coat, make sure you get like use this brand. Get like thermal jeans, get thermal everything. And I'm so glad I did because this type of material like wool and cotton, this would not do it, it wouldn't make the cut for just how intense the weather is out here. And I have never looked at the Weather Channel app so many times of my life until I'm in San Diego, I didn't have to do that. And, and the thing is also, it's like when it started to drizzle, you thought Oh, that's not a big deal here when it grizzles, like it rains, and then it pours. And so I've learned, I've learned to just be more aware of that. But then he goes great. The downside of it, I would say though, is now that I'm out here, I can say this just because I'm out here now. But you know, California in general, because the weather is pretty good over there. It is a little vain. It is about fashion, it's about everyone cares about like, can you suck it in, you know, I mean, like everyone cares about their physique, their how how they appear on the surface, were out here, like, I haven't had to worry about that. Like, I haven't felt self conscious about gaining a couple pounds or just wearing loose clothing all the time. And so it is a little vein out there. And then the third thing, which I think is very important to talk about is just the homelessness issue. All the major parks there, you know, are just crowded, you know, with homeless people who a lot of them are actually veterans, unfortunately, you know, and since COVID has happened, there's been more and more homeless people, a lot of them by choice, you know, because it turns out it is I mean, I would say this myself, if there's any place that would be homeless, it would be California, because weather is perfect. A lot of people are giving a lot of people, you know, go out and give you food left and right. So bad deal, you know, and you have public parks, you if you have a tent, like you're solid, like you can do just fine. And so that's definitely you know, kind of the reality of perfect weather is like you attract, I guess more homelessness, because I remember when we moved out here, I was like, I was like, we're gonna like, Where's all the homeless people like I was used to that we're out here like, oh, maybe there's one maybe there's too but you know, if it's too cold, like who's gonna, you know, who's gonna be out. And of course, they very much exists out here, but definitely not as prominent as San Diego in California as a whole. And then the last thing I will mention, Tim, I know I'm like being great sensitive about this is one thing that I didn't have in San Diego that I have out here. Just that hospitality like people you're actually eye contact and say hello, and wave that wave at me and have a conversation with me. Were back in San Diego. Like people wouldn't even look at you because we had this. We were sort of conditioned, at least with my mom of like, don't talk to strangers, you know, like don't like don't talk to strangers. Right. And so it just is a different culture overall. But yeah, I would say that for people that are visiting, it's probably thing. But if you live there, you start to see the cost of perfection, you really do. So

: 10:08

I'm sure and I've come across a lot of people who are in the military, whether it be friends, some distant family members, or even customers when I used to work in retail, and you will hear so many different types of stories from different parts of the world. And I call myself a tourist in my own city, I don't really get to travel too much. So I always like to hear other people's experiences. And that was one of the driving forces behind me wanting to join them going to the military back in the day of wanting to travel and see the world because I was such a person that was kind of cooped up in his own city. And you talked about a few different areas. In regards to San Diego, you talked about the culture, and we talked about the climate. But you also talked about, you know, the vanity and in gaining weight. And once I don't know about using I've gained a little bit of weight. quarantine is started. And one thing always I'm curious about when it comes to people, when it comes to different places is the food. And I have a really fun question for you. The people in Philadelphia roll their eyes, whenever they see the stereotypical shots of the Liberty Bell and the stereotypical shots of the big name cheesesteak places, and the stereotypical shots of the pretzels and all this other stuff. And sometimes you feel like, Hey, we're much more than that, you know, we get you showing the stuff that's horse, the stuff, I want you to show the real stuff. Is there anything that comes to mind for you when it comes to San Diego, that maybe people would see on TV? And it's really not the real San Diego that as a person from San Diego, you kind of roll your eyes at?

: 11:45

Wow, that's a good question. Because, you know, I haven't run into enough, I guess, people around here where they would say, Oh, yeah, I visited San Diego is, you know, this and this and this. I'm trying to imagine what people would say, I mean, I think the assumption of San Diego is that it's a beach town. And that is very, like slow paced. And everything is just like a retirement community overall. But I sort of agree with the slow pace aspect, if you compare it to LA, because a lot of people end up like, you know, leaving LA to retire in San Diego, or they have a second home in San Diego or what have you. But you know, we're not just a retirement home. There's very much. There's, you know, suburbia is a thing in San Diego too. I grew up a little more Southern San Diego, I grew up in most of the school system there, at least when we ended up moving there very much close to the Mexican border. And yeah, it's just regular families just trying to do right by their kids. And you know, thinking through the school system to go to college to get a good job, etc, etc. But yeah, there's a boring side of San Diego that I mean, not boring. But yeah, there's a suburban side, I think is what I'm trying to say. It's not just the town. And then there's just a lot of different subcultures in San Diego. I feel like if you don't like one culture, like if you want more of the city life, you have like downtown San Diego, if you don't like the whole going to the clubs and being perfect all the time. There's places like North Park South Park Hillcrest, where it's more down to earth, or people call it hipster like hipster, where it's a little more casual laid back like, you know, wearing sneakers at a bar kind of thing, as opposed to like nice shoes and heels or whatever. But yeah, it's interesting. I feel like there's a lot of different perceptions of San Diego. But I do think that I think that what people need to understand is that it's actually really a collective. I think that's what people maybe don't know that maybe they come there once they look at the beaches, and they think it's perfect, and beautiful and very, like a bit touristy, but it is very eclectic. And you can find a lot of subcultures in San Diego, and it's huge. It's a huge city like there. It's not just you don't think San Diego and think of it as like an island of sorts of one culture. Now, there's so many more little towns and cities in San Diego with different like I said, different subcultures. So I think that's the key word is it's a lot more eclectic than let's say the average tourist would think,

: 14:09

Wow, that was very insightful. I think that'll be really helpful for a lot of people who want to come because there's so many I remember going to San Antonio one time, and it was for work. So I couldn't really call it a vacation. But I remember going to San Antonio and there was somebody who he was a vendor Rep. So he would travel all over the country. And he would say so many stereotypical things about Philly because it's just whenever he's watching sports, they show the stereotypical side of the skyline, or they talk about the Schuylkill River and all these different things. And I'm like, oh man is so much more to the city. So I'm sure people from San Diego in the surrounding areas will appreciate that. There's one key thing that I think that you just said that can also apply to our topic today. And that's perception is reality. And I think a lot of people have this perception of military life. They have this perception of being spouse to someone who has been in the military. And they even have a perception of what life is like after the military for so many different reasons. Some of them positive, some of them not so much. You want shared when we were a guest on another person's podcast that you kind of had a general perception about military life, and your current marriage and meeting, your husband kind of helped to change that and your work with, you know, your foundation kind of helped to change that. We talked about that a little bit on like, what that switch was for you. And, you know, based on your history, or like to talk a little bit about that to how your view went from one way, and then something happened. And now it is the way it is today.

: 15:44

Yeah, I'd be happy to talk about that. So I grew up. So first and foremost, both my parents were immigrants from the Philippines. My dad was the one that joined the US Navy before, I believe the military bases were shut down in the Philippines when America took over and the Spaniards were actually no, I'm sorry, when the Philippines became an independent state from America, I believe that's when the American bases shut down. So my dad was, you know, in the last batch of people to join the military, you know, the US Navy. So I was born in Japan, and you cook the Japan naval base? And yeah, it's actually kind of interesting, because first and foremost, you know, having being of Filipino descent being born in Japan, but on American soil, you can tell already that I was going to have a cultural, I was going to have like this cultural like, what do you call it? How would I? How would I describe that this, this culture shock and and trying to juggle with different cultures and identities that are very. And then on top of that, we moved around every two to three years. The interesting thing is, you know, the first day that I at least was a part of the one that I was born at, turned out to be my dad's last military base, and the last place he was stationed at before he was two years away from retiring. So he had already served 18 years at this point. And he was going to finish his service there in Japan. Well, unfortunately, this is back in 1998. My dad's Last Ship, which is the USS Kitty Hawk was going from Japan to South Korea, when he went missing. And they actually sent a search crew for three days. And they continued the investigation for three months after that, until they just kind of let it go. And they were able to not find any more evidence. But by then, by the time they gave up on that, my family and I had already catapulted our lives back to being civilian. We went back to San Diego because my mom had family there. And also my dad's brother was there. So it just made sense to go back there. And it was interesting, once we returned back to civilian life, and I was 10. At the time, it was as if we completely forgot about Dad, it's like he didn't exist anymore, because mom was so focused on raising the three kids under 11 years old. So you know, fast forward to, you know, 20 plus years later, when I met my husband, who is a West Point grad, and his class graduated when 911 happened. So he was one of the first, you know, first of many soldiers to go to Iraq. And when he came back, he transitioned out. But even though he transitioned back into civilian life, he got into financial services, and specialized in the military communities. And so it was interesting meeting him, he ended up leaving Germany, to come to San Diego. And that's actually how we met was he was in town. And he was at the time, I had a Social Media Marketing Agency, and he was looking for a social media manager. And so we were introduced to each other. And I promise I don't do this to all of my clients. But yeah, we ended up hitting it off. And you know, here we are today, five years later, being together and in business. But the interesting thing is, when I met him, I thought actually assumed that people only joined the military for employment opportunities. You know, I thought, Oh, you're looking for a better life, you're looking you know, for a chance to travel to get out of your certain situation, you know, and then of course, after losing my dad I thought as a deathtrap I thought, job, any job in general that kind of promise long term stability benefits, etc. I saw that as a desktop because I thought like, if I'm in anything stable, I'm going to die like my dad, you know, like it was just this thing that second mean, mentally, but when I met my husband, who very much as service driven and mission oriented, he actually showed me a different side of the military which was to to serve. I mean, I would have been at West Point they taught him duty, honor country, you know, so even after his service and a lot of his classmates even after they transitioned out of the military, still serving, you know, working C suite positions, business owners, just doing a lot of incredible things running for politics. He has all those types of friends. And I was all like, I don't have types of friends like that. But what it did is it kind of sparked that, I guess desire to do something greater than myself. And part of wanting to do that first and foremost was to work past or unpack, really the trauma that I had experienced in losing my dad. So there's a lot of things, you know, in the 20 years of losing my dad that I really had to work through. But I guess you can say in regards to the transformation, I personally went from like, no, the military is bad. It takes away the people you love to Oh, the military has taught me to be, you know, service oriented, mission oriented and to, you know, focus on things that are greater than me, because what else are we going to do on this earth? Like, we're all about serving each other, and it just gives me more purpose in life, you know, and makes me feel more fulfilled and just satisfied with what I'm doing today. Like, I'm not just running a business to make money, I'm running a business to serve, you know. So there's a lot in there. But I hope that made sense. No, sure.

: 21:03

I think that's useful. So first and foremost, thank you for sharing that I'm sure being a podcaster. And sometimes guest to story you go through many times. But I think that's huge for you be to be able to draw from those emotions that you experienced 20 years ago and do a lot of self reflection. And that's phenomenal. I think, for people to hear that like, Hey, you can think one way about something and have something in your life completely shake the foundation of that belief system. And sometimes it's for a better thing. That's awesome. Another thing that I think is shaking up the foundation for a lot of different things is your podcast. It is an award winning podcast. And it is military centric. But more specifically, what I like about it, is it gives people the necessary knowledge and tools in order to succeed. So specifically, when it comes to a current and post military life, can you talk a little bit about what inspires you to create the holding down the fort podcast? And what it was like to get these guests onto your show to talk about these different areas?

: 22:10

Yeah, absolutely. So this actually started the idea came about amongst my colleagues. In the business, I run with my husband, US bet wells. And the way that I like to describe it is we provide thought provoking financial education, and flexible financial solutions for our career, military families. And the thing is, when it comes to financial decision, in a household, you can talk to the service member all day. But at the end of the day, it's the spouse that holds down before and says, Yeah, we can go with that or no, like, I don't like that financial decision. And, you know, my team mainly consisted of veterans. And so naturally, they would attract other veterans and talk about their finances. But very often, we would come across, like, let's say that a veteran is ready to move forward, and then finally includes their spouse into the conversation. They're like, wait, what like you to tell me. And so it's usually at that end, when there's just miscommunication. And of course, the spouse who probably already just feels like their life is a constant treasure hunt. And it's constantly changing and shifting, to hear that their service member made a decision without them. It's kind of insulting, you know.

: 23:24

So with my background, having been a military family, like a career, military family, I felt like, it was best for me to build that relationship with these families. And also, because I think too many civilians, when you think about soldiers, you don't really think of them as human, you know, you just think like, oh, they're here to serve the hero to protect, but you don't think about the family that they come home to, you don't think about like, if you lose a soldier, you don't just lose a soldier, you lose like, like a family spirit, you know, their drive, you know, like, the effects of losing a soldier. Like, it's not just a soldier that's lost for the nation before a family and the ripple effects that can cause which I can, you know, talk about at a very intimate level, because, you know, when we lost Dad, it's like, our life just catapulted back to civilian life. We didn't have a lot of support, you know, my mom's focused on fortunately, we had family that she could depend on. But it took me like, 20 plus years to, you know, have a podcast like this, where I'm finally learning what resources are even available for me as a gold star daughter that I didn't know, a long time ago, because I just wasn't informed. And so in addition to building a relationship with the career military families of today, you know, for the sake of our business, but really for just to understand who they are and what their needs are not as a feeling like, Hey, you need financial planning, you know, what we come to find is that it's hard for them to make these decisions because they're distracted with a million other things, you know, so we have to be sensitive to that and not just, you know, talk about money like right away. Also. Yeah, we realize that because they have many distractions, though they have so many things to balance, we realize like, well, we need to put together a show, where we do bring on movers and shakers of the community and for the community, to let them know that they exist. And they're here to help. Because the government can only do so much, you know, that everyone has their thoughts on the government, but for the most part, they can't do it all. No one can do it all, even the government, right. And that's not a political statement. That's just fact in life, no one can do everything. And so the whole idea is that to have a show where, you know, sometimes it's easier to open up to someone who's been through a similar experience as you than to open up to a therapist. And that's really the approach I take on the show is like, I want to bring people who are in the community or for the community, that do have knowledge resources, or, you know, relevant stories, that these career military families can, you know, eat up and more importantly, feel like, oh, okay, no matter where I go, no matter where I move to next, holding down the fort feels like home. To me, it feels like a place that I can go to consistently and know that like whoever's on the show, I can contact them right now, if I wanted to, because they want to be contacted, they want people to reach out to them, you know, and a lot of times military spouses, how they collect their resources and tools, and what have you, is the word of mouth. And so they, you know, chat with one another, and they say, Hey, what do you recommend? What do you recommend, and so this show very much serves as that extra, you know, word of mouth platform in case they move to a new place, and they don't know who to talk to, but at least they know that they have this community of people who've been on my show that they can reach out and, you know, connect with. So that's a little bit about that, in regards to how we find people. You know, initially, it started with me personally, like going on Instagram, and using hashtags military spouse, Milko, nofo, you know, and finding all of these military spouses who are very, let's say, like narrative and expressive about their story and their journey and their struggle, and I asked them to be on the show. And then here we are in the fourth season, we don't have to really do much outreach anymore, because people find us, and they apply to be on our show. So and on top of that, I even met my co host. And she's always like, Hey, what about this person? What about that person. And so initially, it was hard to I mean, it wasn't hard, but I had to put in a lot of efforts to do the outreach. And now it's just so great to have a pending list of people who are waiting to hear back from me and be chosen. Someone mentioned to me a past guest said, Thank you for choosing me to be on your show. You know, it's just nice and make them feel honored, I guess to be on the show. But it that's really what it's become today is sort of just like waiting list of people that we need to, you know, qualified to bring on. And, of course, like, share whatever they want to share, to continue to help our families today.

: 27:48

Wow, that's beautiful, Jen just so much to unpack that I received that really speaks to me, not only as a podcaster. But as a person. And I want to touch on the personal piece first. One of the things that I love his music, I love music, I love the way music makes me feel, I love the way that music makes me think. And I love how vulnerable I feel when I listen to certain songs and how heavy or how angry, I feel when I listen to certain songs. And I think your podcast is synonymous to music in the sense that people can hear it. And they can have these emotions kind of validated in a way when they listen to your podcast. So I think it's really cool to have a podcast called holding down the fort. Because essentially, you want to release it, you know, take occupation out of it takes you know where you're at currently in your life out of it. And you just want to be validated on how your feelings and I think when you listen to holding down the fort, you feel that way. I think that's dope that you are taking so many different things from home ownership or travel or so many different things. And people who've been in those boots, literally not figuratively, been in those boots or been in those core frames, and you're having them on the show. And somebody will have decided that speaker is listening and relating and learning. You can't produce that. You know, that's that's a genuine feeling. I think that's super dope. Now as a podcaster. I really like the name because as simple as it is, you and I both know that coming up with a name for something is the hardest thing in the world. It is super hard. You have like social groups, you ask 50 people you have 50 different names. And in my case, you may even record a few episodes with the older name and he like no, I don't like how that sounds. You go over it over and over and over again. And I think holding down the floor. I don't know how long it took you to get there. But it's so important because you hold down the floor by having a fourth virtual fort of people coming to you to gain knowledge and stability in the creative Foundation. You also hold down the fort in the sense that you want to keep this idea of going, and you want to touch so many people, and you impact so many people's lives. I think that's awesome. I think it's amazing. And I think the main is very, very appropriate. Now, certain forts are stationary. I think your four is very versatile. It's very mobile. And that can be a theme when it comes to military life. And being a military spouse or being a veteran spouse, is your very mobile, you're all over the place. you're traveling nonstop, you get the next PCs, you're like, oh, man, I gotta go here. I was just getting used to the school district, or I'm just getting used to this holy shop for his sandwich shop. And now I gotta, you know, those are things that can really blindside people.

: 30:44

Thank you for complimenting my title to my show holding down the fort. I do want to say that I didn't come up with the name, one of my colleagues did. Oh, yeah, a little background in case anyone's curious. So I was talking amongst my colleagues. And I remember we were on this conference call. And I was like, you know, like, there has to be a title about like, how military spouses are just like killing it, you know, like, how they just balance all these things and create a stable home for the service member to come back to. And so shout out to one of my colleagues, Ethan, he said, pointing down forward.

Unknown Speaker: 31:18

And just like that,

: 31:19

yeah. And he's a genius. If you if you met him, he's he is a crazy, crazy genius, like crazy genius, as I'm not gonna cuss. But like, Yeah, he's crazy, crazy, in the best way possible. And as soon as we knew that, as soon as he said that, we were like, okay, we gotta run with it. Like, that's a pretty awesome title. We got, you know, a graphic designer to put together and, and everything. And I hear you like, when it comes to coming up with names, like one of my other podcast shows, it took me forever to come up with that name. But I think it helps, you know, they say like two months, who has a better than one, right. And so I'm so glad that I had my colleagues to talk about that, like, I knew that the need was there. But I didn't know how to name it. And he totally did that. So that's like, shout out to Ethan, for, you know, that name. So yeah.

: 32:07

So one thing that I think your company does really well, with the US that wealth is you give people a virtual space to turn to not only do you do that with the podcast, but you do that with your website, can you talk a little bit about your website, and what people should expect to find on it

: 32:24

with our company us that? Well, again, it's a, it's not for everyone, let me start with that. We are not your typical financial firm, where we're going to talk to you about retirements and how to save for retirement and, you know, wait till you're in your 60s to pull money out of your account. Because anytime before then you're going to get a penalty, you're going to have to pay a penalty, we don't take that approach. Because when it comes to military families, when they retire, they're still pretty young, like they're in their either late 30s, young 40s, they still have another, you know, 1020 years of working, you know, working age before they retire. And so we do something very unique. Like we believe that, you know, our military families or career military families truly deserve a sense of freedom and autonomy and their post military life. They deserve it, you know, they sacrifice a lot. However, you know, a lot of financial education is tailored towards civilian and kind of like the civilian who has, you know, climbed corporate America, and you know, phase for retirement or what have you. Or, of course, like the wealthier families who, you know, have different, you know, like, they just deal with their money differently. And so we specialize in career military families, because they're not jumping from one corporate job to another, you know, they're transitioning from one completely, like, unique, crazy lifestyle, back to civilian life. And so it's not just the financial transition, it's an emotional transition is a psychological transition. It's a, you know, there's so many, there's so much to that transition to post military life, that the regular, you know, civilian financial advisor just cannot help with or do, they just don't understand that very often, a lot of like, a realtor and say, oh, we'll help you with your VA loan, let's help you, let's help you get your first house and stuff like that. And like, that's great and all but like, you know, it's more than that. It's more than just being a homeowner. It's like, like, Where do I want to be a homeowner so that I can live my new purpose and post military life so I can actually, you know, re explore who I want to be maybe pursue the career that I really wanted to pursue before I joined the military, that passion that I had, you know, a long time ago. And so, when you go on our website, because we do talk about you know, a lot a lot of like what I call thought provoking financial education, we provide a ton of free, like education on everything our career military families need to know about, let's say their survivor benefit plan, their Thrift Savings Plan, just their military benefits in general. We show them that because, you know, the phrase we use is you serve for it, you earned it, like you earned the right to achieve some level of like financial flexibility and your post military life, to not just jump into another job and not just, you know, try to replace that military paychecks. But to maybe travel for a while, maybe start a business, maybe take it easy, maybe like intern somewhere, like explore apprenticeship. You know, like, we just want to encourage our military families, you know, the servicemembers, and of course, the spouses, you know, as a whole to kind of rediscover who they want to be now that they have, now that they're not being told to follow orders. And so our website provides a ton of articles, you know, blogs, we have a number of books, one of our favorite books that we're pushing for right now is called veteran Wealth Secrets, which anyone can actually visit veteran wealth secrets.com today to download the first three chapters, not one, not two, but three, you know, because we think that, you know, what we're putting out there is very unique, and most of all, most needed and deserving for, you know, that our military families, but yeah, it's very tailored to them. We also have more stuff on there, such as like access to our YouTube channel, information about my podcast show holding down the fort. My husband is also starting to show called veteran world secrets, the same name as his book, to interview Veteran Business owners, and also kind of served as a talk show for us to talk more about our philosophies. But the greatest takeaway that you know, the some of the website, what you'll find, is just a ton of education and resources for these military families who are transitioning out or even about two or so it like still pretty seasoned, like still serving active duty, like, let's say they're 10 plus years in, and they're looking for a way to maybe we invest their money while they're in service, because there's definitely a lot of active duty service members who, you know, get into real estate or other types of, you know, side hustles while they're in service, which is pretty astounding when they do that, because it's like, they already are bombarded with so much work, I

Unknown Speaker: 37:07

think, Oh, yeah.

: 37:08

But yeah, just overall, just a ton, a ton of value. That's really what we're trying to push for, because we know that what we're what we teach is not talked about enough. And therefore, you know, it is very easy for a service member and a military family to kind of look at it with skepticism, and quite honestly, we welcome it, when we want you to be skeptical, we know you're going to be skeptical. So So really, really look at our, our education, our articles and all that stuff, and really see like, you know that what you have is good. But what you could have in learning through us could be greater, you know, that's really what we're saying. You could do just fine with what you already have. But if you're looking for more options that actually might be greater for you. Our website is that place for you.

: 37:54

Wow, I think that's so cool. Got caught there? Well, Jen, I think it's been a wonderful conversation. I think it's been huge to, for people to have an extra outlet to go and learn. I think one of the best things anybody can do is learn, especially when it's given away, in some cases for free or at very little expense. I think we do so many things to learn about the things we're passionate about, why not be paid, passionate about our financial security. So I think that's really, really great. Something that you're offering. What's it thank you so much. This has been a huge, huge opportunity, not only for me, but I'm sure for many of our listeners. And I'm sure I can't wait to hear more of your episodes. And hopefully I can have you back on the show in the future. Yeah, hey,

: 38:41

I'm all about helping and giving and educating. And so if I can give back and be back on to help your listeners like I'm for it. Sounds good. Thank

Unknown Speaker: 38:51

you so much. Yeah, thanks.

Share Episode

Shownotes

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube