Military to Civilian: Navigating Career Transitions

How much is your experience truly worth? It's a question that haunts anyone facing a career transition, but for military personnel, first responders, and shift workers, the challenge runs even deeper. Their professional identity has been shaped by a culture that values team over self. Don Gleason, founder of Achieve New Heights, joins us to crack the code on one of life's most challenging transitions. Drawing from his extensive military career and nine years in corporate hiring, Don reveals why so many veterans struggle to communicate their value effectively when entering the civilian workforce.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Transacting Value
• 1:22 Meet Don Gleason and His Journey
• 5:52 Military Culture and Career Transition Challenges
• 10:40 Resume Struggles and Interview Obstacles
• 18:13 The Art of Saying No
• 27:38 Taking Ownership of Your Transition
• 40:40 Getting Help and Finding Resources
• 50:51 Episode Wrap-Up and Call to Action

Transcript

Josh Porthouse: 0:00

The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast host and guest and do not necessarily represent those of our distribution partners, supporting business relationships or supported audience. Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for instigating self-worth when dealing with each other and even within ourselves, where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries, fostering community and finding identity. My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are redefining sovereignty of character. This is why values still hold value. This is Transacting Value.

Don Gleason: 0:49

Typically what I'll hear military say is well, as soon as I can get in the interview, I can show them how I meet the requirement, but it's the resume that gets you the interview Today on Transacting Value.

Josh Porthouse: 1:03

How do you value your time, your experience or maybe even yourself at the end of a career or at a midlife career change, especially if you have military experience, if you're a first responder, if you're a shift worker, if you're a student or anything in between, and that experience comes with a title? How do you put a price on it? Sometimes you can't, but in today's conversation we're talking with Don Gleason. He's the founder of a life transforming company called Achieve New Heights and we're going to talk all about it how to translate your career, your experience, your time and, ultimately, find value in yourself. I'm Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and from SDYT Media. This is Transacting Value, don. How are you doing? I'm doing host and from SDYT Media. This is Transacting Value, don how you doing.

Don Gleason: 1:47

I'm doing great and I appreciate the opportunity to get together with you and talk about this subject, because I think it sounds like it's important to you and I know it's important to me, so hopefully it's important to the audience, as they're listening as well.

Josh Porthouse: 1:59

It absolutely is right, and I can't speak for everybody who's going to watch this video or who's going to listen to the show, but to me, specifically, unequivocally, is it important and it's so underrated and it's so understated and it's so ubiquitous, which is the craziest sort of paradox I think you could put into anything. But before we get too far into the conversation or too far ahead of anybody who's jumping in to listen and watch, I'd like to start with you and then we'll roll into the conversation here in a second. So if you could just take the next couple of minutes for the sake of a baseline here and so people can get to know you a little bit, who are you, when are you from? What sort of things are shaping your perspective on life as it applies to all these things?

Don Gleason: 2:39

Okay, well, there's a big, there's a big thought there. Um born in Michigan, raised in Wisconsin, so I am a uh.

Don Gleason: 2:46

I'm a I'm a sports nut. So right now, with the Detroit lions doing so well in this last year, the Detroit tigers doing so well, and then I'm a Packers fan, right. So, um, it's kind of a kind of on a heyday right now, two teams going in the playoffs. I'm a big sports nut, and that comes from back in 1972. I started on a path. I wanted to play in the nfl. That's a whole nother story. We'll get there, but it didn't make it, obviously. But that led me to really be involved in sports, interested in sports and and develop myself, and weight has been important for me, especially since I almost got kicked out of OTS on day three because of weight. That's a whole nother story, and uh, but what really got important to me was back in the fifth grade the first earth day in 1970, and it inspired me to really be involved in the environment. And even when I got out of the service in 2009, what I wanted to do was get back into the environmental field. I really want to help clean America's waters. Through that whole journey, though, I've really jumped into leadership. I love leading teams. I love leading people. Of course, that means I have to lead myself, so I'm constantly improving myself, constantly growing and challenging myself. So I'm constantly improving myself, constantly growing and challenging myself so I can challenge others. You know, it kind of goes back to being a commander.

Don Gleason: 4:09

When somebody came in for uh, for weight, and we were to the point of an article 15 and I made a comment and he said, sir, can I speak freely? And I said sure, and he said, um, I'm having a hard time talking to somebody about weight, somebody who's so skinny. And I closed the paperwork and I said can I tell you my story Almost getting kicked out of the service on the third day, having to constantly change my diet, do all these different things physically at the gym every morning at five o'clock and I'm still only about 10 pounds under. And he says I didn't know. I said you're right, I don't talk about it that much. Maybe I should. I said but this is about me leading me so I can lead you, and I have tons of stories like that about how that has come out in my life.

Don Gleason: 4:57

So I love the environment, I love being outside, I love birdwatching now and hiking. We were just in Southwest Houston last week birdwatching. We already have seen 42 species of birds this year, that's on the 6th of January as we record this. So we have a little competition we play every year amongst my wife and I not each, not against each other, it's us against. Time is trying to see 365 birds. We won ahead of the number of days in the year, so it drives us to get out to Arizona and to Colorado and all these other places where we see a number of unique birds. We're going to go to Alaska this year so hope to see some unique birds up that way. So that's kind of who Don is Environmental guy, outdoors guy, leadership guy and love helping people, service.

Don Gleason: 5:47

I am a service-oriented person. That's probably why I'm in this business Seeing a number of my people. I call my people my tribe right, the military. My peers struggle with their career transition to the point of frustration, depression, suicide. They say it's one of the number one ideation for suicide is this career transition we struggle with and I'm trying to understand it and how I can help people through that process. And I'm 65, but I can't just stop working because as people are struggling, I want to help and I know I'm 15 years since I retired from the military but I think a lot of that is still pertinent and I've helped over 200 and some people the last eight years in that process.

Josh Porthouse: 6:31

What is it that you found? Do you think to be, I guess, a corollary or or a major corroborating factor to go to that kind of an extreme where career transition is literally life or death?

Don Gleason: 6:47

I kind of take it back to in the military, we always talk about, you know, being humble. There's no I in team. We don't talk about ourselves, we talk about our team. So when it comes to the job interview, when it comes to the resume, when it comes to the LinkedIn profile, we all struggle with being able to talk about ourselves, what we've done, how we've solved problems, how we've achieved things. And if you can't talk about those things because that's what the hiring manager wants, you struggle with getting a job. What I see most resumes are is a list of responsibilities. What I see most resumes are is a list of responsibilities.

Don Gleason: 7:23

I was responsible for it. I managed a budget of 55 million. I led 465 people Okay, those are good, but what did you do with that? How did you leverage your knowledge and experience to solve problems? Right, when I was in Baghdad, iraq, leading the reconstruction I could talk about, you know, started 2,000 projects, $12.8 billion program Okay, those are neat, they're big.

Don Gleason: 7:50

But what did I do? Right? There was one week where the boss challenged me to baseline the program, to figure out the costs, where we were wasting money and make recommendations. And we walked through and we saved on a $12 billion program. We probably saved about 1.25 billion dollars in just a five-day review, just making some simple tweaks. That now is a little bit different, but a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about that because it's talking about themselves and I think that's a big piece of it the culture, the value, transacting values, the values we created and be and what it became impacts us. And now being able to talk about ourselves later. And it's not so much bragging, it's talking the facts, it's. This is what we did. If you get into a lot of the back pounding, it was all me and blah blah that goes to the next stage, right, but if you're just talking about, this is what we did. Here was the challenge, you're telling a story. Here's the challenge, here's how we did it.

Josh Porthouse: 8:57

Here's the results. It seems kind of simple, but very few people do it Well. So how does that, let's say, ability or maybe inability to effectively and accurately tell that kind of a story then lead to that kind of an extreme as a, as a behavior and outcome?

Don Gleason: 9:11

So think about it. If the recruiters, for every job application, get 200 resumes and that's that's a number that I hear tossed around a lot, 200 applications, resumes for every job and they quickly start sorting through it and they take the the uh, the job advertisement and they take the resume and say quickly, in six to eight seconds, does this person qualify? And if it's not well written, if it's not targeted toward the job ad, what you quickly say is no, we toss it aside, and they're looking through those 200 to find somebody who meets that requirement that they can take forward. Typically what I'll hear military say is well, as soon as I can get in the interview, I can show them how I meet the requirement. But it's the resume that gets you the interview. You have to be able to say you're looking for this, I have this. You're looking for B, I have B. Looking for C, I have C. But typically what I'm seeing is resumes that you have to hunt and peck through.

Don Gleason: 10:13

I was talking to a gentleman about a month ago and I said I'm not seeing that you're really targeting. He said, well, I targeted it. I said yeah, but I had to go to page three to find the most important thing. It's probably page two. It's only a two-page resume. You had to go to the bottom of page two to get to what looks like the most important thing in the job advertisement is your skill in this. Why don't you put that in the summary? Hit them right on the head with it? When I was looking at it today, I got five years experience working service. Now that's what they want. Put it right there in the summary. But we tend to hide it down below and we make this generic summary. So it leads to because we're not targeting the resume, because we're not really articulating our value, we're not really showing how we've done the things they're looking for. It leads to being tossed out of the pile. Knowing how we've done the things they're looking for, it leads to being tossed out of the pile.

Don Gleason: 11:06

John Maxwell I'm on the Maxwell leadership team, certified speaker, trainer, coach and get to use John's material number one leadership expert in the world, and by many some people debate it, but by many organizations and he talks about getting out of the people pile. There's 200 people in the people pile. There's only two ways to do it right. You got to be able to articulate that you have the experience, knowledge degrees, et cetera, so that you get separated and they quickly see it, or somebody else has to help you get out of the pile through a connection, right, that's the whole networking piece, but you got to get out of the pile. I think as long as we do what everybody else is doing, we stay in the pile and we stay frustrated, and when that goes on long enough, it leads to depression. When it goes on long enough, it leads to the wrong action.

Josh Porthouse: 12:01

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Don Gleason: 12:53

I think as long as we do what everybody else is doing, we stay in the pile and we stay frustrated, and when that goes on long enough, it leads to depression. When that goes on long enough, it leads to the wrong action.

Josh Porthouse: 13:08

I think maybe there's some sort of falsity or inauthenticity in the reward system, or maybe just promotion metric within the DoD, or maybe just promotion metric within the DOD. And for anybody who's new to my show, most of my professional career and development has been in the Marine Corps, specific to the infantry. But that's where this next point's coming from. So you know, in order to get promoted, even in relative degrees of meritocracy throughout the DOD, the Department of Defense, you have to submit at minimum once a year and this is almost every rank but a report that says here's what I've accomplished. And it's very transactional, it's like you said, it's sort of objectively fact-based, and the only way that that gets grounded is in numbers and quantity, or quantifiers over qualifiers, unless they're very colorful adjectives that are not any sort of backstabby type nuanced meanings.

Josh Porthouse: 14:02

Well, in those reports, I think a lot of this, to the point you're making, don, is what sets us up for that kind of expectation. Because, well, that's all we describe, that's all we get used to, and you know, say, 17 to, well, 28 years old, while our brains are still forming, we're conditioning our habits of thought into. This is how I articulate my worth, then, because that's what gets me more, whatever responsibility, money, free time, any number of allowances or incentives in the process, a duty station preference right, allowances or incentives in the process, a duty station preference right. Does that translate outside of a resume, even maybe just in public discourse or a conversation like this, let alone on paper, to get us out of the people pile? Or is that an inaccurate way to train ourselves to be able to do that? What have you found?

Don Gleason: 14:53

So I think it definitely does have a connection. As we're saying, when you go through your career and you're writing, like you said, the performance report, the FITS rep efficiency report, whatever it might be, every service is a little bit different, right, we're all shooting for that top 1%, 2%, 5% stratification and I've seen it way too often. You've probably seen it 30% or 40% of the people get that 5% strat, unfortunately. So we, we over inflate the performance report. I remember back in the early eighties on the uh I know it was on the enlisted side, for sure, it was rate one through nine, but the nine was the average, eight was marginal, seven was unsatisfactory, maybe separated out of the service with a seven, but on a scale of one to nine, shouldn't seven be pretty darn good, right? So now everybody's a nine and we start going through life thinking that we are, we are awesome, we're great. And when you start having that mindset, you don't separate, separate in your own mind. Where are your challenges? What are you growing? What do you need to do to improve? Um, I remember going on, we had uh in the early 2000s.

Don Gleason: 16:10

We had a feedback process in the air force and you had to, once a year, sit down with your boss, I think every six months sit down with your boss, and most of the time what I got was doing great job, Don keep it up. I looked at my boss and I said, sir, I know there's things I'm not doing right. I know there's things that I can improve on. What would those be? And he goes, I can't think of any. I said, but I didn't say this, but I wanted to say this On your this, you know, on your promotion recommendation form, to get to be a general officer, you had to have a number as a colonel and maybe as lieutenant colonel, you had to be set up for this high rank. Right, you become a low number? Right, he's my number one, my number five, whatever. It had to be a real low number. I never had a number I didn't have a low number.

Don Gleason: 16:54

I didn't have a number, so I wasn't even close to being considered for general officer, right, right. But if you read everything else in my performance, my performance reports, you would think that I am walk on water. And it does relate into the civilian sector, because we don't put in the work at that point. We let that military performance reports. Because what do we do in resumes? We cut and paste. It's a cut and paste out of performance reports into LinkedIn, out of performance reports into the resume, and we're not really thinking into who is the audience for this.

Don Gleason: 17:37

Because for a performance report fit rep, whatever the audience is the promotion board, they want to see certain things. For the resume, it's the hiring manager and he has a job he wants done, very specific, with certain skills, certain qualifications, and you have to write to that. So you've got to consider who your audience is. Right In a media company, what's your most important thing? Know your audience. What's your message, what's their pain point, what are they looking to get out of this? And if we don't consider that in the resume, I think we'll mess it up.

Josh Porthouse: 18:21

So you have mentioned sort of this inflated mentality of maybe just even a lack of an ability to develop inquiry or self-awareness or insight and critical thought around it. But if everybody, like you said, on this nine scale being the high end, if everybody's a nine out of nine and that's how you'd sort viewing well, objectivity and these types of qualifiers got me a nine out of nine, I'm doing pretty good how do you even develop or counteract that sort of sense of entitlement when it's totally inflated and wrong? I mean, what do you? What do you do? What are their steps? Is there a manual or something? Or do we just have to trial and error through conversation with people and fail a few times over Because that doesn't sound like it's going to help any degree of depression or that kind of a mindset either?

Don Gleason: 19:03

That's right. So think back to what we did do. What we came up with was certain words we would use for somebody who's really a top 10% or a top 20% or top 30%, and then we started coming up with a stratification top 20% or top 30%. And then we started coming up with a stratification. So if you were in the top 5%, we would say in the bottom line of your senior Raiders endorsement, he's in the top 5%. Might be your Raider, it might be your senior Raider, but we started putting this percentage. So you got just use the number 200 people that are all rated nine out of nine, but now there's only 10 who are in that top five percent, and those ones are eminently qualified or something yes yeah, so we've had to.

Don Gleason: 19:46

We've had to create all these qualifiers within the document, and that's where a lot of people started saying, oh, this is the good old boy network. Because you had to.

Josh Porthouse: 19:56

You had to be brown nosing doing this and that to be able to get that top five percent yeah, but some of these 30 people that maybe shouldn't have been promoted are the ones who got promoted and now they're the ones writing the reports.

Josh Porthouse: 20:08

So it comes across that way because their critical thought or leadership style or whatever maybe isn't as well developed or isn't as well suited to the position they find themselves in sometimes. And so you know from from uh, the leadership, uh, like you mentioned, sort of the hiring manager perspective or the uh applicant perspective, right, all of these roles, I think when we get out into the private sector or public, I guess it doesn't matter. When we get out of the DOD and our careers shift, for that matter, any midlife career shift how do you recommend we build some degree of awareness around the new system? I mean, is it a totally new skillset that I have to learn and go to school for, or do I already possess some degree of skills or strengths or anything that I can stand on to mitigate some degree of burnout or frustration or depression? I mean, what do I? Do? I have anything to offer at that point? What's my value? How do I find out the answers to those questions?

Don Gleason: 21:08

The ability to say no In the military. Could you ever tell your boss when he came down and said, hey, can you take this project on? Absolutely not. Can you say no, absolutely not? Right, it could be the kiss of death.

Don Gleason: 21:21

I remember when I was a captain and I was down here in San Antonio and I was working for a civilian boss and he had loaded me up with all kinds of stuff and it was Tuesday and I was trying to scramble hard to get a bunch of it done on Friday, which was the due dates, and he walked in with another big project. I just stopped and I said, dave, I just need to ask the question. I said, I think with what I've got done, what I've got on my plate, I can get it done by Friday. When do you want this done? Because if you add it to this week, it's not going to get done, not unless I'm here until midnight and I've got some things at home. I got to get done this week. So, and so he, he picked it up and he walked out and I was like well, I'm looking for a conversation here, boss, I'm not looking to upset you. Well, he didn't give me another assignment for like three or four weeks. So now my plate is clean and I walked in. I said, dave, I'm ready for some more stuff. And he goes. You said a couple of weeks ago that you were overloaded. I was overloaded that week. Right, those things all got done. You're managing what I'm working on beside the bigger projects. So it was a lack of communication between he and I, and I think that probably happens way too much where we're not really clearly articulating subordinate to supervisor, team member to boss, right, or the flip side, the other way around, leader to the team member. And that's just that piece of being able to say no.

Don Gleason: 22:44

I remember walking in. I was filling in as a deputy chief of engineering in Germany and I was a captain. And I walked up to a friend of mine who was a captain I was the deputy, so I was in charge that week because the boss was out of town and I said Ray, can you take this on? And he said no, I wasn't used to that. And I said, can you give me a little bit more on that? And he said same thing. I basically said just a minute ago. I said he said I got these five things on my plate. I got to get them all done by Friday. I think I can get them all done. That's going to be one more thing. Are you telling me that that's more important than these?

Josh Porthouse: 23:22

and I said no, it's not more important than those. He goes, then I'm gonna have to say I shouldn't be your first choice, because these are all pretty important.

Josh Porthouse: 23:26

Yeah, but that's the difference, right, it's presented in a way that you're willing to understand and interpret in a tactful manner that's not overly abusive to your relationship or to the, you know, to the setting or whatever, and articulate it that way, and I think that's a well, I know that's a big point you're bringing up too, because it is saying no, but it's not saying no, right, it's, it's, it's, it's portraying it in a way that makes sense.

Josh Porthouse: 23:52

And I think that kind of thought process and ability to translate what's happening in our head, to communicate it more effectively, also applies to how we're selling the skills and selling the things that we have to offer, even if we don't realize it. So, like I said, most of my career was in the infantry and if I wanted to go get a job and I go tell somebody well, I worked with, you know, dozens of people on a daily basis, from sunrise to sunset, to manage and micromanage In some cases their daily routines and habits and whatever they're like, dude, I wouldn't pay you 20 an hour to babysit my kids but it's the same.

Josh Porthouse: 24:24

You know, like what I'm saying isn't necessarily what comes across to whoever's interpreting it, and so it requires, I think, a degree of discernment, maybe. So how do we build that? Because that's not in the transition program at the end of your service, that's not even during your service something you get. So is it just like a magic beanstalk and you hope for the best? Or where do we get that degree of insight?

Don Gleason: 24:49

yeah, this.

Don Gleason: 24:50

This comes down to a very important question is it the military's responsibility to help us in our transition? Now, definitely, when we come into the service, we spend a lot of time training, adjusting, manipulating, whatever the word word is to make sure that the sailor, soldier, airman, marine, guardian has the right skills, the right mindset, the right attitude to do the job we need them to do in combat and in day-to-day Yep. Is it the military's responsibility, on the way out the door, to train them in the way that they're going to have to operate in the future in the civilian sector? Now we've said yes because we're putting a lot of money into career transition workshops and we're now doing the skill bridge program. We're paying for people to be three to six months in a civilian company trying things out, learning this, learning what a company is like, if that's the right company, the company, learning if that's the right member for them, right, we're paying that bill and so we've said yes and in that case then we need to do a good job to really train them.

Don Gleason: 26:05

But as I go through the career transition workshops and listen particularly to the resume piece, it's very vague wording and what most people do coming out of there, 95% and I've talked to a number of people who review resumes. 95% is all they'd list is their job responsibilities in the experience section. They don't get to that quantifiable, impactful, results-oriented, transferable skill it really shows. This is how I performed.

Josh Porthouse: 26:44

This is how I performed 95% is all they'd list is their job responsibilities in the experience section. They don't get to that quantifiable, impactful, results-oriented, transferable skill. It really shows. This is how I performed. This is why I was in that truly the top 5%.

Josh Porthouse: 27:19

But they don't know. Is it ever explained? Has it ever actually been? I don't know if justified is the best word, but justified and that's just the DOD. I mean that doesn't apply to law enforcement, firefighters, anybody in a similar sort of, you know, hierarchical type industry.

Don Gleason: 27:34

Yeah, there are certain things that tell you where you rank in that nine out of nine right. If you're getting the 5% or 2%, if you're getting certain awards, you're getting that next job right. You get pulled up to the wing to be the wing executive officer. Or you get in the Air Force civil engineering. If you got Langley Air Force Base Air Combat Command, you got to be the base civil engineer or the mission support group commander. There you were clearly on top of the game because they would only put the best of the best in that job. If you were, you know, at a small base as a base civil engineer, lieutenant colonel, squadron commander, um, and you're a small base without, without a really important mission. It's an important job but you're not in the top five percent or ten percent. So there are ways that you can see, if you're paying attention, where I fit in that stratification. Just like I was saying, you know I didn't get a number on my promotion recommendation form. That was a. That was a sign I was not in that top percentage to to be considered for general officer. The bad part was I was a colonel before I even ever heard that a number existed. Nobody ever told me the game right. So, from that perspective, I didn't know. Other people knew. So we got to pay attention. You got to have bosses who are willing to talk about. This is how the game works, and I hate to use the word game, but it is a game. You could use the word process, you could. Where's the system? This is how the system works. This is how the process works, but this is how this works. This is what you got to pay attention to. This is what you got to be doing and unfortunately it could go back to something else.

Don Gleason: 29:12

You said burnout. Right, burnout is a lot of time, is a? Is priorities mismanaged? Is priorities mismanaged when? When we start hanging around the office, because the I remember being a squadron commander, I was in meetings until five or six o'clock I would come back, I'd do some paperwork and then I would wander the squadron just to see if anybody's around. Lights are turned off, things are secure. I'm ready to leave the building. Right, it's not really my job to secure the building, but I'm just kind of doing a quick check, making sure everything's okay, and I'll find some people that are working Well when people are hanging around, just in case Colonel Gleason comes walking down the hallway so that I see them working. That's the wrong reason to be there.

Don Gleason: 29:53

But we did it so that we would have a few minutes to talk to the boss, to talk about what we're doing, to show them that we care and somewhere we created a culture. Talk about values, culture. We created a culture that that was the way things were supposed to be done. So now we're giving up time. The workers are giving up time with their family, they have dinner, giving up time with their family to go to activities, whether it be a youth group or a sporting event or drama music in the school, and all in the hopes of being promoted. I think we've created that. I think that culture is a problem and the reason I jump into this is because we've now been trained in that culture. It's now become our value to work late, to give more, to skip family time, value to work late, to give more to skip family time. We get on the outside and what do we? What do we start?

Josh Porthouse: 30:47

to do?

Don Gleason: 30:47

we start to do that exact same thing well, the habit, yeah, yeah, that's not a habit. So what I do in my process is I really get people to think back to just forget about what you've been doing. What do you want going forward most? Most everybody says I want a job, good pay and benefits. I want a good impact, but I want to be able to leave by 5.30 or so so I can go home and have dinner with my family. I can be with the kids A lot of them are still teenagers, maybe younger I want to be involved as a parent. I want to be able to go to sporting events. It's okay. So now we go back into what has happened and how do we need to change that mindset so that, going forward, you can make that happen? And what questions do you have to ask in the interview to make sure that they have the same values? The company has the same values that you have?

Josh Porthouse: 31:39

Yeah, so that was my next question. We talked a lot in this conversation about the individual, the applicant, for example. What about the company? What are we looking for? Because I feel like to ask questions, or appropriate or effective questions about any of these types of cultures and climates. We have to at least have thought about what we want and what we're looking for, right. So what are the steps? How do you do?

Don Gleason: 32:02

it. The first part is knowing what you are looking for. I help people create what I call a life description. Right, this is how I want my life to play out for the next once I leave the service, for the next 20 years or, however, depending on how many years of service you get out at, just in 20 years. So you get out at 38 to 45, got another 20 years or so in the workforce. What do you want the next 20 years to look like? And then be able to think about what are the right questions that I need to ask the company to get a feel for it.

Don Gleason: 32:37

So for me, what was really important for me was I want to develop my people, I want to be developed. I want to develop my people. So, Mr Company, talk to me about your personal development process. And when I talked to Booz Allen Hamilton, they talked to me about the 360 degree assessment process they use and that every quarter, once a year, we would rate everybody. Every quarter we would rate 25% of the people and we'd spend five days rating that 25%. And it was five minutes per person, two minutes looking backwards, three minutes looking forward and we would have. You know, somebody has gone through and interviewed five or seven people that this individual has worked for say it's me. My rater goes back and talks to five or seven people who have worked with me. It's a feel for how I've performed, where I've done well, where I haven't, Puts it down and we talk about how we're going to develop that person for the next year.

Josh Porthouse: 33:28

I thought that was fantastic. You're saying take an actual vested interest in somebody else's well-being other than the organization Correct.

Don Gleason: 33:38

Well, that's different too, Because if you develop the people, the organization is going to succeed. Right, that's the whole concept.

Josh Porthouse: 33:43

It depends on your perspective, I guess. Look at the Department of Defense. It's not people-driven, it's industrial-driven, industry-driven. You know what I mean. It happens to include everybody and there's programs to help people and manage your family, manage your finances, manage your time, but it's all rooted in professional development for the sake of the organization and the industry, not for the sake of the people.

Don Gleason: 34:04

generally speaking, I can agree with that. But if you want to raise the performance of your company, of infantry in your case, right your company, your regiment, you start at the people level. Make sure the people understand the values, understand the job, understand how they perform. They perform together as a team. So you're doing all those different aspects to make sure that each individual is doing the best they can. Each individual is the team is doing the best they can. It's almost irregardless of the technology or, when you say, the industry, other contractors who are supporting us. It's that military piece of how we work and perform and develop each other. So if the leader is working to identify weaknesses or challenges or areas of improvement you know, and works to improve those, their performance should go up and the team performance should go up and therefore the company performance goes up and the team performance should go up and therefore the company performance goes up, company being either the military, company company regiment battalion squadron, the unit or, on the outside, the organization, the company Booz Allen Hamilton.

Don Gleason: 35:15

If I'm focusing on Don Gleason and the people he works with and they're doing better on proposals and they do better on contract performance, then the reputation of the company will go up. Thus the revenue of the company will go up. The profit of the company will go up. You'll have less problems. But I think we're seeing a lot of things is, where we don't develop the individuals, all of that starts to fall.

Josh Porthouse: 35:39

Yeah, well, I think that's the aspect of the training programs, right, that get delineated or pushed down to, uh, let's say, lower tiers of leadership within the rank structure of any particular unit in the dod. But then the how, why, the actual critical thought and discernment behind the metrics isn't always communicated as well either, and I think then to build that kind of insight may be the biggest gap, based on what you're saying.

Don Gleason: 36:09

I think you just hit a key point right. Leadership is about communication. It's about casting a vision. It's about seeing more. John Maxwell always says leaders see more and they see before. Right, there was a.

Don Gleason: 36:21

There was a great video going into the 2009 housing crisis is they were putting mortgages together into junk mortgages and the one company fell. I can't remember the name of the movie, but the CEO is there and he says you know, my job is only one thing is to see, six to nine months down the road, what's going to happen and how do we, how do we either take advantage of it or stop it from killing us? Right, and that's what a leader does. The leader is thinking of all the things we're doing, what's going to happen in the next three to six months. What do I? What new resources do I need to bring? What new training do I need to have? What's the what's the enemy going to do? You know all these different pieces. Do I need to have? What's the enemy going to do? All these different pieces? And if the leader really gets out ahead of that, then they can be training their people and developing their people to make sure that those things are going to happen. But you bring that back to the career transition for a second.

Don Gleason: 37:13

So if the military is not really focusing in on the individual leaving the service, and I think we can say, even though they have a program, they really don't. Because when you go to your boss and say, hey, I want to take the TAP program, it's five days, it's five weeks from now. I want to take the TAP program. I'll be out of the office that week and a lot of bosses say no, why do you need that? All you have to do is write a resume. There's going to be plenty of companies outside the gate waiting to hire you. This is going to be so simple. This is not a hard concept at all. So what do we do?

Don Gleason: 37:51

I think the numbers that I saw and I think this came out of a letter from Congress to the chiefs of staff and the chairman of the joint chiefs of all the services you know, chairman and chiefs of all the services and said you're failing. And they did a study and 45% of the people, as they're transitioning out of the service, do not attend TAP, even though it's a mandatory program. You cannot separate or retire without having completed it. But 45% are not doing it. And then there's another 35%, something like that, that while they're attending they constantly are stepping outside doing work, taking phone calls. So they're present but they're not present. Surely about 15% or 20% were really paying attention and really completing TAP program or ETAP program in any good means. That shocked me. But so what's the expectation, what's the accountability? And are we really training people? Because I can tell you numbers of people who didn't do anything for their transition until the day they literally retired and they wanted to take their permissive TDY and their terminal leave. So it was really on their retirement date that they finally said, okay, now I'm ready to start looking for a job, and they're shocked that it takes. Six to nine months is a typical standard. So I don't think we we are, we're doing things, but we're not really doing the right things to get people where they need to be on the transition.

Don Gleason: 39:22

I was lucky I got to interview. This is for a job as a major and two jobs as a Lieutenant Colonel. By the time I made Colonel I was no longer allowed to interview. So previously I had written, I wrote my own resume. I had gotten feedback on my resume, I tweaked it. I had showed it to my boss. I used it for interviews. I got feedback. So when I got out of the service 10 years later, I had some of that experience. Today you don't get any of that experience. It's all handpicked, chosen for you. Don's going to go here, fred's going here, jim's going here.

Josh Porthouse: 39:59

Well, you mean within the DoD, within the DoD?

Don Gleason: 40:00

Yeah, that's going to go here, fred's going here, jim's going here. Oh, you mean within the DoD. Within the DoD, yeah, that's kind of that. So when you separate or retire, you have no knowledge at all of how to write a resume, how to do interviews, how to do a lot of those different skills that you need.

Josh Porthouse: 40:14

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Don Gleason: 41:13

So so when you separate or retire, you have no knowledge at all of how to write a resume, how to do interviews, how to do a lot of those different skills that you need.

Josh Porthouse: 41:22

Yeah, even to that point, what qualified you to be in those positions? Yeah, it's a, it's just a face value, I don't know Well. Like that's where I got assigned, so that's where I went, that's what I was told to do, so that's what I did. And then I'm sure there's a. So that's where I went, that's what I was told to do, so that's what I did. And then I'm sure there's a variety of reasons that I'm just unaware of why Skillbridge, for example, is 180 day transition process at max, but of what's allowed.

Josh Porthouse: 41:47

To the point you just made, though, it did take about six months for me to get my feet underneath me and find some degree of self-worth or satisfaction, or self-soothing, or self-awareness and self-actualization to be able to do a job effectively outside the DOD.

Josh Porthouse: 42:03

You know it's easy to say I can fulfill a task whatever it is, and I'm the kind of person where if you tell me something and you show me once, I can go do it. I don't need you to micromanage right. Those comments, I think, are pretty easy to throw around for most people getting out of the military, regardless of time and service, again, could be anybody, first responders, any occupation. But then to stop and think for a second what happens if you're not told what to do, or if you, like you said, have to get yourself the interview and then maybe a second interview before you even get the job and somebody tells you what to do. All of those other steps in the process don't generally exist, and so I guess Don, really, for the sake of time, this is probably going to be my second or third, third to last question here. But how do we develop them, that degree of insight or that, those kinds of self-assessments?

Don Gleason: 43:06

I remember being in baghdad. I talked about this job, you know, doing the reconstruction of baghdad, and I was, uh, I made colonel. In fact I got frocked to be colonel right, I was a colonel selectee so they promoted me to colonel to fill the job. Um, coming in there, coming in the air, in the army, in the marines, not coming at all in the air force. So it was unique.

Don Gleason: 43:28

And, uh, about halfway through it, a buddy of mine who was at air war college, wrote me a note, an email, one night, said hey, we're, we're working on a project here to figure out how to train people to do the job that you're doing. And I thought about it for a minute and I said I don't think in two weeks you could train anybody to do what I'm doing. It has been the number of years of experience, the types of jobs that I've had, the experiences that I've gone through to prepare me for this. So don't think you can take somebody who's always been a staff officer, just to use an idea who has no field experience, to be able to come out here and excel in what is a field experience job, or vice versa. Right, if I'm all field experience and I'm going to a headquarters. I'm not going to be able to excel because I'm not familiar with that environment Right.

Don Gleason: 44:26

So I think it's the same type of thing. So I think we are doing a disservice. We've made it easy for the military to move people around in key jobs, but I think we've lost the ability for them to write a resume, to interview, to get that feedback. We have to think back to what is the process that we're going to ask people to do when they get out. Not we, we're not asking this. The civilian companies are asking this is what I'm looking for. And if we don't get that feedback back into the system and prepare them and make sure that they've done it somehow, you're not going to get there.

Don Gleason: 45:02

The Air Force Civil Engineer community through the Society of American Military Engineers I got a banner behind me for those that don't see the video Society, s-a-m-e Society of American Military Engineers we do a career transition workshop on top of the tap right. This is for this engineer community, all services and in February we started doing classes and then people write their resumes and then they get assigned to a mentor and they get feedback on their resume and they update the resume and then they've gotten more feedback and then we do somewhere in the april time frame. I think it is. We get together and we do job interviews. So it's been a two-month process and this is well before skill bridge right. This is getting ready for that skill bridge rating, getting ready to get out of the service. So it is a hands-on leadership lab, transition lab, getting people ready for the process. We talk about the interviews, we talk about how to how to negotiate right, and we actually do mock interviews. We do mock negotiations. We're preparing people really step by step to do that and all we get in the department of labor dod tap program is five days of somebody talking about it maybe five maybe five.

Josh Porthouse: 46:19

That's assuming you don't want to just go be a student or start your own business and then you only get two and a half.

Don Gleason: 46:24

That's true, that's. Yeah, that's all changed since I got out of the service. Yeah yeah.

Josh Porthouse: 46:28

So there are a lot of uh deficiencies but, all that being said, there are a lot of good things too that prepare people, like, for example, getting the experience learning to translate. It may be a gap that's going to be addressed, I'm sure, in the future, as that uh, you know, gets reconciled over time. But for all the experiences and opportunities that you do get you, they're irreplaceable. I mean, you can't get them anywhere else. You can't fabricate them if you wanted to, and you certainly can't replicate them with ai. It has to be, oh yeah, hands on.

Josh Porthouse: 46:58

So you know there's going to be some interesting challenges, I think, across the board, both into and and from the department of labor, for example, into the dod for some late bloomers and joiners, but then from the dod into the department of labor or education, or, you know, sba or or even federal, you know SBA or or even federal jobs.

Josh Porthouse: 47:17

You know the culture may remain pretty similar, but I mean, can you well, you probably can't imagine, but for anybody else who's listening to watching this conversation, can you imagine having to take eight, four, eight, 10 years, however many of experience, and trying to custom tailor it one piece to one piece, to a job description, for every bullet point that they put in what they want to see. That's a federal resume, though. That's what you have to do, and if you miss a bullet point it's tossed out of the pile. You're not even considered. So you know, there there are a lot of expectations that aren't necessarily as well managed, I think, when it comes to those sorts of opportunities. Um, don, where do you recommend people go if they want to get in touch with you or any of the resources that you've described, to better themselves, or maybe even to become a client and work with you? How do people do it? Where do they?

Don Gleason: 48:06

go yeah let me just hold on. I'm going to hold on that thought for a second. I think it's important that you go back to the point of we have to own our own transition and what does that truly mean? What does that truly mean and what does that truly mean? We have to really start thinking about what we want to do and what's it going to take us to get there. Not just they're looking for a degree I gotta get a degree. They're looking for a certification I gotta get a certification. It's understanding the resume process, understanding the linkedin process, really working through that, getting somebody to work with on hands-on the ACP program, american Corporate Partners program, what used to be the Veterati, I think there's now a post-Veterati Get with people who've gone through it. Find people and really understand the process and make sure you're developing those skills, just like we would in the military. So I think that's important before we jump into connecting with me, and I think it's important we just learn that process. I really point people for getting in touch with me.

Don Gleason: 49:03

As to my LinkedIn profile, I'm the only Don with a middle initial, l Gleason. There's like 65 Don Gleasons, donald Gleasons but if you put the middle initial L and we'll have the link for you, I'm sure on the show notes, so I'd love to send me a note from there. So I saw you on the transacting value podcast. I just want to have a conversation. It's complimentary for military, not a charge at all. I want to pay back. I don't want to see people frustrated. I want to help them take the steps forward.

Don Gleason: 49:34

I will give you feedback on your LinkedIn, on your resume. I will give you network connections. We'll talk about mindset. We'll talk a lot of different things. You will walk out with a lot of value, even if you decide not to come back. But if you want to keep coming back, we'll figure out a way to keep working together and that doesn't always have to mean being charged. I'm going to have a whole bunch of resources this year. I'm creating a couple of eBooks based upon a course that I've just about finished creating, and I'll be able to give people a lot of information that will supplement and go farther. Based upon my experience helping 200 people, having been nine years in corporate hiring people, I hired well over 200 people.

Josh Porthouse: 50:11

I reviewed thousands of resumes and got tons of stories about that, so I think I really understand what the companies are looking for and where people are falling short, yeah, absolutely, which is the biggest thing, because it's the feedback luke that, like we were just talking about, it's um, uncommon, and so, yeah, for anybody who's watching or listening to this.

Josh Porthouse: 50:35

Obviously, like don just mentioned, he's exactly right, depending on the player you're streaming this conversation on, click the drop down arrow where it says see more or show more. That's the show notes that he's describing if you're new and unfamiliar to that format, and in there you'll see a link to get you to Don's LinkedIn as well. Now I think it's really really important, don, for me to speak for as many people as I can in this particular capacity and just say thank you, because what you're offering and what you're doing, based on your experience and your insight and working with other people, I think counts for a lot, but the fact that you're willing to do it and still helping people when it sounds like really you don't need to is huge man. So I really appreciate what you're putting together and what you're doing and why you're doing it, because, like I said when we started this conversation, it is underrated and, I think, undervalued and understated, and so I appreciate it.

Josh Porthouse: 51:32

So, thank you for all that.

Don Gleason: 51:34

You're welcome. If I can stop one suicide, if I can stop one divorce, if I can stop one even you know depression, it's more than more than worth it. More than worth it.

Josh Porthouse: 51:46

Yeah, and that's the thing, man. Occupational hazards are more than slip and fall. I think we're starting to come around to that reality, albeit probably later than necessary. But it's not meant to be a mental health plug by saying that, but I think there are a lot more corroborating factors when it comes to people that, like I said earlier, happen to be shift workers or first responders, service members, either during their periods of service, in whatever capacity and field and industry, or during the transitions after the fact, or decades after the fact, when they get done working in corporate and they're like well, actually I never stopped to think who I am. I'm an empty nester. I own my house, I don't. I think the point that you're standing on to actually make these changes is very important, so I hope you do it for as long as you're willing and able, but I appreciate it.

Josh Porthouse: 52:51

And to everybody else obviously, who tuned into the conversation. Thank you, guys for tuning. In the last piece. I'll leave you with all of our conversations, this one included, so you can go back and listen to it, or on our website at transactingvaluepodcastcom. Now here's what's cool On the homepage, in addition to the conversations, you're going to find in the top right corner a button that says leave a voicemail. Now, if you click on that button, you get two minutes of talk time. Now, if you click on that button, you get two minutes of talk time. That's all you.

Josh Porthouse: 53:19

I won't interrupt and I won't try to steer, but I'll leave you with these two recommendations. One, let us know what you think of the show, let us know your feedback, what you think of my questions, the conversational style, the topics Is it actually doing anything for you? What you think of my beard Anything, I don't care, I'm an open book and I'm down to take feedback. But two, in this particular conversation oh, it is Ole Mista. In this particular conversation, let Don know what you think about what he's describing, because there may be updates that he's unaware of. There may be new programs, new aspects that may translate more effectively to what he's trying to accomplish that he's not as aware of as you are. Let him know what you think about what he's doing or just tell him thanks, and whenever we get those audio files, we'll forward them along to him as well. But I appreciate everybody my team, obviously, you guys, everybody coming on to the show to talk about all these cool topics, and so I guess really all I can say is until next time.

Josh Porthouse: 54:11

That was Transacting Value. Thank you to our show partners and folks. Thank you for tuning in and appreciating our value as we all grow through life together. To check out our other conversations or even to contribute through feedback, follows, time, money or talent, and to let us know what you think of the show, please leave a review on our website, transactingvaluepodcastcom. We also stream new episodes every Monday at 9 am Eastern Standard Time through all of your favorite podcasting platforms like Spotify, iheart and TuneIn. You can now hear Transacting Value on Wreaths Across America Radio. Head to wreathsacrossamericaorg. Slash transactingvalue to sponsor a wreath and remember, honor and teach the value of freedom for future generations. On behalf of our team and our global ambassadors, as you all strive to establish clarity and purpose, ensure social tranquility and secure the blessings of liberty or individual sovereignty of character for yourselves and your posterity. We will continue instigating self-worth, and we'll meet you there. Until next time, that was Transacting Value.