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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026: The Interview that Inspired Holding Down the Fort

Listen to US VetLife Founder & CEO Scott R. Tucker’s exclusive interview with VirtForce Founder Kimber Hill. This edited interview includes Scott’s background in the service and post-military depression, common struggles that military spouses face, how US VetWealth was created to redefine how transition and retirement is traditionally done, and most of all a hint at the issues we will be addressing on this show.

Connect with Scott R. Tucker on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottrtucker/

Learn how Kimber Hill and VirtForce is connecting America's Active Duty Military Spouses to verified remote careers at http://virtforce.us/

Resources:

Understanding the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) https://usvetwealth.com/how-to-avoid-the-pitfalls-of-sbp-and-vgli-at-military-retirement/

Speak to a US VetWealth Expert on the SBP: https://calendly.com/scottrtucker/survivor-liberty-plan-analysis

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This show is brought to you by https://usvetwealth.com/

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome to holding down the fort, a podcast show dedicated to curating knowledge, resources and relevant stories. So military spouses can continue to make confident and informed decisions for their families. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jen amis, a Goldstar, daughter of veterans spouse, and your host for today's show. Let's get started

Kimber Hill 2:39

Speaker 1 4:25

Likewise, from our end as well. It's been a pleasure working with your organization, and we couldn't be more happy. Like I was told yesterday was a shocking surprise. And it was the best thing that could have happened to us this year. Quite honestly. You guys are doing amazing. Thanks. So anyway, we can support we're super involved in one on one to help out.

Kimber Hill 4:42

Speaker 1 5:08

Kimber Hill 9:36

That's amazing. So I guess you would say that, visiting the shaman, realizing that you needed to discover your purpose. Those were some of the cues and the triggers that helped you finally overcome that sort of regret of depression that you were stuck in.

Speaker 1 9:52

Absolutely. I realized, hey, it's one of those things almost like cliche. It's like we're only here once you know, time it's not about and that's But I think I realize it's not about money. It's really about your time, one of the mottos I have is, you know, we don't we don't spend our time for money. That's the that's where you get stuck, right leaving away. And essentially you are slaving away for somebody else or for some organization, and but what if you can position yourself to instead, spend your money for more time. And with these different different types of mindset shifts, there's no excuse to be depressed anymore. Obviously, there's a chemical imbalance, that's a completely different thing. But I think a lot of us are simply we call it depression, and then we get put on medications and therefore get labeled when really, it's a lot of just boredom. And because we have all these distractions with modern social media and Netflix, and, and don't get me wrong, I stayed through the Game of Thrones thing, just like everybody else. Disappointed Like, I literally wrote to Jen, all right, I'm not watching TV anymore. The waste of time, like, what's going on in America right now is too important.

Yeah, that's so funny. But I think I think a lot of the military spouses in vert fours can relate to that feeling. And in fact, viewers, anyone who's watching right now, show of likes, comments, reactions, tell me if you have experienced depression from, you know, lack of purpose. I know, I went through it, I think the first six months of me realizing that oh, my gosh, I am married to the service. Now, you know, everything that I've been planning for for the past 10 years, and everything I went to school for, and all the internships and work that I did, I'm gonna really have to find a way to make that still happen, because it really might not, you know, my dream and my vision have to change. And that was kind of sad at first. And then I'd like to know from anyone who's watching has workforce helped you overcome that? Because I think connecting with other active duty military spouses, and for me something that's always been very important to me, it's finding a fulfilling career. So connecting with active duty military spouses on that passion has helped bring me joy, and help me find a new purpose. And it's so important, but it's so prevalent to you. And I think we don't acknowledge that enough in our community. All right, so I'm seeing some come through, got some yeses. And this is my last week PCs. Thank goodness. Absolutely. Oh, and so disappointed on Game of Thrones. Everybody go look at the meme I posted yesterday. Because I think the meme that I posted on my Facebook and my Instagram is so accurate. It's the best description. All right. Thank you for sharing that with us, Scott. Like I said, I don't think that it gets talked about enough. So let me ask you this. What would you recommend to a military spouse or a veteran who's experiencing depression from a lack of purpose? You know,

it kind of goes into what you just talked about? You don't want to think about that kind of a question. You really, it's, it's how I learned about the issues that the military spouses face. A lot of times we were I was I was always single in the military. Like I said, I was living over Germany. So I didn't have an American, you know, wasn't around middle American spouses a lot and didn't realize until I met Stephanie Brown from the Rosie network in San Diego. And she was explaining how, when she was stationed overseas with her husband, who was an admiral, that she had a very difficult time finding a job. And she's like, well, if I'm the admirals wife, and I can't get a job at the PX, like, Gosh, what's everybody else going? And then she started really digging into statistics. And, and what she found is that, you know, over half of military spouses are interested in or already starting some form of entrepreneurship, I really believe especially in this modern day and age and time, not that not that everybody goes full bore entrepreneurship, but Right, always tap into some sort of side gig side hustle, just start an idea. Never wonder like that. One thing like I wanted to try this I read it like if you've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, or four hour workweek, I mean your your ultimate goal in life, if you want to really take control, when we're talking about money, if you want if you want to, you know make sure you're you're safe and secure, then then the number one thing you must do is control your source of your income. And really, the only way to do that is that either be a business owner or have multiple sources of income. The cool thing is, there's lots of ways to do that right now. You don't have to take the risk of starting a business. You know, there's a lot of independent contractor stuff so I think dabbling in that space failing in it and realize that that's not that's a good thing. And then when you pick up and then you have a win, that's that's been you know, other than the shop and that's been the best thing you can have for me to never worry about something like depression again. Sure. I have down days and sad days, but there's always somewhere forward to go.

I heard two things from that I heard personal debelle moment because you mentioned reading. And I don't know if that's something that everyone takes seriously or not, but I love Audible. And I love sitting down with a good book Rich Dad, Poor Dad is great lean in is great. You mentioned in a third one, before our Workweek by Tim Ferriss, the four hour workweek is amazing. For agreements.

That's my favorite. That's, that's my number one thing, one, because it's only four agreements that you have to memorize. But they're just little standard rules for life where you don't take things personally, you don't make assumptions. You always do your best, just little things like that. Right? Like, okay, as long as I stick to that, you know, nothing can really hurt,

right? So we got personal development, and then we got take the bull by the horns, even if you're not an entrepreneur, open up a couple of different revenue sources for yourself, that's gonna give you passion, and it's gonna give you something to do,

right? It's not a people, you know, the idea of following your purpose is kind of, you know, constant problems, because it's like, Well, hey, I like, you know, my purpose isn't something that you get paid for. But you know, it's basket weaving or whatever, as they say, sustainable interest. If you find a sustainable interest, you'll develop a purpose around and assuming that there's, you know, there's Oh, yeah, it's ethical, and morally,

that's how workforce came to be just a lot of military spouses who got together and said, Hey, we all are really interested in helping other military spouses work remotely. So how can we turn that into something that people actually benefit from now? It's awesome. And now it's fun. Everybody loves it. And we jump in and we help each other and we're making friendships and that kind of thing opens up I'm sure you have. I mean, we were talking yesterday about your business relationships now that wouldn't you wouldn't have those friendships, you wouldn't have those connections if you hadn't pursued us. FetLife.

Right. I mean, a lot of what I say I wanted to do this for is because, you know, we see this in the military all the time, if you've read Sebastian, youngers book tribe, you know, we miss that camaraderie, we you're just not going to get it in the civilian world. It's not going to exist. I mean, you might be on a team or something. But we have something unique in the military community. And so really, I always just said to people, I just want to hang out with my friends, again, whether it's friends or old friends, and I brought an old friends in, and sometimes I've tried to, it hasn't worked out. But I've made, you know, made new friends and family in the process.

All right, we have a comment, my husband is getting out of the military in September after 13 years, not his choice. I've noticed him falling into a depression, the military has been his life. And now he doesn't know what he's going to do,

to speculate whether this is the case or not. But a lot of I've got a number of really, really young guys that were actually West Point graduates who are told for four years, you're going to be a platoon leader, and then they got in the army. And what's happening right now is, if anybody's got you know, if their finger hurts, they're saying medical discharge, and they're, and they're given, they're given them like two months notice. And so, for these young guys, for example, which may be similar to this example, is story here, you know, they thought they had four or five years before they had to make their transition decision. And they were looking forward to this experience of being in the Army serving their country and everything that they'd signed up and wanted to do. And I think that's why it's, it's just so important. This is a lesson for everybody else. I mean, there's ways to deal with it in the near term given, you know, what are we talked about a minute ago, but, you know, that's just all the more reason is, you know, you know, we were serving our country, and we serve in the military, in my case, the army, the army needs us while we're in service, but as soon as you're gone, it doesn't need you anymore, and it's still going. And so we must take full responsibility. And that's why our message our mission at that life, is is you got to learn that, you know, how does this work? What's going to happen evident, inevitably is the transition from military life. It's coming no matter how you no matter whether you like it a lot or not. And ironically, all the military benefits that you get for serving workout a lot better that the more you prepare, the earlier that you prepare for transition from a financial standpoint,

Marisol, I want to speak to that just briefly. There are organizations who will offer transition assistance, it will be a lot of work on your husband, because he'll have to maintain his full time job and then also try to pursue transition assistance in his spare time, maybe joining one of Scott's information sessions may be good for your husband, but also looking at the organization called for block and looking into the vet force program by Salesforce could potentially supply him with some certifications that would help him transition into a civilian career that he's passionate about. All right, so let me ask you this. You own us FetLife which is also known as US

vet wealth. It's like a subsidiary brand, a sister brand. Yeah.

So what is it about the is two organizations that is innovating the financial arena for the military families? And specifically, how do they speak to transition?

Yeah. So in a way the vet life is more about the transition like, you know, what do you want to do with yourself? How do we tie organizations influencers, nonprofits, in gather for these modern opportunities, all all the job fair, the transition assistance programs that are out there, we're not saying all that stuff is bad, not at all. We're just saying hurt for a lot of the corporate population. That's, that's great information. But it's all you know, going to be for the masses, kind of like what we're used to in the military. And in this day and age we use the more you customize and find your niche. That's how you align your passion to income. We want to be that that outlet and in partnerships with organizations such as yours in the Rosi network, for example. And the what that wealth side of things? Well, it's all about money. So we had to say, Well, how do you tie in your military benefits, to prepare for that transition, and the biggest way we're innovating is that we're all told in our whole lives. And this is what you learned from reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad is you're supposed to go to school, your job at school is to get a job, right? And once you get the job, what are you supposed to do? What's your job there? It's to be a good citizen and pay your taxes until you retire. And so and then what's after retirement? Yes, I guess I mean, it's, it's kind of like that, but this is this is the accepted American system for some reason. And we believe that's, that's the cause of a lot of the depression. It's very clear, you know, 80 87% of Americans say they're unhappy in their jobs. I mean, that's a real statistic across all of America. So in order to solve that, you know, realize that it's all about money. Well, then you rather than just only saving the money for this long after retirement and thinking that you have to be stuck in this this one system have a way of doing it? Well, the real the real way, what do we say spend your money for time, right? And so you want to position you know, all your benefits, your assets, the way you save money, the way you leverage, you know how this works, to create opportunity for yourself, not just to fix problems, or wait for the inevitable. Now, the opportunities are in the near term in the three year mark. I mean, it could be right now, it could be three years, like if we're not thinking that way, or we don't have our resources available to to us in those timeframes, while also still protecting ourselves from things like taxes. And you know, that the way the stock market works, you don't just lose your time it crashes. You know, we gotta we gotta be paying attention to that. And I was just listening to a podcast, ironically, was Tony Robbins, the guru, his son, it was was talking about how the 401 K retirement system works, in that over 70% of Americans have no idea that there are fees involved inside their 401 case, or that it's tied to the market, it needs to be managed. And so they're not paying attention, because they're going to work all day. So our goal is saying, hey, if we want to learn how to use our money, we need to focus for the actor, you know, for the active duty family standpoint, we call it the transition instead of saving for retirement or only for retirement. What if, what if we position ourselves financially for the transition. So you can have some flexibility, some control over whatever it is you want to do? If you if you want to start a business, there's resources for that, if you have an only in retirement accounts, you can't touch it now? What if What if you want to travel the world because you want to go figure yourself out like I got to do my living overseas for 11 years, you know, that that's really where we're being we're offering a completely innovative and different solution that nobody talks about is saying, position your assets, so you can leverage it when the opportunity arises. Because too many Americans just watch that opportunity fly by and they call it luck, luck. Luck is just saying, Oh, I see it, grab it, and run with it and fail and try again. You know, that's, that's what we're encouraging.

So what does that look like for most of the people who work with you? What do you what do you see them doing when they come to you? Well,

we've developed a number of proprietary solutions and in a way they're just strategies and so we're going to educate our clients on eight how do you how do you how do you leverage your your benefits such as the way things like Survivor Benefit Plan and first savings plan how that works for transition in the develop a strategy around modern financial tools that the ones everybody have always heard about are things like mutual funds and term life insurance and and that's all good and great stuff. But again, it's it's tied to that overall system have you know, go go get a job and slaved away for 40 years slowly it is you want if you want to break out of it whatsoever. You got to use the modern technologies and guess what? There's been innovation just Like there's new iPhones and stuff out there, there's been innovation in the financial world, but the financial world and the government, which, which regulates the financial world, obviously two massive dinosaurs, they don't innovate quickly, they make a ton of money. So they're not going to change really, they're really teaching people the exact same way. We did it in 1995, or even 1980. For that matter, we just know, I mean, I went out there and looked around, said, Oh, wow, they created all these awesome new products that used to be only available for super rich people. Now anybody can access them, the costs are much lower, they protect you from taxes, they protect you from a stock market crash, you can still grow your assets and get access to them. You can't get sued. It's like there's there's all different ways of doing it. And it's like anybody can do this right now. And when I was at that USAA, digital military influencer conference that, you know, they invited me what kind of when I was a nobody or anything, I still feel like I'm a nobody. I'm just saying, like, I wasn't sure why I got invited there. But I was kind of shocked when they kind of laid out their whole, you know, education system. And I was there with all the top military bloggers and podcasters and stuff. And I realized, Oh, they're all thinking, I thought other people knew what I knew. And I was all thinking, this kind of old school way. It's like, you have to get the you know, the raw, first make sure you're maxing out your TSP. It's like, well, maybe, you know, what, if that's not what the person really wants to do, what if there's opportunity right now, nobody's talking about it. And that's where I realized, okay, somebody needs to solve this problem. I happen to know it. Because I was over in Germany doing this, I had a very, very narrow focus on the military and veteran community. And it turned out it was our secret sauce, we just, I just spent more time than I get, I guess other financial professionals couldn't do what we do. They just don't add the numbers together that way, I guess, right? We got very, very, very good at understanding. You don't have to wait until your retirement briefing, and wait for a two hour PowerPoint slide to figure out how your Survivor Benefit Plan works. You know, you could show you in five or 10 minutes, it's pretty simple. It's shocking, we will pay to piss you off, if you're learning about it at the end. But if you're learning about the beginning, you can make major changes. I mean, there's always ways that improve and in position for it. But you know, it's it's just one of those things.

Well, I'm excited that your company is bringing that to the forefront. Will you answer a couple of questions from our community now? Absolutely. Yeah. All right. I've got a couple. The first one is from Jennifer, Vers, se young. She wants to know, what's your opinion on the survivor benefits plan versus life insurance?

Well, that's a great question. We're kind of just talking about it. I mean, private benefit plan, in a way is a form of life insurance, it's, it's simply saying that you're gonna get a pension, or the service members gets the pension is tied to the service member. But if if something were to happen to the act to the service member to the veteran getting the pension, the pension would just go away, right. So in 1972, the government said, well, we can't have that and leave all the spouses out there. So they created the Survivor Benefit Plan, but it's not free, you got to pay for it. So you got to pay six and a half percent of your pension every single year for the just in case that something happens. And if that did happen, and the spouse would get 55%, of whatever the pension was getting. And so it sounds like a good deal. And it's better than nothing, it's there for the lowest common denominator, the people that I want aren't healthy enough to, to qualify for an insurance program or, or just don't have the financial wherewithal or whatever, like, absolutely. But the reality is, it's kind of like, thinking about the probability of it cuz you'd have to die really young for it to pay off. Because if you're paying six and a half percent of your pension, right, year after year, and you live 30 years, that's easy math, if you're like an E eight family getting out, that's going to add up to 70 to $120,000. That will just have gone to the government. And if the spouse passes away first, for whatever reason, you don't get any money back, and then there's no benefit. And either way, even if both spouses live long, there's no legacy to be left. And it's like, Well, what did we serve those 20 years for? to own it earn that pension? And what's just the service member going overseas? It was the spouse in the family that were sacrificing as well. They've earned that pension, they need to value it properly. So the true way to look at it is it's not to say, Oh, I'm retiring. I'm getting 2500 extra dollars a month. That's a nice pension, obviously, I gotta get another job. It's not enough to live on. And that's the way it's the majority 80% of veterans. Look at it, look at their pension. It's like no, you're like 39 years old, you're getting $2,500 a month for the rest of your life. That's the equivalent of about $750,000 You would have had to save that much money. Put it into a bank account and be drawing off it every month starting at age 40, or whatever for the rest of your life in order to do that. So obviously, most people aren't gonna have that kind of money saved up. And so it's like, wow, this is, you know, I'm worried that 20 years of service is worth that much. Let's value it properly. And so if if you can structure it right, and qualify and do the finances and understand it, that's why the Survivor Benefit Plan is great, it's for someone who just refuses to understand it. But if you will, if you will be willing to understand a modern strategy to do a life insurance version, it can be as instead of being out 70 70k. You know, if you ended up not using it, you maybe you reinvested that in a different type of insurance where you can get your money back. Yeah. And no matter what you can leave some sort of a legacy for your kids for charity, whatever it might be. It's just private versus public. Do you want to leave it to the government? You know, where? Are we all happy with the efficiencies of our PCs? And all that good point? Or do we want to take control of it our own selves and 80% of active duty military take the Survivor Benefit Plan, simply because they haven't even heard about it until they're at the retirement brief? That's, that's just the wrong answer. Yeah, that's not that's not fair. And the way we look at it is saying, listen, that 6.5%, that's just just going to the government, it's going into a pool of money, which is managed by a third party insurance, it's going to a private insurance company anyways, a government contracted insurance company, whose way over over at the cost, because when you're, everybody's paying the same, you're not getting you're not you're not getting rewarded for age or health or any of that stuff. And so, if these pensions are actually if we think about it like this, the pension is actually a gift from the American taxpayer saying thank you for your service, right? We always hear that thank you for your service, and they don't know what they're thanking us for. Right? Like, oh, you're thanking, you don't realize it in the form of this pension? Well, don't we owe it to them to be good stewards of that pension? Instead of, you know, just putting six foot six and a half percent backup to the government? And to that third party contractor for a just in case? What if we had a budget? What if we had a way to keep hold of it, so we could redirect it back out to the American economy, and then again, further, that potential opportunity, raising your human capital, start visiting on whatever you want to do?

Right, doing what you want to do? Alright, thanks for weighing in on that for Jennifer. Let's take Amanda's question. Now. Amanda Steckel wants to know, what's a good percentage to contribute to TSP, or other retirement plan. She's interested in the golden rule of thumb for percentage rates, and wondering if you should back off on the percentage to pay off your debt before you start contributing to tsp?

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's lots of different philosophies on this, if you were following a Dave Ramsey model, he'd probably say something along the lines of, well, if you're in the new Blended Retirement System, then then go get your matching for retirement. And that's, that's usually the rule of thumb, if you're getting some sort of a matching, go get the free money. So if the company is gonna give you 5%, if you got a 401k, same thing, you know, usually it's good, it's good to get back because hey, nothing, again, nothing wrong with having some sort of retirement account. But above and beyond that, it's like, what are our other goals here? Like, what's what's really important, and so maybe paying off the debts, sooner is is you know, you know, 30, but then, a lot of times, you know, debt is, is a resource, right? So manage properly, if I go far today goal, if our primary today goal isn't 40 years from now at retirement, and if it's instead our transition, and that changes the whole landscape and how we look at this, and for a lot of people, tsp may become irrelevant.

So would you say that it's pretty, it's a, it's an individualized solution that you sort of need to strategize for what's best for your family and what's best for you?

I think, unfortunately, in the, you know, with the goodwill we have around financial readiness and financial education, which again, the statistics show that it's not working, it's not incentivizing people enough to do it. But they're just saying what you need to do, and they're, they're blasting out to every single service member, this is, this is what you're supposed to do. It's like, well, actually, you know, while I, you know, following orders in uniform, the pay we get that's all private. So to lump us all into the same cookie cutter, you know, one size fits all solution. That's kind of what a lot of us are annoyed about where the military are happy to get out and be like, Alright, I want to go find out who I am now. But if your money's tied to a systematized approach that you can't be flexible with, then then all of a sudden, you either gotta either stuck, or you got to kind of, you know, unwind

it to become more educated about this. Would you advise that our workforce members attend one of your information sessions?

Oh, we would love to have them. Obviously, a big part of who we talk to is the military spouse, right? They're the ones that are even we're talking with Jamie are in earned that we've had it, we learned that, you know, the service member gets the briefing, but a lot of times, he's just like, Oh, that was just a PowerPoint slide where we didn't have to be in the field. I slept,

I cannot tell you I, my husband gets info all the time. And guess who never hears about it,

right. But see, the problem is, most of those that info especially when it comes to the insurances, it has to do with you, not really, the service member. So it's just kind of strange that we just, they just keeps going on like, that's like, well, the train, we put it on the training schedule, the training was done. Here's the PowerPoint slides that we all looked at, right? And there's a government employee, who's basically just going through those slides, like somebody from wherever the Pentagon said, Oh, here's the thing to teach everybody. And so they're not even aware assumption is that everybody should do the government thing. That's why we have it here. I'm getting I'm a GS 12. So I'm getting paid by the government. So you know, what's the problem? It's like, everybody's completely aware. And that's, that's what's quite shocking. And so when we're talking to people like this, we just want to get the word out, like whether or not they come work with us be clients with us. We don't care. You just want to educate? Yeah, we want to, you know, if we serve only those who are meant to serve as our motto, and I think that should be anybody's motto for any aspect of their life. And in that way, you know, we're going to educate some people, and they're gonna be like, yeah, that just feels better for me. A lot of people are say, No, I just like the systematized approach is easy. I don't want to think about it. And it's like, good. And that's what it's there for. It's not for everyone. It's not fair that I've been told it shouldn't be.

Will you take one more question? I know, we need to keep moving. But I had a question from Brittany. And then I had a similar question in the comments below from Nico. And so because two people are asking, I think we should bring it up. How do you handle medical debt? And I know, you may have a brief answer to this or not, but as that applies to the E M, F. P children, which are the disabled children of the military, how can parents position themselves or their children financially, which goes back to that medical debt? Right.

So I obviously have to know a little bit more about the circumstances of the medical debt and how that works. But, you know, this is this is usually Unfortunately, one of those tough love type answers. You can't always find some sort of loophole or a benefit system that's going to fix these things. But this is where the opportunity lies. It's like, sometimes you got to do the old American thing, and say, I'm gonna go figure it out. And I'm going to find ways to create more income. And as we alluded to earlier, there's never been a better time in the history of America, in the history of the world, for more people to step up, tap into, I mean, literally, the internet, it's going into the air right now, and creates a network, you know, find opportunities, you know, if you help, I mean, people can make money through businesses like mine, simply by saying, Hey, I like your mission, I want to help you, I want to learn from you all. You need to make more money, what tell me what to do, and I'll go do it for you. And then they'll give you an affiliate commission or fee. So there's, there's lots of ways to do and I'm not talking multilevel marketing. I know a lot of people do that. That's that's another animal that I think is close to really helping people step up. But they there's a lot of greed involved in there. And so it kind of backfires a lot of the time. But you don't have to rely on those systems because of the way things like LinkedIn work right now. It's just, it's actually kind of easy. You just have to want to go find the information and the opportunities and ask right people like me, they they everyone who's been through a position like mine, and they see someone that says, I want to go figure out how to be involved in a small business or an entrepreneurship, whether it's my idea, or I'm helping somebody else's idea. Don't worry about it. Just start,

just do it. Alright, Brittany and Nico. I hope that that helps you. Again, workforce, if you want to know more about finding the right financial solution for you, and the right strategy, Scott and his team could be the people to help you and he does give free information sessions, hang out until the end of this interview, and we will give you the link to sign up for that. Okay, so last few questions I have for you, Scott, I know, I know you're on a limited time window. So I'll try to move quickly. I want to know why us FetLife and why us vet wealth is something that you pursued as a digital organization. And how does that work for you as far as having a business that's completely virtual and distributed?

Great question. Because I just hated the other way. Yeah, I just wasn't I just ah, that to be in an office and like to try to schedule appointments, and then and then okay, I got somebody coming in and and they're coming in at five and so I'm emailing them to remind them and tell him about traffic and where to park and then I'm doing all this get everything ready. I'm all dressed up in a suit. And then they call me last minute. Oh, I forgot. I gotta pick up my kids. You know? It just like the constant. And that's just standard in the in the financial services industry or in a lot of a lot of a lot of spaces. And so it's just, it's just rough. And then then of course, when you're in a one on one meeting in person, usually is going to take an hour or two hours. And that's not just just my time involved, it's their time, they got to drive across town and or I'm driving to their house. And it's like, how is this efficient? And but the majority the industry is still does it that way. And I realized, no, I It's so much easier just to schedule a communicate online and zoom calls. And then you know, whenever we're in person, that's more sit down, having a beer, having a dinner, just playing with the kids having fun, we do business that you sit in your kitchen, I'll sit in my office, you know, you'll be comfortable in your space, we'll get to business take us 30 minutes. And you know, we'll follow up as needed, you know, and it's just, it's just a much quicker and more efficient. We've taken our typical client onboarding process from what could be anywhere from three to six months sometimes. Wow, that's pretty standard, to right now, just depending on how motivated they are and how aligned everything is, there's still levels of the financial industry that I can't innovate yet, because we have to go to the next level. But for the most part, we can bring that down to one to three months to get started in in the process. Totally empower that person to have better understanding of how their money's working like a monitor it better online, and so on. So

nice. Alright, so for your team, and for those who work with you. Do you focus on hiring military or active duty military spouses? Is that something that's a core value for you?

Yeah, absolutely. It is. This is all about me. Again, I came through the Rosie network from Stephanie Brown, she'd expanded it, she started there was never encourage military spouse entrepreneurship, but then that that came are allowed veterans in as well. And so I just want to be a resource. So whether or not somebody works with us, or learns from us and takes those skill sets to another job, that is their passion or whatever, that's absolutely fine with us, we have no problems. Training are actually one of my goals, believe it or not, is, is to train people on my team, even my current team members, like like Mitch, young kid, he wants to be a football coach, he doesn't want to be a financial advisor. Oh, wow. My dad was a football coach. Yeah, Iowa State. And so that resonated with me. And I was like, alright, well, if you go the traditional route of being a football coach, you're gonna have to, you know, work at a high school or make almost no money as a graduate assistant, you're trying to get up the ranks like they don't, it's a really rough life, like military life. And, and, but instead, he can, you can learn personal branding, influencing marketing and stuff, you know, virtual stuff through us develop sources of income through the financial services industry. And then when he's ready, I'm going to happily send him off to go be a football coach, where and because he can walk up to with some of the more famous coaches in the country, I bet say, Hi, I'm already making money, I learned football coaching. In my free time, I just wanted to do you guys don't have to pay me. Like, imagine walking up to any sort of mentor opportunity that you want, or something you really want to become. And you're like, don't worry about the money thing. I've got a thing, it takes me five to 10 hours a week, but it's just virtual, you know, whatever. You know, those are the types of activities I want to create. And so I want my people to graduate out from being directly in that life, because they're gonna eventually find either another mission that better resonates with them, or whether that whether it's like my sister, my sister loves gorillas, she just always wants to go to Rwanda and help the girls. So it's like, we can help her go do that passion. That's That's my dream.

Right? So that brings us to the opportunity that you want to announce to the workforce community. Yeah, right. So this is everyone who's watching this as what we have been all about tonight, we've sucked all of the knowledge out of Scott that we can for the hour. And we're gonna cap it off with this amazing training opportunity that he wants to extend to you. So Scott, please tell the community what that's about.

Yeah, this is this is a really fun and innovative way of training people about the financial services industry, I took on one one, to one extent of it. But really, like I was just mentioning, it's really about how do you what is marketing what is sales and marketing in the modern age, and it's whether you call it social selling, or influence and authority marketing, it's all kind of tied together. But the traditional if someone were to go be a financial professional, if you go to like a military job fair, and you run into these big firms, they're going to tell you, Oh, come join us for great look at our brand. And you'll come into our office, you know, wear a suit, and we'll train you for six months, we'll get you all these licenses, blah, blah, blah, and then at the end of it, you know, go out and you'll be a financial adviser go get clients. And so the assumption this is that's how I got trained and the assumption was okay, once I get the license They'll teach me stuff and I'll go start a business. And that's not how this industry works. It's got a 95% failure rate, because basically what they have those people do and is run through their friend list of friends and family and annoy them. And, and within two years now, again, 95% of them have failed out. But they've introduced their friends and family along the way. So the company has made some money, your

program is different, you're not trying to get through the friends list of the people who train with you.

Exactly. And so what we do is we flip it on its head, instead of worrying about any of the financial and licensing and all that kind of stuff, we want to teach that brand and an influence and how to, again, how to use social media, LinkedIn, in developing, you know, language, messaging skills, and all that kind of stuff, so that, you know, if if, in the context of the financial services industry, so you're going to be learning about all that stuff we were talking about in the process, but we're not. But within within a month, within the first month, you're learn more about how to actually find clients find an opportunity, find business opportunities, and that, again, that skill set could be used in really any business, even if you're just looking for a standard job, it's going to teach you how to how to influence with people that are decision makers, and then the second half of our internship, we will get into the financial side of things, and then find out hey, if you would be interested in this type of industry, we've we've developed a team approach where instead of that one person being responsible for finding a client, you know, being the financial expert, who does the teaching, and has to learn all the ins and outs, and then also has to do all the follow up in the paperwork and the admin, we find where people's strengths lie. Forget about the weaknesses like well, there's, we complement each other. And so there's some of us who just really like be out there and be networking and relationship managers. And there's others just like to talk about it and teach teach the new concepts. There's some who just want to sit, sit in the back and do the processing. And we just work together. And the results have been as awesome at how we can no more amazing rule. But but but grow our own our own

business. Amazing. So you've, you've got this internship program. And the first half is learning how to exist in the influencer space and how to make digital connections and make those digital relationships. And then the second half is all about learning the business of financial wellness, and seeing if it's the right fit for you, and sort of exploring how to utilize it to generate income for yourself.

Right. And, and at that point, after about eight weeks, we're very flexible on time per week, we say, you know, five to 10 hours a week is is is plenty of time. And then it just becomes you know, if this is something you'd be interested in, then you talk about the licensing and then actually going out and implementing it for yourself

even what a great way to learn how to build your own financial wellness strategy. Exactly. Taking an eight week internship to learn about financial wellness, as it applies to military families, it can be so beneficial to everyone in the workforce community on so many levels. All right, if you want to apply for the financial marketing internship with us vet life, US vet wealth, I am going to post a link as soon as this interview is over and in the link, you can register to apply, we'll ask for your first name, last name and email address. And then we will immediately email you the application process. All right.

On the financial side of things we have, we have a guide that talks about what we call the transition instead of a retirement savings plan. We created the trend of that concept with the transition savings plans. So that's what the virtual info sessions are about. That's our eBooks about happy to give all that stuff away.

Awesome. Where can we find the ebook

transistor savings? plan.com? And we'll have I mean, that's up right now. But I think for registry registering for the virtual info session, we'll probably just do that on a one on one basis. Okay, the schedule that

if you want a virtual in info session, what do you need to do?

Email us at info at us? vetlife

So that's info at us. vetlife.com.

Right. And if they want to look through the ebook and learn more about the transition savings plan, then go to transition savings. plan.com

Okay, perfect. Scott, is there anything else that you want to add?

I know this has been fun. I would just like getting the word out to military spouses always excited to have more more females in the financial services industry. It's a very, I mean, it's a well paying industry. And it's just a it's just a bunch of white guys. Nice to get nice to get Yeah,

I wonder if this would even be a good internship opportunity for the service members who might be transitioning. I know a couple of spouses mentioned in the comments below, you know, my husband's getting out, dot dot, dot and a month and three months and six months. You know, maybe you ladies need to tell your husband to consider this internship.

Yeah, we have. We do have a number of transitioning service members. going through it.

Scott, you're so interesting. I love your story. I love hearing how you overcame depression and how you used alternative medicine. I love hearing how you as vetlife and vet wealth came to be and how you're innovating the financial space for military families, but you're also innovating the employment space for military families. So you're a part of that remote work movement that we're, we advocate so hard in our

organization? Do we call Is there a phrase remote work movement,

virtual workforce movement, force?

I call I call my movement, the veteran liberty movement. Military Spouses are invited, of course, but the idea is, you know, if you want liberty in your life, you gotta go create it just like our founding fathers.

I like it. I love that. That's so powerful. All right. Have a wonderful evening, Scott, thank you for being on our on our show tonight.

Yeah, absolutely. And connect with me on LinkedIn. That's that's where I hang out most of the time. All right.

Have a wonderful evening. Bye, everybody.