SPARK.N.STRIDE with Mach
SPARK.N.STRIDE with MACH
Conversations exploring wellness, mental health, resiliency, and personal development with Mach a retired US Air Force veteran.
SPARK.N.STRIDE with Mach
Memories and Milestones with Air Force Vet Steve Weston - EP19
Reflecting on the incredible journey from military life to civilian arenas, this episode features a lively conversation with Mach and his office partner from Air Force Recruiting, Steve Weston. Listen as they share personal tales full of nostalgia and humor as they crack open a special bottle of spirits and reminisce about their service days. You'll hear about the remarkable experiences that shaped they're careers, from the intense moments of setting up airfields in Kandahar and Kirkuk to the profound decision of leaving active duty after 16 and a half years. This candid discussion highlights the crucial roles that camaraderie and networking played in navigating challenging environments and transitioning into civilian life.
Steve and Mach delve into military culture, examining the contrasts and connections between rapid deployment teams and the bureaucratic hurdles of a slower-paced setting. They also discuss the challenges encountered at the Medical Entry Processing Station (MEPS) and the importance of effective leadership. The stories shared are filled with valuable lessons, highlighting how adaptability and mentorship facilitated successful career transitions. This episode showcases how these experiences have shaped both of their journeys and the relationships that continue to influence their personal and professional development.
The discussion, delve into wider themes, including the challenge of balancing work and family life, the influence of different leadership styles, and the subtleties involved in transitioning to corporate America. As well as, highlighting the importance of fostering lasting relationships and the vital role of mentorship while navigating new career terrains. The stories are infused with laughter and appreciation, encompassing both the humorous episodes from their military service and poignant accounts of resilience and leadership.
We invite you to join us in this reflective episode as we celebrate the connections and personal growth developed during our time in the Air Force and beyond.
what's happening? My brother? Oh man, this is so much fun, dude. This is my office partner from air force recruiting mr steve weston man, the myth, the, the legend, the architect, the general. We are kicking it on Spark and Stride. What's up, steve? What's going?
Speaker 2:on man. Cheers to you, man, oh man. Happy holidays, bro. Same to you. Thanks for coming.
Speaker 1:Friday night. Friday night, and thanks for coming by to kick it with me, man. This is good, Is that not good?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that yeah, man uh 10 mile distillery I'll be taking a picture of that before I leave oh yeah.
Speaker 1:so this is, this is a special bottle revolution. Uh is the batch? And they have like a whole marketing thing behind it. They're upstate. Yeah, so this is my cousin's buddy's place from law school, so we were up there last week and hanging out, and is that not good?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's delicious, I'm digging it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:That's good stuff, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what's going on, brother?
Speaker 2:Man, I'm just trying to live my life, you know.
Speaker 1:Trying to live my life.
Speaker 2:You know, trying to try to live my life to the fullest baby. That's right.
Speaker 1:You know how this air force retired life is man it's it's a different ball game it's the golden ticket, man, it's the golden ticket.
Speaker 2:I feel like, shoot we, we, we hit the lotto, man, we hit the lotto yeah, man, you know all those years, know we would tell all the people that we brought in like it's worth going the long run, like going like the long game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this isn't a sprint.
Speaker 2:This is a cross country run.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And now it's paying off in dividends, you know, oh man.
Speaker 1:You know, like it's funny man, because, like with my situation, so when I got back from Afghanistan in 2016, I decided that I would get out, get off of active duty because I had an assignment to Korea, and I was just like man, I had like a gut feeling and I was like this just doesn't feel right. And it was like I felt as though for my entire career I had always put the Air Force first, put my service first right Service before self. And then in 2016, I was thinking to myself like man, like I want to do something for me, and that's kind of like how I came off of active duty after 16 and a half years, which was like everyone thought I was crazy and but you know, what's meant for you is meant for you, man. So what was written was already written. I just had to do what I felt was right and that was come off of active duty.
Speaker 1:I got into the reserves at the 514th and, lo and behold, man, I was able to piece my active duty with my reserve time and I was able to add up my points and I was able to retire. Because what people that are listening and watching need to understand is that the military retirement today is not the same as when we came in, so ours. We were considered legacy, if I'm not mistaken. So now it's not that, it's, you know, the blended retirement which has this. Good, you know, I'm sure there's pros and cons to it. I'm good with the decision that I made.
Speaker 1:Like my pro is pretty good man, but no man, it's good man. It's good man. It's good to see you, man. It's good to see you, man. It's good to see you, steve.
Speaker 2:It's always good to connect with former comrades.
Speaker 1:Absolutely man.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I stayed in Jersey. Some people retire and move away. We didn't. We stayed here, yeah yeah sure. Constantly running into people that we worked with in the past. Yep, you know I've run into you. What a dozen times.
Speaker 1:Sure, you know, At the beach here, there, At the beach on base, whatever you know not just you, but, like I, run into all these different people.
Speaker 2:You know that we you and I have both worked with over the years yeah, at different points, and it's cool man to like connect with everybody and see where they're at.
Speaker 1:You know, like some like like last you and I worked together, I had one kid, now I got four. You know, like, like things change, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know. So you got a little one now you know, like you know like you, you know, like we're both married got things going on. Uh, you know's just, uh, it's wild it's.
Speaker 1:It's cool, though, man, to like be able to get together and connect or reconnect, if you want to call it that, yeah, or be on my podcast dude like this is awesome, you know. You know what I mean, because. So folks will ask me they'll be like, hey, man, how did you do 24 years? Like how, how did you do that? Right, and without thinking about it, I always tell people it wasn't me, it was the people that were with me serving, because I always feel like it's those people that bring you to the next step or the next level. Right, because a lot of times, man like you're serving somewhere, but like your family's not nearby. This was a little different for us. Like we were in New Jersey, we had family, like in the area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but even though your family is still not experiencing the same things that we were experiencing, because, although we were still in the state of New Jersey, we were playing like a different role. We were active duty air force recruiters right after the the housing collapse of 08 yeah, you know actually during it, right yeah, at the tail end, right yeah I even, if I'm not mistaken, I think we even like had like one or two shutdowns when we were yeah, like 2010, right right, like two government or attempt government shutdowns or whatever.
Speaker 1:But but yeah, man, like you think about your 24 years and you just think about all these different people that came into your life that ultimately helped you get you know, get to the next phase of your career, almost you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because like to say, to even imagine that you did it all on your own is like that's silly, right, there's no way, it's like that old saying you know, it's not the place, it's the people in the place.
Speaker 2:You know, like I've been to some of the places in the world, like, you know, like some people couldn't even imagine, and it sucked. Combat zone is not a fun place, to be sure, I don't think anybody enjoys being there, you know, but like it was the people I was deployed with, you know that we got through it. Yeah, you know, and those are some of the people I'm tightest with. You know, like, even to this day, 20 years later yeah you know they're all over the world.
Speaker 2:We all retired now, or maybe they got out and went and did their own thing, you know 10 years ago or whatever. But I still keep in contact with a lot of those folks.
Speaker 1:You know there's a bond there you know, that's one of the main reasons why I even have Facebook, Like I mean don't get me wrong, Like I'll post every now and again.
Speaker 1:but there's a lot of folks that are with me on Facebook, that were with me at my first base. They're seeing photos of me, they're seeing photos of my daughter. Folks will message me and they're like hey, man, I feel like I know who your daughter is. I feel like I watched her grow up on social media, which is kind of trippy if you really want to peel that on your back. But yeah, man, I mean dude, you know, like you and me, 2010, 11, 12,. You know the office in East Brunswick.
Speaker 2:We were jamming. That was wild man. We were freaking jamming back in the day. Oh man, we were freaking jamming back in the day.
Speaker 1:Oh, man, you know what's a good feeling, too, man, is the folks, or the young men and women that we helped in that time.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You know that we helped them kind of get their foot into the Air Force and basically make a life for themselves. You know what I mean. Like they were looking at us. They're like man, like we want to do what they're doing, right, and and for many of them we were able to like get them to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's a, you know it's a good feeling, man.
Speaker 2:You know it was cool is um, it came full circle with with a couple of folks that we put in and I say we because we did it together you know whether they were mine or yours or whatever.
Speaker 1:You know we did it together.
Speaker 2:You know people like Tommy Z. You know he's crushing it right now Doing very well. You know I got another one.
Speaker 1:Remember.
Speaker 2:Nicola Marone. He actually ended up getting commissioned. We actually reconnected at McGuire. He, he came up to me at when I put on a E seven and, uh, he was there at my induction ceremony. I didn't even know what he was in the background. He came up and saw me at the end I was like, oh my God, you know, Um, you know. And then, uh, there's another one, Michael, who we put in. Not only is he having a successful career, but he ended up getting stationed in the 314th with me during my final assignment. So while I was a flight chief in Philadelphia, he was one of the recruiters in Atlantic City. So a guy that I put in, you put in, we put in, became a recruiter and I got to watch him do the thing. You know what we did for those years and he was actually my proffer for my retirement ceremony and now he's one of the first space force recruiters I was actually.
Speaker 1:I was actually retired. Yeah, he was, remember I was at your retirement ceremony yeah, yeah, wow dude, that's wild right, so it's like you get to see firsthand.
Speaker 2:You know the we helped build the foundation, but then you get to see what they did with it. Yep, you know, and it's very rewarding yeah, you know, super rewarding.
Speaker 1:10 years later, 15 years later, you know wow man and then you and then think about also so, so you know you're you're describing like a point in time that was roughly two and a half to three years, roughly this, this, this time frame almost right yeah is that? Is that fair to say, like this? I did yeah three right yeah so, but dude think about, like all the other people throughout our careers, that we somehow affected their life in some kind of way whether it was you were supervising them or whether they were your supervision.
Speaker 1:You know, like I always feel like if you're not. There was a part where my first year in the air force, I thought I was going to get put out Like I was on my way out, right. But what was cool about it was that, you know, someone felt they saw a little bit of myself in them and decided to mentor me, right? I never even knew what the word mentor meant was, or I never knew what mentee was. Yeah, in any case, you start learning and you start as you're growing into like who you are, and then you're growing into like who you are as a service member and then who you are as a service member in the air force, and then it keeps, you know, going on from there.
Speaker 1:But you come to realize that you are adding value, because in the beginning you don't, you don't, that's not something that you're being trained to do or something that you don't realize. You don't even realize, right? But as you keep going down the path, you start oh, like I have, I have something to bring to the table here. I'm adding value. And what I mean by adding value is that you're affecting how other people see themselves within the service you know what I mean like, even if it's, it could be someone who's you know been in longer than you.
Speaker 1:But maybe they're going through like a rough time and they feel like you're the person that they can confide in. So, just because they're maybe been in longer than you or have more rank than you, they see that you're someone that they could. You're an ear, you're a shoulder, you're you're a wingman.
Speaker 2:But it's true, you know, uh, you know, like the first six years I was in, uh, I was in the contingency response wing. Uh, it's now called the 621st contingency response Wing. You know what that? Unit is at McGuire. When I first got into it, we were just an AMS. What's an AMS?
Speaker 1:Air Mobility Squadron. So if I ask you stuff like that, I know what it means but I'm just going to act silly over here. I got you, okay, cool.
Speaker 2:So, coming right out of technical school, where we learn our basic job right, I was air transportation loading cargo planes.
Speaker 2:Not a load master but similar, and so I came right out of technical school and I went straight into the contingency response field, you know, and so I was exposed to things that were not normal for my career field um at the time, unless you were in like a mobile flight out of Charleston or in Germany at Ramstein, like they were very small teams that did like this bear base stuff, and so, you know, for six years I was in a unit that all we did was establish airfields from scratch. So, like Kandahar, I was on a team that started that. Um, you know, kirkuk Spiker, you know just riddling them off. You know, um, but there were like what you said, like on those trips you bond with those people. Um, your peers could be one up or one down from you, um, lean on each other. When you're in that type of environment, you don't have anybody else. At the time I wasn't married. My family was in Western PA. I was by myself in Jersey. These were my family, these were the people that I leaned on.
Speaker 2:And I learned a lot at a very young age. I came in right out of high school, so I wasn't out in the world for a few years. First, before I joined, I got my high school diploma and then I was gone, and so having Did you always want to join the Air? Force oh yeah, my father was in the Air Force. I grew up around it, a multi-generational family. I am the only one of my generation that's in right now.
Speaker 1:Okay, but.
Speaker 2:I do have a cousin that's in the next generation after me, that is in now. She's in the Marine Corps, okay. But yeah, you know, even my parents will tell you like from you know age 10, 11, right around there. It was pretty apparent. Really Kind of what route I was going.
Speaker 1:What was your dad in the air force?
Speaker 2:uh, he was a aerospace ground mechanic okay age? Yep, he did so. He worked on the generators that power the the aircraft on the flight line. Um, he did that for like eight, nine years and then he separated, got out wow, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, what was, um, when you went to kirk cook like that was my first appointment, but when you went there because you I'm assuming you got there ahead of if you're building up- the base yeah, we were there establishing it, you were like what do you remember about Kirk Cook?
Speaker 2:Cause, that was like old three, right Well so I was there right after the airborne jumped into Northern Iraq. Um, and so once the airborne had jumped into northern iraq, we went in to kirk cook I think 10th mountain division was there at the time uh and our role was to assist them in getting resupply. Um, we worked the aerometavax. So a lot of um, a lot of like folks not doing so hot you know came through my way.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, uh smoke pillowing clouds everywhere, you know, because it was in the thick of it yeah, we're still hitting things and hitting them hard, you know.
Speaker 1:And so yeah, um, do you remember what month you got there? I got, I got there in july. I got the july 10th of 03 I was like january wow, so you were yeah during, right before the wet season. Right Like.
Speaker 2:Kandahar. I got there in December of 2001. I was there until April of 2002. Yeah, the Marine Corps got there a little bit before us. They took the airfield, established perimeter and then we came in, set up comms, started turning aircraft bringing in resupply, and then we were there for the transition when the Army took over from the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1:Whoa.
Speaker 2:So like detainee camps were there, we put all the detainees on the aircraft to Guantanamo, like all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, man yeah Dude.
Speaker 2:Man, that's wild.
Speaker 1:So Kirk Cook was like my first deployment, and I remember, do you?
Speaker 2:remember the cantina, cantina, yeah, do you remember the canteen they had like an aircraft when netting all over it, or something?
Speaker 1:right, it was wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like uh yeah, like an old mig or something it was like that that was the the original one, and then it went.
Speaker 1:It went to like so that was the original one, and then it went to like the general, the air, the iraqi air force general's house, I don't know if you remember this, no, no, that's after my time it was like, uh, it was two stories, and then on the third they had like a sun deck, they had like a big, like oh, that's cool, like you could like look out, it's's wild man.
Speaker 2:Like when we got there, we basically we stay on the flight line, we don't go anywhere else.
Speaker 1:So we build, we put our even Kandahar, all of them.
Speaker 2:We build our tents right there on the airfield. We don't leave the airfield because we're 24-7 turning birds and helos. So we don't really get to go out and explore. We're there doing the job, right, but it's wild, like, for example, like at Kandahar when we first got there. I don't know if a lot of people know history, but what was it? Back in the 70s the Russians went through there and tried to do takeover of Afghanistan or whatever it is that they were doing there right. They got pushed back.
Speaker 1:Was it like a proxy war right, Something like that?
Speaker 2:We were supplying the weapons and stuff like that, um, but yeah, basic, very similar to like this whole ukraine thing, right, bro, but like 40, 50 years ago, right, yeah, um, but when we got there, because the russians basically, when they got pushed out, they just dropped everything and ran. They didn't take their stuff with them. So when we got there we had to set our tents up and build our camp on the parking ramp because there were landmines everywhere. We didn't have any minesweepers there yet, so there were landmines. True story. If you go to McGuire Air Force Base and go to the warfare center where the contingency response that fenced-in area by the C-141, if you go in there, that's called the Warfare Center. That's where we do all our reconstitution for our trips. There's also a force protection building in that compound, in that force protection building. If you go in there and look at the wall, all the weapons that are on the wall were brought back from that trip.
Speaker 2:The rocket launchers they're all russian rocket launchers, the ak's like all that stuff, that they're all like the bolts are taken out and everything like they're up on the wall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know they're on display because of force protection.
Speaker 2:We would teach air base ground defense. We would have to know what certain weapons were. You know things like that. Um, but yeah, man, like we just found them laying on the ground they just left them.
Speaker 2:You know like you're like pulling them out of the ground and stuff. Uh, it wasn't until like a month after we got there that the canadians and the norwegians got there with the mine sweepers and mine sweeped and then we then we started pushing the kandahar camp out into the dirt, so the whole camp was pretty much on the tarmac. So when we landed the aircraft we would have to land, do a 360 spin, load them and then they would take off from the taxiways because we had no ramp. We were living on the ramp, Wow yeah. So it was pretty wild.
Speaker 1:How old were you when?
Speaker 2:you did this 1920. I have only known one year of peace during my time in my 22 years. I joined in 2000 and in 2001,. The towers got hit. You know, um, I was actually in Egypt when the towers got hit. I was just going to ask you where were you? Yeah, I was in Cairo.
Speaker 1:Tell me, tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Well, there I was 19 year old, me, or me, I had just turned 20 during that trip, wow, and we were there for Iron Cobra, bright Star. It's a very large joint military exercise, one of the largest in the world, and they would do it like every couple of years on a rotation. Okay, so we would partner up with, like some Middle Eastern nations, some nations from Europe like France, italy, the UK the.
Speaker 2:Australians would be there along with the Jordanians, egyptians, and so we would go there and do joint exercises. We were also there like testing out new, like, for example, like folks that are in air transportation with no gates. Like for example like folks that are in air transportation with no gates. We were there testing out deployed gates for the very first time. What's a deployed gate? So deployed gates is like the system we use to track all our cargo movements tonnage load plan.
Speaker 2:You know manifests, you know what's going where and why. You know all that stuff. So if I'm shipping a pallet of cargo to I don't know King, Fossil, Jordan, that paperwork, all the hazardous materials, paperwork, everything is in there.
Speaker 1:You know we could digitally transmit it.
Speaker 2:But it had always been a fixed system at a base right on the hard line, had never been used in like with an MRSAT Iridium cell phone, like connecting with a satellite and transmitting that data like remotely. So, we would go out with like a mobile Iridium phone, a mobile satellite dish, like set it all up, hook it up to a laptop and we would transmit everything, like every night we would do a transmission and send all that stuff.
Speaker 2:But while we were there, we were there to set the camp up for the entire exercise and all of a sudden, one day, they're like everybody's locked down. We're like what, what do you mean? They're like no, everybody's locked down. So they locked us all down. We couldn't go anywhere, couldn't do's locked down. So they locked us all down. We couldn't go anywhere, couldn't do anything to us, nobody would tell us anything. And then it was like a day or so later they're like all right, this is what happened. The towers got hit, this is you know. All this is going on you know'm.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, like you know, the o5s and above knew what was going on like you know the junior enlisted. We had no idea.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know um and it's not like now. We're like everyone has a social media, yeah, like we didn't have that in 2001, right? You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean we barely what? We barely had email back then you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, I had a pager for crying out loud.
Speaker 2:You know like, um, yeah, but it was wild. So, like after they locked, they told us what happened. They're like all right, this is no longer an exercise like. This is real world, right. And so we went real world. And so now all this stuff we're supposed to be testing in an exercise, we're're now applying real world, real time. And so we started pushing special operations forward into Afghanistan from Cairo, and so that's why they were there first, whether they were brought in via ship through Kuwait or whatever, or through that sea right there, or we were pushing them via C-17s and C-130s from Cairo, you know.
Speaker 2:So once they all got in there, then we came back to McGuire reconstituted, and then we went back out to meet them in place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty wild. What do you think you learned the most about yourself? Like throughout, like because you're a young guy, when this is going when this is happening. You know what I mean. When you reflect back on that. Like what do you think is like? What's like your one takeaway? I'm sure there's many, but like one.
Speaker 2:Sense of urgency. Like you know, when you're trained, they say that all the time. Right, sense of urgency, attention to detail, don't sweat the small stuff, get it done. Right. You're like but why? Why, mach? Why do I got to do it? In those situations there is no why. It's like yo, we got to get this done. How are we going to do it? When can we do it? In 10 minutes? All right, let's do it. It's just, you learn how to think outside the box. You learn to adjust to everybody else around you. So, patience, right Understanding, but sense of urgency.
Speaker 1:Like this is life and death.
Speaker 2:Like if we don't do what we're supposed to do. There's a Marine Corps unit that's not going to get their resupply. If they don't get resupply, how are they going to do their job If we don't bring in new comm equipment? How are they going to communicate to the other teams around the area? If we don't bring in helos? How are we going to protect ourselves when we have an insurgency? You know, it's just like everything comes down to like if we don't do something right, like somebody could die, like and that's and that's real. You and you don't really feel that until you're in that situation, but like sense of urgency was something like, even to this day, like I have a hard time. I don't like being late, you know, like that's something like very early on. It was like ingrained I'm always the first person to like that's something like very early on. That was like ingrained I'm always the first person to arrive.
Speaker 2:Anybody that's ever worked with me would know, like if he ain't the first person there, he's the second person there. You know, and that's kind of the why behind that, you know, because I was brought into that so early in my career that I really wasn't developed like I should have been from the get-go, because my career field typically works a Stratport at, like Dover or McGuire or Charleston or Travis, what's a Stratport?
Speaker 2:A Stratport is basically like, if you go to the airport, all the people that work on that aircraft not the mechanics, but like the guys that load your bags in the fleet the passenger terminal, the passenger service people, the terminal operations center. That's all my career field in the Air Force.
Speaker 2:That's what we do and so like typically, that's what I would have learned. I would have been taught that. I wasn't taught that right from the get-go. I was taught parts of it, but the rest of what I was taught was combat operations For a while. We were actually called combat air transportation for a little while because we weren't like typical Stratport. We were very unique. The rapid global mobility mindset was developed in that unit. We developed it, colonel Kip Self developed that unit.
Speaker 2:We developed it. Colonel Kip Self developed that. That was his baby. He's now since passed, god bless him. But that's what we did, you know. And so, yeah, it was high speed, low drag. I'm going to tell you like I got pictures and you used to see my photo album in the recruiting office.
Speaker 2:It's like this freaking thick right and a lot of those pictures are in there, you know. And and that's where I learned high speed, low drag, just get it done, whatever. But the problem was is we bent a lot of rules because it was wartime, you know. So when I finally, in 2006, got stationed at Pope, working a strap port with the 82nd Airborne helping them out in JSOC, I was accustomed to high speed, low drag, get the frickin' red tape out of the way, let's just get it done. And they were the complete opposite. And so every day I would be fighting like let's just do it, let's get this done, let's load this plane, let's do this. We could totally have this done already. Like, what are we waiting on? And it was all it was red tape, bs, like egos got in the way, like, and it was like it, just it was so slow.
Speaker 2:I was like I didn't know, I, I got bored. Sure I got. I got really bored to the point where I was like I, I thought about getting out, you know, because I was so used to high. I did nine deployments in eight years, you know. And so, like, I was so used to high speed that when it came time to slow down, I didn't know how to, and it was a detriment to me career-wise Like I stagnated at Pope and I was thinking of getting out, and then my father was like why don't you just change career fields, dude?
Speaker 2:Right Now you're like, ah, you know what I mean. Yeah, okay. And so I thought about TI. You know, drill instructor. And then I thought about recruiting. You know, so, like my uncle retired from the Army. He was an Army recruiter for a while and my father remembered that it's my great uncle, his uncle. But he was like, why don't you try recruiting? Your uncle did really good at it, he could sell anything, give it a shot. So I put in a package, the old school way before all this. What do they call it now? Dsd, the direct service.
Speaker 1:Basically they non-volunteer. You now right?
Speaker 2:Basically they non-volunteer you now. But back then you had to formally apply to a package. Get pictures in uniform. It went to a board, you had to compete. You know what I mean pictures in uniform it went to a board, you had to compete.
Speaker 1:You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean and then they would select you or whatever. So I went through that whole process, man, and that's how I ended up in recruiting, but I'm so glad that I did, man me too.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad that I did Dude I found.
Speaker 2:let me put this ice in, yeah hook that up.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna, when I edit all this stuff, I'm gonna, I'm gonna add the pictures of us. Remember when we went to news 12, it's on my LinkedIn profile.
Speaker 2:I just shared that picture like a couple of weeks ago. Uh, Aaron Remus is in there. You remember her? She was the person that I put in that worked there.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's how we got the tour yes, yes, bro, uh was that. Uh, that is so right celia mendoza was a reporter there yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember you calling me. And you were like, hey, man, um, you're much. Uh, can you meet me at News 12? And I was like, yeah, what's up? He's like we're going to get a tour.
Speaker 2:I was like all right, I'll be there. I'll be there, bro. Oh man, that was cool, wasn't it? Like that was so, like they took us back, showed us the green room.
Speaker 1:Oh, dude, it was like I remember all that dude, like you know. So recruiting was probably the first time ever in my life that I figured out what I was good at.
Speaker 2:Oh, for real. Yeah, dude, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you were good at it.
Speaker 1:You're still good at it, but, dude, like I just didn't when I, when I first came in, I was trying to like I was going through a whole bunch of stuff like our situation is a little different, like you, grew up with your parents and everything. And you know like I was, I was in and out of like shelters and all this wild stuff, but I was trying to at the time. I have felt as though my girlfriend at the time, my high school sweetheart or whatever.
Speaker 1:She went away to school at Binghamton University and I just remember visiting there and I remember feeling like man, I'm not smart, I'm not smart, these guys are way smarter than me. This is what she's going to gravitate to as to, like a smart guy. And then, just when the whole air force thing presented itself as as an opportunity, I was like, oh man, like this might be my chance to kind of like show that I'm not, that I'm somewhat smart, you know what I mean, cause you know they're like, oh like, the air force is the hardest branch to get into.
Speaker 2:Because you know they're like, oh like. The Air Force is the hardest branch to get into. Yeah right, the Air Force, all that good stuff, yeah right.
Speaker 1:But even still right. So I had been in the Air Force roughly 10 years before I became a recruiter.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I knew I was. You know my job was medical logistics right. So I kind of figured what I was good at in like the logistical space, but going into recruiting'm like dude, there is no. I remember feeling like this. I was like you guys have given me a car, a computer, a cell phone, an office and keys to this office.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where it's, it's just it's just this knucklehead, and then you show up, and then I showed up like a couple months later dude, dude, like I'm like you guys are gonna pay me to do this like this is what you're gonna pay me to do. This is my own business at this point, bruh like it just.
Speaker 1:And then you just I'm telling you, steve right now with this whole thing, spark and stride, the podcast and all this other stuff that I want to get myself into. It's all the foundational things that we learned in recruiting school, absolutely, zone canvassing, establishing rapport, like it's all these things, and even like some of these other ideas that I come up with and I'll talk to my wife and she's like how did you come up with that? Like how, how did you come up with that? And then put this in place and this in place, and how did you get to that? I'm like I have no clue. Sometimes it just happens.
Speaker 2:But it's the recruiting dude.
Speaker 1:It's all of that stuff that we learned, all that stuff, and then, obviously, with a little bit of maturity and some time, and you figure out how to piece things together, and some time, and you figure out how to piece things together, but, yeah, man, that was like one of the I that was a great, great, great experience for me. Anyway, like you know, us being in that office and just the dynamics of, like, what we had going on. I think also, when you're in it, when you're doing it, you're kind of like it's almost coming, like you're almost like a duck in water. You know what I mean. Yeah, you're just like, oh, this is just where I'm supposed to be Right. But now that you know some time has passed and now we reflect back on it, it's like we were fortunate to get that experience.
Speaker 2:Man, yeah, you know, having retired and gone into corporate recruiting, oh you know, right, right like they're different, but there's a lot that's the same, right like at the at the core of recruiting. It's a sales job and we got sales certifications through our our various different. You know, like I, I think I have three or three or four you know, from pS all the way to oh.
Speaker 1:PSS professional selling skills.
Speaker 2:Professional selling skills. And then you know what do we do, Like Brooks Group after that, impact sales, Sure, you know. You know, investigate, meet, acknowledge, what is that? Probe, convince, tie right.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep Features and benefits.
Speaker 2:Features and benefits Mattress.
Speaker 1:You know, do you still remember that?
Speaker 2:that right features and benefits mattress. You know, you still remember that. Yeah, yeah, money, advancement, travel, training, security, self education. I didn't do it in order, but yeah, yeah, I was like.
Speaker 1:I was like what are you doing, bro? I still remember that they're like freaking 14 years you know, but dude let me tell you how I memorized the mattress pro so so day one of recruiting, it's, it's uh, it's a thursday, and then they give us the mattress, like you know, they explain it to us, they give us a blank sheet of paper. They're like, hey, monday morning when you come in, the very first thing you're gonna do, you're gonna fill in, and if you don't pass, like you're out, cycle out, recycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're out, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm like shit dude, like this is like the very first thing that I need to like memorize pretty much yeah.
Speaker 2:Remember the scripts.
Speaker 1:Yes, bro, we had to memorize whole scripts.
Speaker 2:Yes, Like verbatim, Verbatim Like, not like one-pagers either. They were like four or five page scripts.
Speaker 1:He's he's, he's telling, he's telling the truth, right, right.
Speaker 2:So you had to do your? What was that Week 13s? No, no, week 13 is when it was like the do or die, but we had several before that where the instructors would come in and act like an applicant. Yeah, you have no idea what scenario they're playing until you get into it. You just have to work the script right, sure, sure and then do the conflict negotiation, whatever.
Speaker 2:We had a couple people where they just had multiple people come into the office. One guy wanted to sell drugs or something you had to tactfully dismiss them, not here, sir, or a parent comes in and loses their mind. How are you going to handle that situation?
Speaker 1:Remember Bro, yeah, we would loses their mind or whatever. How?
Speaker 2:are you going to handle that situation? Remember, like you know, bro, we will watch each other. Do it Right.
Speaker 1:Like you would go in and I watch you, Well, well well, the other, the other part of it that you're leaving out is like the two way mirrors. The two way mirrors, yeah, yeah, right, so I'm going to try to describe it as best as I a bunch of offices and there's like a two-way mirror and there's a hallway in between yeah and at each mirror they have a microphone right that they could they could switch on and it's videotape, right, right yeah they could play it back and show you what you know,
Speaker 2:where you messed up, or if you did really well, they would be like, hey, when you, when you tactfully dismiss, like what you said, like that was perfect, yeah, you should do that every time. You know what I mean. You know? Um, that shit's wild bro. I don't know any corporate recruiters that ever had to do that. Yeah, any ever. You know, like we had to memorize the mattress first week we had to memorize the script. Week two and three, yep. And then week four, five and six. They are literally throwing us in a room and hitting us with practice scenarios over and over again, recording it two way, mirror watching us. Like one instructor would be in a room, the other two or three be behind the mirror watching and taking notes you know, and then afterwards there'd be a feedback session Like this is you know, what do you need to work on?
Speaker 2:This is what you're doing. Well, yeah, dude, what corporate recruiters you know went through that? I don't know any that went through that, not even in college.
Speaker 1:you know what I mean, yeah, sure, but you know also.
Speaker 1:So anytime that I did any kind of training within the military, within the Air Force, like early on, I figured out that you get a chance to choose your attitude every day.
Speaker 1:Yes, so if you show up with a good attitude because here's the thing, right, like so you you gotta always think to yourself, like one thing is like when you're in class, right like you're being instructed, there's an instructor and you're being instructed, then there's a break right, there's a break, whatever 10-15 minutes yeah, that's your opportunity, right, to kind of like start engaging, like your, the other folks in your class, and and start because if you just if you're gonna have a bad attitude, or you're, if you're not putting out the best energy and you're just like off to the side, like closed off, everyone's kind of like picking up on that, but you could be the person who's struggling in the course.
Speaker 1:But if you have the right attitude and you're a pleasure to be around and folks want to kind of like instinctively gravitate to you, dude, like that's, you'll pass, you'll end up being the top of the class, you will pass, yeah, right, but yeah, yeah, so in recruiting, my situation was a little different, because I was coming back from Italy, so I had to pass. I had to make it through that course because I had no base to go back to.
Speaker 2:So what would have happened was you'd have been left to the mercy of what happened was right.
Speaker 1:It would have been like oh sorry, you flunked out of recruiting school.
Speaker 1:now you're going to dais, you know, sorry, like that's where you're, it's wherever the yeah, the needs of the air force right up in minot or something you know, dude, so like I needed to make sure that I, I but yeah, but in any case, like that that was, I was a little worried about all the memorization. But then you know, like instinctively, I'm like no man, I show up. You know, show up early right, practice, practice, practice, practice. You want to talk about practice, whoa, but this is the playoffs.
Speaker 2:You're talking about practice. You want to talk about the game I love, so we weren't just doing it during the school day, like we were getting together after the day was done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we were running the scenarios, practicing the scripts. Like, like we were getting together after the day was done, yeah, and we were running the scenarios practicing the scripts, like then we would go out to eat, come back, have a couple cocktails. Practice the scripts. Yep, you know, like it wasn't just you go to class from eight to four and then you're done like dude, it was like legit, you had to practice. So, like, by the time you get to a recruiting office, you've had like seven, eight weeks of that, it's sinker, it's it's, it's it's fight or flight. You know, sink or swim, sink or swim.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean you're either gonna do it or you're not. You know, at that point it's a little different now because of dsd, but back then it was not as kind. Sure, you know like it was like listen, like you get it done. You know like it was like listen, like you need to get it done right?
Speaker 1:I've heard horror stories of people that got into recruiting for, like, the wrong reasons. Yeah, they're like, because back when we did it, we were able to. I don't know how it was for you, but like, coming from Italy, I had. So let me tell you what I kind of did, though Listen to me so similar to your situation, right, like you're in this career field, they're like, hey, maybe you should try something else. Well, in Italy I wanted to stay, I was trying to stay, and they're like dude, you're not married, you don't have kids, you're not going to get an extension, it's going to be a two-year assignment, right? So you don't have kids, You're not going to get an extension, it's going to be a two-year assignment, right?
Speaker 2:So talking to the chief.
Speaker 1:The chief was like hey, man, you should really consider recruiting. I think that's right up your alley, right, you should. But at the time we were able to put in our package. But then we were able to list the places that we wanted to, the offices that we wanted, yeah, but what I did was I called every single recruiting office in New Jersey along the parkway, like east of the parkway, every office so like from East Brunswick, all the way down Tenton Falls, all of them.
Speaker 2:Toms River, all of them.
Speaker 1:Just trying to see who the hell would pick up the phone. So remember Brian Newby from Tom's River. Brian Newby picks up the phone, tech Sergeant Newby. So then I established a relationship with him from Aviano, so I would call him once a week. I'd call him once a week, but now he's expecting my call on this day. So like now someone's going to pick up the phone and he would just kind of like school me to what it was about. And you know all these different things. Like hey, man, I don't know about that office because they just got a recruiter. So that office really isn't vacant. It hasn't been updated yet. Yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1:Then I did rap with him. Yeah, so I did rap with Brian and then he took me to all of the offices. That's how I knew to put in for East Brunswick. That's how. But again, dude, that's just another way of trying to figure it out, being resourceful and ultimately using your network, which I am so big on. I stress that all day, every day, your network, your network. People come to me hey, man, like you started this podcast, but like, how do you get people to go on your podcast Because you're not doing it on Zoom? You?
Speaker 2:got to talk to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. You can't just keep to yourself. No, of course not, you got to get out and mix it up, but then they're asking me how do I get the folks on and I'm just like it's my network yeah, it's my network.
Speaker 1:But they're like what do you mean? I'm like no dude, like you have a network. Yeah, just think about it like, and then you know like, that's how this whole I'm telling you, man, this is how this whole thing has like morphed itself into like what it is right now. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, man crazy.
Speaker 2:You know, what's funny is you brought up the News 12 thing and I don't know if I told you this. But Erin, who was the young lady that I put in, she went in. I think she did like an enlistment or two, used her education benefits, if I remember correctly. Now she is the chief of public affairs at Langley. As a civilian she's a GS. I just hired one of her troops into my current company as a public affairs. So this direct hire, matter of fact, not even Skillbridge. We had a for our contingency response part of my current employer. If things go down, we have a contingency response department that goes out and helps set comms back up and helps people like, for example, hurricane.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Stuff like that. They needed a new public affairs guy to handle the West Coast, and so I hire this guy. Next thing I know she reaches out to me on LinkedIn and goes hey, I heard you're hiring so-and-so, he's one of mine, dude, I hadn't talked to her in like 10 years, but that's the what you were talking about bringing value to the table, bringing impact, that impact, that right there. That it was just that one thing that I I brought. I was able to not only impact the military because of her career, but now I'm impacting my new company that I work with because of the network that I built 10, 14 years ago. You know like it's come full circle a couple of times and in the two years where I was running not running the military program but running the skill bridge part of it as the subject matter expert, having number one gone through the program- myself.
Speaker 2:now I'm hiring it, so I fully, from beginning to end, understand the process, the paperwork, what's involved. I've had so many of those experiences now. My last person that I recruited just got his offer this week. I recruited him last spring.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Running into some issues. His command was like giving him problems, kept backing his retirement date um, you know, and I just stuck with him you know like we're gonna get it, bro, like we're gonna get it. And finally, he was originally supposed to start in like june or july. He didn't end up starting till like october wow and he just got. He just got his offer time-time now he's getting.
Speaker 2:Now he's got a full, his full-time gig, he's locked in and he is on cloud nine man, wow, you know, and it's like I've had so many of those, yeah, since getting out. But the beauty of it is they're all military. I didn't work with anybody but the military. So they're either a mil they're either separating, retiring, or they're a spouse. You know, and so that's what I've been doing for the last two years since I've been out.
Speaker 2:Wow, man. Currently I'm doing something else now, but for two years, almost two years, that's what I was doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a lot of impact, man. You start thinking about like all these families you're impacting, helping people. People are transitioning out of the military. They're going through all kinds of different things man. Oh my God, Trying to get their feet settled. Yeah, man Describe to me Skillbridge. So for the folks that are watching and listening who may not know what Skillbridge is, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:So Skillbridge is a Department of DefenseD program where an uh, active duty service member, or AGR AGR is the active duty guard reserve folks, right, Um, we do have some of those. Um, they are able, in their final 180 days of service they can apply, and it's almost. I don't. I don't like to call them interns, because interns are folks that don't have any skills. They're fresh out of college. Maybe interning is what they do to build skills, right. That's why it's an internship.
Speaker 2:These are fellows, and they're fellows because they do have skills, they do have value, they do have something to bring to the table. These aren't, they're not blank sheets of paper, right. These people have like real world shit going on. You know what I mean. And so these fellows have an opportunity to do an internship-like process. And so what I mean is an employer has the ability to bring this person on in an unpaid internship-like status because they still collect their active duty paycheck while they're in this fellowship, right. And so the purpose of the fellowship, the skill bridge, is skill bridge. You're probably 60 to 70 percent of the way there. I'll use us as an example recruiters. We are more outside sales, as recruiters in the military than we are corporate recruiters. That's why we get sales certifications, because we don't just learn recruiting, we learn outside sales, cold calling, door knocking chambers of commerce right, you know the whole spiel, right?
Speaker 2:You get to know you're embedded in the community, You're a part of the community, right? You know the whole spiel, right you?
Speaker 1:get to know you're in the.
Speaker 2:You're embedded in the community, You're a part of the community, right? Corporate recruiters are different. Even if they're a third party, they don't operate that way. They're almost like completely recruiters. There's almost no sales. I mean, they do contract negotiation and things like that, but that's not the same. That's not the same thing as cold calling and knocking doors and going to chambers of commerce doing you know, and we didn't just do table setups, we did lots of table setups high schools, colleges, right.
Speaker 1:What do? We did a couple of fairs parades like we were doing all kinds of stuff. We were busy man.
Speaker 2:We were doing golfing tournaments, we were doing all kinds of stuff man.
Speaker 2:You know. But, um, what? What I learned is like oh, it's skill bridge, you know it's, you're helping somebody, so like us if I want. You know, I wanted to be talent acquisition. When I got out, that's, that was my main goal. Dude, I wasn't like, yeah man, I'll do whatever. Nah, bro, it's not whatever. If you want to do whatever, then how are you going to narrow something down? If you're that open-minded, you know it's good to be open-minded, but in the SkillBridge thing you need to kind of be like focused, right, and so talent acquisition, like I was 60 to 70% of what they were looking for, just naturally, by doing the job right. And what the SkillBridge does is it gives you an opportunity to come into that company, get on that team and connect the rest of the dots. Take you from 70 to a hundred right. Take you from 60 to 90, right, to get you most of the way there, so that the company at the end of that, the intent is they're then going to hire you full-time into that exact same position on the same team, doing the exact same thing, and so like, for me, that's what it was.
Speaker 2:I came in, I did my fellowship with Verizon, um, I worked on the global networks and technology recruiting team where we recruited a lot of like the network operations field, ops managers, sell site engineers, uh, the guys that climb the towers, fix the towers, the linemen, things like that Um, I did that for three months. By the end of that I did well enough that the military recruiting team was like yo, we'll take him, we want him right, and that's how I ended up on that team. And then, from that point forward, like I said, I did that the Skillbridge thing. Now I'm bringing people in instead of me coming in Right.
Speaker 2:But? But Skillbridge, that's exactly what it is. It's an internship like status to allow a service member to gain the experience they need to get that full-time employment with a with a fortune 500 company, a local company, a regional company, whoever. Any company can participate in the program. They just have to go through the vetting process. But at the end of the day, any company that does get into the process, the intent should be to hire that veteran at the end With SkillBridge, though parallel to it are other programs that are also for spouses and veterans that are already out.
Speaker 2:So, for example, like Hiring Our Heroes that's who I went through. I think you went through them too, right? Yeah, I did it with Google, you did it with Google. So there's the corporate fellowship program, which is what most of us go through. It's about 1,200 people every cohort, three cohorts a year. But there's other programs that Hiring Our Heroes does. They have a spouse program. One of my favorites I'm partial to is the Career spouse program. One of my favorites I'm partial to is the Career Forward program. And the reason why is don't get me wrong, Corporate fellowship is great. I'm all about helping the service members, right, but I like the Career Forward program, because there's those veterans that got out five, ten years ago and maybe they were doing okay, but then COVID happened and shit changed, right.
Speaker 2:Um, you know I have one individual I won't say his name, but you know he had his own business and then COVID came with all the distancing and the and the new regulations and everything, and he it was like a food business put him out of business, couldn't operate. Now he's like he went from having a successful business to like bro, how am I going to eat today? You know what I mean. Like it wasn't his fault. He didn't do anything wrong, you know. And so what that program did was offer him an opportunity to switch gears right. And so what that program is is it's sponsored by Google. Switch gears right.
Speaker 2:And so what that program is is it's sponsored by Google and they have a slew of certifications that you can earn right, and it's self-paced. But if you're accepted into the program you come in, you select one of those self-paced Google certification programs. When you complete that Google certification, you can then compete for the same fellowships as the corporate fellowship folks, so the exact same SkillBridge opportunities. They can compete for those, and it's for not only veterans, no matter how long they've been out, but it's also for spouses, and so I've been able to hire spouses and veterans through that program that wouldn't have had an opportunity otherwise if that program didn't exist.
Speaker 2:So that's why I'm very partial to that program. That wouldn't have had an opportunity otherwise if that program didn't exist, you know. So that's why I'm very partial to that program. Because, yeah, the guys that are getting out and the girls that are getting out, it's important to help them. But what about the ones that did it right, got out and just circumstances, just you know, they're in a bad way and they need to get back in the fight dude like, um, like so I have like a bunch of stuff that I can ask you right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, but like I tend to like not do it that way because like I don't want it to come across as if, like I'm peppering you with a bunch of questions, you know what I mean, yeah sure. Because then it's like it turns into like like an interview and not like a conversation. I hear you so like I don't want to keep peppering you. You know what I'm saying Because I got mad shit that I could. You know the way my mind works, bro.
Speaker 2:With nothing. I'm not used to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know that's the thing about recruiting.
Speaker 2:Man is like what's up today, right, you know like what you got for me now, yep, you, you know like what you got for me now, yep, you know what I mean For sure.
Speaker 1:Hero to zero right. Hero to zero Zero to hero. Hero to zero right. You can't. What was? One of the funny ones I heard is you can't warm your ass on yesterday's sunshine.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, why are you bringing up old shit? You did something.
Speaker 1:10 minutes ago. Who gives a shit? What about right now?
Speaker 2:you know remember we had a flight chief. I used to say that all the time oh man you'd be like, but boss amen, I crushed it last month. He'd be like I don't care what you're doing this month, you know what I mean, that that dude, that dude, that dude man oh, that's funny mr, mr chad, crib, mr, crib, oh my god cribby, crib man. I can't wait to see him, bro, I haven't seen that dude in forever.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen him in forever, forever, do you? I don't know if you remember this or not, but we were at table. We're at an italian restaurant, we're eating pizzas and he's trying to get the information out to us and then, like I knew he was sitting next to me and I knew he was like just like talking, like he was just being himself yeah, yeah, right like he's kind of like he's just being himself.
Speaker 1:He was being himself, right, right, he's kind of like he's just being himself. He was being himself. So I don't know if you remember this or not, but Cribb flicked his business card. He's like hey, give this to him. So he gave him his business card and he was like what does it say on there? And he said flight sheet. He's like, read it. He's like read it. He's like flight chief.
Speaker 2:He's like shut the fuck up, because he wouldn't be quiet. That's why he was like yo, yo yo read that shit. Oh man, shut the fuck up, I'm the flight chief like not you. Oh, man, there's. There was a lot of funny moments, but I don't want to air it out. Yeah, man, dude dude, dude.
Speaker 2:I still remember we were at a restaurant I won't say which one, but we were at a restaurant and everybody's like what are you going to have to drink? And everybody's like water, water, diet Coke, pepsi, and then Bish was like yingling.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:Remember that time we were in Freehold. You remember that time.
Speaker 2:Digester yeah, bro, I won't repeat what that was about, but that was wild though right yeah, somebody was wound a little too tight, is what that was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he probably shouldn't have been talking to us the way he was talking to us.
Speaker 2:No, not at all.
Speaker 1:And we were being cool, but for those that are listening and not watching, like my man right here, he's a tall guy, so it was like you would have to imagine, like, like, uh, like arts arnold schwarzenegger and danny devito so like I'm danny devito yo steve is like steve is towering over this dude and I we're at the we were cool though?
Speaker 2:yeah, we were cool, no, we were, we were being cool. The place was rocking, though? Yes, it was.
Speaker 1:The place was rocking, yes, it was, and I just like leaned, you put your head down and I got on my tippy toes and I was just got to your ear and I was just like, like yo, this dude's wilding. He was hawking and he was hawking and you, you were like you lasered in, and then they were like hey guys, anyway, whatever, doesn't matter the conversation went the way it went. Yeah, like no one, no, no animals were hurt during the filming of this.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, if I remember right like that dude had like he was a guardsman or something like a. No animals were hurt During the filming of this. Oh my God. If I remember right, like that dude had like he was a guardsman or something like a traditional guardsman. I think he had just gotten notified he was deploying. And so his buddies took him out to have a couple cocktails and apparently he had about 10 too many, you know.
Speaker 2:And then he saw us and he thought we were yeah, we were doing something we weren't supposed to be doing, but it wasn't the case he thought.
Speaker 1:He thought he was gonna roll right over us and little did he know. Yeah, he picked the wrong motherfuckers.
Speaker 2:He did get some choice words from me.
Speaker 1:That was yeah, if you remember correctly I don't know if you remember this, but like he kept asking me, like, like, what my name was, like, who like?
Speaker 2:remember when you put your business card in his front pocket, you were like and then you turned around, you put the. You put that business. A matter of fact, I think it was chad crib's business card. You put chad's business card in there, the flight oh, he wanted my boss's information chad wanted.
Speaker 1:Chad's business card. I didn't have one and you were like I told him. I said. I said if you wake up in the morning and you still want to contact someone, this is who you could contact.
Speaker 2:I wonder if he ever did. Did Chad ever say anything?
Speaker 1:Oh man, that dude probably woke up and was like he probably didn't.
Speaker 2:He was probably like dude. I must have met some cool guys last night. I got a business card he probably didn't even remember, and then his boys were like yo bro you almost lost your teeth you know what I mean. Now it's like one of the kids always got something going on. Yep, you know dude like so.
Speaker 1:One day, man like this is like when my daughter was like super young, like six months, where you know we just fed the kid kids down to sleep, we're cleaning the kitchen and me and my wife we sat on opposite sides of the living room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're just looking at each other.
Speaker 1:We're like fuck dude, like how do you do it with like more, more than one? Like you know what I mean. Like we're looking at each other. We're just like how.
Speaker 2:Time and task management.
Speaker 1:Bruh, I can't even imagine and boundaries.
Speaker 2:Like foundation right. That's the core of it. If you start it early, whether a little, and build that foundation early on, it gets easier as they get older. Like my oldest boy we're already seeing, you know, like he's doing very well in school. Like, yeah, he still makes mistakes, he's a kid.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:But at the same time it's like he's grounded, Like not grounded in trouble, but like grounded Like he's grounded.
Speaker 1:No, no, he's grounded Like, not grounded in trouble, but like grounded Like he's grounded. No, no, he's. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, he's poised right. He's poised right For success, right you?
Speaker 2:know, and so that's. But it's hard, man, because, like they all, have their own personalities. They all have their ways about them, you know, and you got to like conflict negotiation, right. You know, because they'll be playing nice one minute and the next minute they're randy, savage elbow, dropping off the couch. You know what I mean. True story, true story. My little guy, linky bear. He's the three-year-old, my, my eight-year-olds, laying on the floor on on the carpet, you know, watching tv or whatever chilling, doing his thing man like he's in his zen space right linky bear.
Speaker 2:Bro, I watched this from my kitchen, bro, I watched him. He looked at me before he did it and I go, what are you doing? And he just laughed and jumped off that couch he was probably three foot up in the air came down and right on, right on my oldest boy man, like right on his head yo you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:He could have like really hurt him yeah yeah, that's boys, you know they do stuff like that. They'll be chilling and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, like one of them will punch each other. What'd you do that for? I don't know, I just felt like it, you know. Oh, my God, bro, I'm like what are you doing?
Speaker 1:you know the words in my head told me to do it. You know.
Speaker 2:Why would you do that? I don't know. Go stay in the corner, go sit on the couch. Man Boy, I'm telling you I'm getting too over this shit, you know.
Speaker 1:Is there anything you wish you could have done different in regards to like being a parent?
Speaker 2:More patience, you know, but I think every parent feels that way, right. Like kids know how to push buttons and play with emotions. That's what they do right they test boundaries. They test what they can and cannot get away with. You know, I'm older now. I think it's good that I was older, you know, because now I have more patience, understanding, empathy right when I was younger. It would have been like oh hell.
Speaker 1:No, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But like I'm older and wiser, you know it doesn't mean I'm perfect, but you know. But yeah, man, you got to have a lot of patience.
Speaker 1:The more. A lot of patience Because, like I said, it's always something going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are times when I come home from work and there is no downtime. It's like as soon as I walk in the door, it's all right Really.
Speaker 1:No, not like a bad way, no, no, no, you're on.
Speaker 2:You're on. You're on. It's game time. They got homework to do. They got to eat. They got to take baths. They got to get their jammers on. They got to read books. The amount of homework these kids get at kindergarten these days is unreal. Compared to what we had In kindergarten, I think I was learning what a circle was. These guys are almost reading now at kindergarten, preschool. They're learning shapes, numbers, things like that by the time you get to first grade. For example, my middle one, wayne, he's four, he's in preschool, he's already reading.
Speaker 2:He's already at a first grade level already wow in pre-k wow like yeah, he like, like legit, he reads books yep right, uh, he's super intelligent, right, but like because they're starting them younger, so like my oldest boy, he would come home and have 30 minutes of homework, dude in like first grade. I don't even think.
Speaker 1:I had homework in first grade. You know what I mean. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So, like when I come home, my wife comes home, it's like there's no downtime. It's like food, homework. They got to read for 20 minutes on top of their homework, then they got to get baths and they got to get this. Then you get like an hour of downtime before they go to bed and then by the time we get our downtime, it's 8, 30, 9 o'clock. Boy, by the time I'm at 10 o'clock. I'm exhausted, I go to bed, you know yeah, yeah, that's my week, monday through friday.
Speaker 2:Yep, the weekends we get to sleep in, you know like, take a nap in the middle of the day.
Speaker 1:Boy, I'm starting to get used to those yeah, naps in the middle of the day, dude, I haven't had a nap, in the middle of the day, in a minute, bro. You guys, it's like a game changer yeah, sat nap in the middle of the day bro.
Speaker 2:My father just retired right from UPS and he's like man. Every day is a freaking Saturday man. I take a nap Anytime I feel like it. You know it's like the greatest thing.
Speaker 1:Yep, like you know, dude, like so for some reason, like when I was in the military, I would nap in the middle of the day, would you? Yeah, I could never do that Like I would, because sometimes man like you, just like I don't know, I felt like I needed it almost. But like now, I just think. I think I'm more busier now in the military retirement after the fact life than I was when I was in. Oh really, dude, I'm, I'm, I'm on go mode meps was uh?
Speaker 2:meps played with my emotions for for years. You know, uh never, never a dull moment.
Speaker 1:Um, I don't I what was your schedule when you were at the maps dude, which one oh yeah, I worked three different ones, so I was fort dix, fort ham and and in pittsburgh maps.
Speaker 2:So I worked three different three. Wow, um, at pittsburgh it was um, it wasn't too bad, you know, um it's. It's a very small maps in comparison to most, to most others. So not as busy, don't get me wrong, it was busy, but it wasn't as busy. Fort Hamilton was knocking futz. I would get there like 5 in the morning, leave at 4 or 5 in the afternoon five days a week.
Speaker 2:Mind you, I'm commuting 72 miles one way to get up there too, five days a week, and I'm commuting 72 miles one way to get up there too, you know, five days a week and I did that for five years. Wow, you know um and damn dude, and it's not so much the drive and stuff, it was. The actual job itself was, I think, my, I think my meps tour at fort hamilton almost broke me really like real almost broke me, really, like real, almost broke me.
Speaker 1:When did you feel like, what do you mean by that? Like, what do you mean Like mentally?
Speaker 2:Almost broke me and, mind you, I'm a guy that deployed nine times in eight years.
Speaker 1:I'm a combat vet legitimately, I've been shot at. You know things like that Now I'm not.
Speaker 2:I don't brag like, I'm not a combat engineer and I'm not a combat controller. I'm not on that level.
Speaker 1:Sure sure.
Speaker 2:But you know I've had my fair share of experiences Like I would consider myself a pretty rock steady individual right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it pushed me to my limits. Anybody that's ever worked a large MEPS that pushes the amount of people that a Fort Hammond I think is the second largest MEPS in the country uh by the amount of people they push through it. What's the biggest, san Diego. I think it's either LA or, uh, texas Houston.
Speaker 1:Houston, houston's huge too, really Um LA also is is big.
Speaker 2:Um, but it it wasn't so much that the work cause. I can deal with work, Um, I can deal with long days and hours. I've done 24-hour days before, Like that doesn't bother me. It was the politicking, the mental shit. When I got to that one in particular, it was not run well, like the facility itself was not run well at all it was very inefficient, lots of roadblocks, which caused additional problems, and at the time I had leadership that wasn't even willing to come down and see it firsthand.
Speaker 2:We were telling them hey number one I'm undermanned. I'm supposed to have four people in here and there's two of us, so we're 50% manned um pushing one of the largest processing numbers in the entire group in the group.
Speaker 2:If anybody doesn't know what a group is, the group's like the entire northeastern united states, so all the mips within that right, um, but but you know we were, we were pushing all these numbers working all these hours, but it was like. It was like we weren't getting enough done or it was affecting production, things like that. But the thing was it wasn't us, it was the actual MEPCOM facility, their personnel, their civilians, their folks stationary, that were the ones that were creating a lot of the problems.
Speaker 2:And we were vocalizing it and weren't being heard. I even had a leader that told me well, because I work long hours, then you should work long hours and not complain about it.
Speaker 1:What kind of a leader says that to somebody.
Speaker 2:If you're working long hours because you suck at time and task management, that's your freaking problem. That shouldn't be my problem.
Speaker 2:You know that's, I didn't ever said that, but that's what's going through my mind. But I was fortunate enough. Eventually that person moved to the side and I got somebody else and that person stepped in and actually took the time to listen and empathize a little bit and came down and spent a week with us to see it firsthand. And after that week the light bulb came on and they were like, oh, that's when change happened. And once that change happened it went from being one of my worst assignments I've ever had to one of my best assignments I ever had, just by a simple change in leadership, understanding, empathy, you know, process realignment you know what was implemented, so like what was the biggest change.
Speaker 2:So a lot of it was, you know, just roadblocks from the staff that was there.
Speaker 2:you know, for example, like something, like what we call a med read that's when an applicant, you remember, med reads, you know an applicant if they have something in their medical background, they have to submit their medical documentation to the chief medical officer who would review it and pre-authorize them to come down and process Sure Process, going through the physical, the academic testing and all that. Well, they have a certain amount of days per page count to get those done. And so one example was like, let's say I'm just throwing arbitrary numbers like these aren't exact, but let's just say they have two days to review 30 pages and every five to 10 pages adds a day. Right, If I submitted a 30-page med read, instead of getting it back in two days, I'd get it back in like six or seven days, which holds up production. And so as a liaison you're in between the us mepcom personnel and your own squadron.
Speaker 2:You're the middleman yeah right, um, and so I would have to report the news back right, like why can't I get my people on the floor? Well, this is why. Well, that's bullshit, you need to fix it. I can't fix it, it's mepcom. That's not letting me. It's not a me thing, it's a MEPCOM thing. Well, that's not an excuse. They didn't want to hear it right, and it wasn't until we got them in there and ultimately it came down to all the commanders of the different branches got together and basically gave the MEPS commander of that facility an ultimatum you either get this stuff fixed or we're going to file an.
Speaker 2:IG complaint together all of us, I guess he tried to call their bluff and so they filed the IG complaint and so, because of that, they came out and did a random inspection. They failed the inspection. Now we know there's a problem and it's documented. Then they failed their next inspection. After that, in four to six months, they get a re-inspection.
Speaker 2:They failed that one and so at that point in time, they fired a whole bunch of people, hired a whole new staff, and so a lot of it was like you ever go to the DMV and the employees there are just like they don't want to be there, they don't want to help you, they don't even want to smile. Like they don't want to be there, they don't want to help you, they don't even want to smile, they could care less about you. Like, you get that vibe right, sure, sure, yeah, yeah, that's what it felt like dealing with them right, it was like some of those folks had been there so long and they were so like jaded that they just didn't care. Like, oh, it takes an extra three days. Oh well, there's nothing you can do about it, whatever you know. And so we got rid of a lot of those people. Replaced the leader.
Speaker 1:That's hard though.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude, it was like I said, it almost broke me. You know it was not good, but fortunately, like, finally, like I said, I got a different set of leaders in there. They took the bull, grabbed the bull by the horns and then, of course, I fed them the necessary information they needed to be effective to do it, to make that happen right. Not just me, but my coworkers we all together did it together.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't all me, you know, but as a team we gave them what they needed so that they could help us. And then, once that all got turned around, dude, like it got so much better, like it just got really efficient. Then we were able to finally not just us, all the branches we were able to get bodies down the line that we needed to get done. There were no more, you know, there weren't as many processing issues. It just then the hours started coming down, right, because then you know, we didn't need to be there so long, because now we're operating efficiently, right. So then now we're able to work out, now we're able to go to the gym. Now we're not working 12-hour days, you know, we're working. Now we were able to split it into three shifts. We finally got an additional person.
Speaker 2:There were three of us, so then we each worked eight-hour shifts and so I would come in at five in the morning. I would get all the scheduling done. I would line up the day, line up the week, make submit all the medical paperwork, like the med reads and then, the next guy would come in at like eight in the morning and then he would you know I would leave at two he would leave at four and then the other guy would stay in and be there till closed to make sure the last applicant left right and that's when things got so much better, you know, because now you have time to breathe, you have time to do other things, work out, you have time to eat lunch.
Speaker 2:I didn't even eat lunch for years, like because I never had time. You know, I couldn't even just eat and work. You know it was, uh, I'd go to like put a spoon in my mouth and somebody'd be like, oh, we need this. They'd call me. And then, well, med floor's, two stairs, two stories up, I'd have to stop what I'm doing or run up. We don't have an elevator, so I'd have to run up the stairs, two flights to go see the medical team and talk to the medical officer.
Speaker 2:You know, every time there's some random flight chief called me with a problem, you know, know like. And what they don't realize is all seven flight chiefs would call me in the same day and I'd go up and down them stairs seven times. You know like. You know what I mean, but they don't think nothing of it. You know like. You know so things. You know. I had a leadership was sitting in Syracuse, new York, but I'm in New York city so if we had problems, that's why they never wanted to come down, because they didn't want to do the five-hour drive to come hang out with us for a week and find out that the problem was wrong. They were too comfortable sitting in Syracuse, you know not you know, out of sight, out of mind, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, steve, you deal with it, right Like I don't want to deal with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what you're there for yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Probably one of the worst leaders I ever had in my entire life was that leader.
Speaker 1:Was the squadron commander.
Speaker 2:No, or the group commander the operations commander, oh, operations commander for MEPCOM?
Speaker 1:No for my squadron. Because, as a liaison, you work for the recruiting squadron you don't work for MEPCOM. You're a liaison.
Speaker 2:You're the recruiting squadrons representative in that facility, so you're ops chief. No, not the ops chief, the ops commander. So the ops chief would be the senior nco in charge.
Speaker 1:The ops commander would be like the lieutenant or captain in charge oh, I'm tracking what you're saying, you see what I'm saying yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you know, um, when we, when, when I first got to the 314th, so I had, I had I brought a, I brought a BMW with me from Aviano, from Italy, so like I got shipped over here, it was like a 318. I don't know if you ever saw it when we were office partners, but in any case, that's what I, that's what I drive up to the squadron. Yeah, that's my car.
Speaker 1:The white one right case. That's what I, that's what I drive up to the squadron.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's my car, the white one right, the white one's the one.
Speaker 1:You saw this, oh no yeah, okay, this one was a black two-door I got you so the, the, the operations officer, he's like a young lieutenant dude, he he comes out to the park and he's like is that your car? Is that your car? And I'm like I just got out of it. Yes, my car, no it's the other guy's. I drive this shit like me he's like how can you afford that? And I'm like, I'm looking around, like is that how?
Speaker 2:is that your business, bro like?
Speaker 1:get out of here and then uh remember chewy, right, uh, yeah, yeah, chewy used to tell this dude. He used to be like do your parents even know you're here?
Speaker 2:like it's wild, right like you know. So I had this leader, mind you. You know everything from early on in my career, right like all the shit that I went through and then I had this dude that had been in what?
Speaker 2:four, six years, yeah, talking that way to me. You know like, uh, you know treating me that way. You know like, like, bro, like you, you just cut your teeth, like four years ago, you, you, you know like you're acting like you're some hot shit or something. You know like even. You know like, even if part of what you say is correct, the way you're going about it, bro, you're crushing the morale of your people. Yeah, absolutely crushing them, and a lot of it is because you failed to see, number one, that there was even a problem that wasn't your people's fault, and you weren't even willing to take the time to research to see if they were right or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah to research to see if they were right or not. You just automatically assumed, because a couple senior NCOs told you that we weren't living up to expectations, that we weren't living up to expectations and it was our fault. It was like an assumption right. When it really came down to, it wasn't us, it was somebody external that we had to partner with to get things done that was causing all the problems. Right, and it's like so. Needless to say, I went from being, in this unit's eyes, one of the worst people in the squadron to the NCO of the year the next year.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Right when that person moved aside. Wow, right, so did I change that much? No, I don't think so Did parts of me change. Yeah, absolutely. I did recognize there were some things I could do better Right there was some maturity there, right. I had to assume responsibilities, but at the same time I didn't change that much.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm still the same. I was still the same person, but leadership changed and it was amazing what results you can get when leadership changes and you get good leadership.
Speaker 1:Dude, I'm so glad you brought this up. So, okay, I'm so glad you brought this up. Sure, when I'm having conversations with people who, like, have never served or in any case they're intrigued by hey, like, how did you again, how did you do 24 years, how did you stay in this long?
Speaker 1:and there's a bunch of reasons why, right earlier, I was telling you it was the people who come into your life throughout your career that help you progress to the next levels, and that sort of a thing. Yeah, also like it's about dude, it's almost like luck, almost, because and what I'm talking about, what I mean by that, is that you could be, and I know for a fact this, I know for a fact that there's someone listening or watching this and they're going to be like, yeah, I can totally relate to what this guy is saying, what Mach is saying, and what I'm getting at is that you could be doing great work. You could be NCO of the year, airman of the year, all these different things. You could be crushing it, crushing it.
Speaker 1:But what people don't understand is that in the military not only does like your level, like your peers come and go or move around, but also, like supervision does the same thing. So when people are being shifted and moved around, you get a new group of people together. Let's just say leadership. Right, there's a whole thing that happens and I and I've talked about on the podcast a bunch of times, about like group dynamics and like there's all these different things that need to be happening for everyone to kind of like get on a good rhythm yeah and if it just so happens that the current is going against you for some reason where maybe, like last year, you were it.
Speaker 2:But now leadership.
Speaker 1:The whole thing has changed, right and all it takes is for one person to feel that their perception of you it's the perception correct and that that that's all they need. Man, and like now. Now you're going against the current, where a year ago you were going with the current. Everything was cool, right.
Speaker 2:The dynamic change the dynamic change.
Speaker 1:So that's.
Speaker 2:And also in recruiting when you're in your original career field. It's not as bad. It still happens, but generally you get leaders that have been in there in that that's their career field, right? Yeah, like you know, in recruiting they snatch these officers randomly from all over the. They don't have recruiting experience, they've never been recruiters, they don't know jack about recruiting. And now this fool is your ops commander or your squadron commander or whatever. Maybe they were just running an air mobility squadron last year, yep. And now they're a recruiting squadron commander, yep. If you don't have a solid senior enlisted advisor and you don't have, like a solid ops chief that that knows what way is up to guide them, and they just are left to run like they could crush morale in a unit yeah, because they're making decisions and they don't even know what they're doing.
Speaker 2:You know, and you have ncos that are maybe on their second or third recruiting tour already, that have been in it for quite a while and know what they're doing, and now they're. You know, this person has no idea what they're doing, making all the decisions. You know what person has no idea what they're?
Speaker 1:doing, making all the decisions.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, like it's so true, man, and and the reason, the reason, like like I was listening to what you were saying and like the reason why it resonated with me, is because it's happened to me so many times throughout my career, like so many times over 24 years. It's numerous times, like you know. It could be a deployment, you could get deployed, yeah, and that's that's another one. That's really interesting how that plays out, because in a deployed environment, again, this is like a whole dynamic thing that needs to be figured out. And it has to be figured out pretty quick. I would say it probably happens within the first month or so, because you don't have much time feel everybody's feeling each other out right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if and again if there's a perception of you good or good, or right or wrong like you're gonna have a hard time, you know, yeah, um and it's not like in a civilian world.
Speaker 2:You get a bad boss, you can tell him to kick rocks and quit yeah, and you'll get another job. Yep. You can't just quit in the military. No, you're along for the ride. If you still got three years left on your four-year contract, buckle up. Yep, you're on for the whole. You can't quit. You can't go anywhere. There's nowhere for you to go. So, even if somebody's being toxic, you can't get away from them. You know now they're getting better now because now they're starting like the military is starting to get a clue about it.
Speaker 1:But for a long time, like you could, you could be under toxic leadership for quite a long time, before you even have the opportunity to to separate or retire. You know, and also, in line with that, like even knowing how to navigate it, because, because here's the one thing like you could be in a, you could be in a shitty situation, but you'll be like, nah, dude, like I'm, I'm, I'm seasoned, I've been around a while. No, that's wrong and this is why it's wrong. And and here's the AFI, here's the Air Force instruction that states you know what I mean as you learn to like, navigate Correct, yeah, but early on, you just have to buckle up and hold on tight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much and just try to figure it out and, even if you know the regs, if the person that's giving you a hard time is still operating within them there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1:There's nothing you can do. Yeah, you know what I mean. That's the other part.
Speaker 2:If they're not breaking regs like IG complaint worthy, then there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, like that's where it's really tough, you know, and so that's kind of. You know what my situation was. I had one that wasn't really, you know, wasn't with it you know, thought they were with it, but they weren't with it as much as they thought they were you know.
Speaker 1:I want to say something to any service member who's maybe watching or listening, who's in a rough situation at the moment Mach wants to tell you you hang on and you hang on tight, because the other side, I promise you, what was keeping you up today, was making you lose sleep. Today and a few years from now it won't.
Speaker 2:I tell you, since this retirement, it just won't. It's been gravy man, like what, two and a half years post-retirement now and I don't stress about a whole lot these days.
Speaker 2:I mean my kids, you know drive me crazy, but that's like in a loving way, you know, like whose kids don't drive them crazy right, for sure, yeah, but like you know I don't stress about things Like you know, for example, like if my boss calls me now and it was like steve, I need this, and if I'm like, well, you gave me like 10 other things to do, like where is this at in the priority, right. And if they're like, well, you know, like, it doesn't need to be done, right, this second, all right, cool, I'll get to it on monday. If it's friday, right, all right, cool, yeah, yeah, first thing in the morning. I'll talk to you on monday, eight, nine o'clock, whatever, we'll get it done. Military, no, you're working saturday, bro. You know what I mean. Like, yeah, you're what. Yeah, playoffs, right, like, you know. Like, yeah, you're, you're doing it. Right, that second right, like, um, one of the things I would tell folks um that are
Speaker 2:getting out like, and they would ask me how, where I work at now, how the culture is, and I'd be like, let's put it this way, I haven't had a phone call after 5 PM since I retired as a recruiter, as a flight chief, as a MEPS guy. I was getting phone calls after five o'clock all the time. People didn't care that I'm at home eating dinner with my family. They could care less. We have a mission, this is what needs to be done, and I need you to do it right, this second, right now.
Speaker 2:You know, like where's decompression time? You wonder why people in the military are having mental stress such a high number, right? Well, when that's how you treat people seven days a week. And you know, and you know I had leaders that were like I'd be like dude, it's, it's fricking Sunday and they'll be like. You raised your hand and you gave the oath. You're 24 seven. If I need you at three o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, you're going to answer the phone at three o'clock in the morning on a Sunday.
Speaker 1:I don't deal with that anymore. You know what I mean, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:There's civilian jobs, that that does happen.
Speaker 1:Of course, law enforcement first responder there.
Speaker 2:There are some niche career fields that are like that, right, but for the most part I work from eight to four nine to five I don't work weekends you know, like my boss doesn't call me on the weekends if we don't get it done by four or five o'clock on friday, eight nine o'clock in the morning on Monday we'll get, we're getting.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, like you know, like so um you know, so for folks like you know one thing, my, my. I told you, my father got out after nine years Right and to this day he's like man looking back. He's like man. I wish I had a state in you know, because when you're in it you're like man. There's no way out, right Like you're stuck, you feel stuck.
Speaker 2:But. But if you're able to ride it out and then you get to that retirement, then it's just like oh, you know what I mean. You're like I'm so glad I wrote it out, it's a different feeling it's a different feeling man.
Speaker 1:It is man. It's a different feeling, you know, like for me too, man, like when I got that assignment. So when I got back from Bagram I got hit with that assignment to go to Korea.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I just got engaged to my wife. My wife is like hey, like it'll be fine, just go Like it'll be fine. Wife is like hey, like it'll be fine, just go like it'll be fine. We just did six months. I'm like no, no, no, you don't understand like this, this career thing's a really different thing?
Speaker 1:well, yeah, because you're doing exercises, you're doing you know, dude, not only that, bro, like that's, that's one part of it, sure. Like I'm thinking, my, my personal reflection is like I just did that shit 10 years ago, yeah, and I barely survived it, you know what I mean. Like I barely left there with all my stripes I hear you, you know, like korea korea, dude is is spring break for a year.
Speaker 2:It's like grown folk chucky cheese over there yup like yeah, you want to see people lose their mind about some shit, bro go to korea, dude, go to Go to Korea and drink something with a snake in it. You know what?
Speaker 1:I mean, and you will see. And the crazy thing about it, too, is that what I try to explain to folks is like you don't understand the people that you work with, you live with, yes, in the dorms.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's almost like college, but instead of going to class, you're going to work. Yeah, but you all live together in this building, so you see them all the time you drink together, you party together, you see all the fuckery and then monday morning you got to go do a job and then you see them at work and you're like bro, like you were crazy you know what I'm saying but but?
Speaker 1:but what I'm getting at is, it is like I already went through that, yeah, and I already did it and I got like I'm telling you like I barely survived it. Why would I want to put myself back? You, you know, and and that's, and that's what. That's the beauty and experience, and like learning and knowing about yourself. But, dude, it's funny how, like when I deferred those orders, dude, I was out in a month. I was out of the Air Force in one month. It was that quick Deferred the orders.
Speaker 1:Oh, orders are deferred. Okay, out, like done. Here's your terminal, here's this, here's this, here's this yeah right, criminal, here's this, here's this, here's this. Yeah, right and dude, but but I I think back on it. I'm like man, like I was at 16 and a half years when I did that, when I pulled that move and then, what preparation did you get?
Speaker 2:they were like all right, you're out in a month later, you know. So what's funny about that?
Speaker 1:thankfully for, like guys like you and I, like you know, we were recruiters and and, like you know, I always feel like there's like's a special kind of a thing that recruiters have. And because you and I were recruiters, I kind of had a strong understanding of like I felt that I had the skill set, that I'd be okay. I didn't think it'd be easy, but I think I'd be okay. I didn't think it'd be easy, but I think I'd be okay. And, thankfully, my wife you know, my wife, what better support system than someone that's like constantly in your ear, like everything's going to be fine? You just do this, this, this and this, everything will be fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah dude.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I got into like commercial real estate, did that for a little bit. That was a, that was a crazy one. You know, here I am coming from a deployment, coming from like a, like a military background, and now like I'm, you know, doing commercial real estate, which is in New York city. That was all, dude, like I could, like I could do a whole podcast.
Speaker 1:That's a hustle Just on that Just on the fuckery that goes on within that I don't even know what to call it, like that entity or that landscape, Really really wild. And I think the beauty of what happened after that was that we got pregnant with Brooke. So then it was great because, you know, I went and I was like, hey, look, like I'm not going to be able to continue, you know, giving you two weeks, you know, and I was able to be a stay-at-home dad for for now.
Speaker 2:Imagine if you were on active duty and you were in the middle of an assignment bro station in the middle of new york city. Would you have been able to get out of that? Nope, nope, guess what they would have said sorry, sorry, you know. No, you know what they would have said this is what they would have said, bro.
Speaker 1:They would have said balance, it's all. Balance, it's all balance. You know it's all about you, know you? You gotta live like a balanced life, like no shit either way you better make goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no shit, I gotta live a balanced life, you know dude.
Speaker 1:you know, what's really wild is that my daughter was like premature. So I'm thinking to myself had I been in Korea with a little girl who's premature, like dude? You know exactly what's going to happen. They'll be like, yeah, you can go, you can go back to the States, but you could only go for 30 days, or eh, we'll be a little bit more lenient with you. We'll let you take all of your leave. I only got 40 days.
Speaker 2:Well then you got to. I only got 40 days. Well then you got to come back after 40 days, right, you know?
Speaker 1:Meanwhile I got a little girl who's in the NICU. I'm telling you, man, this is what I go back to, and I mentioned that earlier what's meant for you is meant for you. What's meant for you is meant for you, it's already written. You just got to walk the walk, but it's. You know what I mean. So yeah, man, steve, every day, every day, I pinch myself, dude.
Speaker 2:I'm like how and then?
Speaker 1:man, like you're sitting around and you think, man, you think about like those deployments and this and that, and you know all the toxic leadership that you had to like, navigate and get through. But but here we are on the other side, man, and it's just like. That's why, with this thing, man, with like this podcast, like I always want to like, continue to like in some, and maybe like it's in my own way that I just want to let folks know, like man, it's gonna be all right man it's gonna be all right, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 1:Like you may be in a tough spot right now, but I'm telling you it's gonna be okay and when you get to the other side of whatever it is, you're going through you look back on and you're like man.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of glad I, I, I stuck it out you know yeah yeah, you know, somebody was telling me one time I don't know, I don't know how, I remember this, but it was. They were saying, like um, that when there's a storm, like if there's a storm brewing, like, like, like uh, where there's like uh, like cows, that when the storm's coming they'll run from the storm, but then there's like certain species that will run towards it, they'll like they'll run towards the storm and then they just get, like you know, you know, I mean like they make it to the other side where there's no more storm, and then the ones that keep running from it, they're running long because they're trying to get out of the way of it.
Speaker 2:You know, they're just prolonging their suffering, they're prolonging their suffering. Yeah yeah, sometimes it's better to just just just just rip the bandaid off.
Speaker 1:Just rip the bandaid off and get into it you know what I mean. Be the band-aid off and get into it.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean be be comfortable, being uncomfortable, you know? Yeah, um, you know it's funny that I I talk to a lot of people that I work with now and they're like, you know, I I haven't been at the company very long and I've already left one group of the company and now I'm in a completely different part of it, right, and they're like how did you do that?
Speaker 2:and I'm like you just got to be willing to step out of your comfort zone. You know, and just be confident in your abilities that you're going to be able to do what needs to be done. Be confident that you're going to do it. You know, don't doubt yourself. You know, like if you have the skills and you have the experience, you'll be all right. Dude, you know what I mean. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like, don't be afraid you, you, when I was, when I was a first sergeant before before I retired, you know, I as much as I could talk to the, to the younger folks, and a lot of times they're like shirt. I already heard this shit like you you can see it in their face they're like all right, dad.
Speaker 2:I heard this one already but, but I don't care like you know what I?
Speaker 1:mean. So, like I'm like yo, anybody that will listen, you know, like, if you're gonna listen to what I gotta say, I'm gonna tell you something. You know what I mean. But, but, um, but, you know, I would always like tell them. You know, like, responsible and accountable, responsible and accountable, responsible and accountable will get you to where you want to get to. You know what I mean. And these are, like you know, young airmen that are coming into, like maybe, like you know, they're going from like senior airmen to staff you know, and then they're also in the reserves.
Speaker 1:So like it's a little bit different, right, because you and I we had all, and then they're also in the reserves. So like it's a little bit different, right, because you and I we had all this active duty experience, yeah, sure, but then, like you know, it's like mentoring them is just a little bit different. You got to get them to kind of like see it from a different angle, you know. But ultimately I'm like, hey, man, like you got to think like this how many times? Because now I'm describing, like, being in the reserves, so in a reserve unit, right, I would tell these younger folks, like, how many times does someone from leadership call you?
Speaker 1:Just, is it like five times a day? Is it five times a week? Like, when they're like, oh no, like I don't know, like maybe, like once in a blue moon. I'm like like, okay, so, so, once in a blue moon, right, yeah, so imagine if I knew, as a leader, that anytime I call you, you're gonna pick up the phone, right, sure, you're accountable. Like you're responsible, right, responsible accountable, like I can get a hold of you, right, man, like, like you know who your go-to person is.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, like March is going to pick up the phone, steve is going to pick up the phone, or if they don't pick up the phone, they're going to get right back to me. Like you know, like I can expect that they're Like, with a sense of urgency, right, right, right, and that's how you start building your brand. You know you can start building your brand at a very young age.
Speaker 2:You know, what's funny is that's something I'm having to get used to. Well, I'm pretty used to it.
Speaker 1:You want some Puerto Rican eggnog A little bit I want some Puerto Rican eggnog.
Speaker 2:A little bit I want some.
Speaker 1:Puerto Rican eggnog. Don't ask me questions that you know the answers to.
Speaker 2:One of the things I had to learn how to deal with is that not everybody in corporate America has a sense of urgency. Right, like in a military, if you get an email from your leader in the morning, you will answer that email before the day is done. Yes, right. And if you don't, the next day, they're calling you to find out why you didn't answer them Right, and you better have a good explanation. Now, corporate America, if I email somebody in the morning, I might not get an answer for two or three days, and that's perfectly okay and normal, right?
Speaker 1:How long?
Speaker 2:did it take you to get used to it, dude? It took me a little while, but not as long as you would think, but fortunately for me, I had a great mentor. So, michael, he was my boss and mentor. The great thing about him is he was a currently serving National Guard captain.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So not only did he understand military, but he knew how to empathize right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He was a good, active listener and so he was able to mentor me the right way. He was able to tell me what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it, and one of the things was Steve, I understand why you're doing what you're doing. I wasn't doing anything bad, he's just like but that's not how it is in corporate America. If you email them, give them a couple of days, because what you don't know is that they may be working on something else that's a higher priority than what you're working on, right, and so you need to understand that.
Speaker 2:And so it's not that they're not answering you because they're disrespecting you, they don't like you. It's nothing personal. It's that they may have other priorities that they're knocking out first, and then you're on that list of priority, right, like when they get to it, they'll get with you, they'll give you, they'll answer you back Right Now. If it goes like a week, okay, now you need to send some follow-ups. You know, like, obviously there's there, there is a fine line there. But, um, the point is, is that I still have that same sense of urgency, right, well, from all these years, but not everybody does, and that's okay, and that was something that I had to learn, right? I think every service member goes through that in their transition.
Speaker 2:Right, we're so used, we're almost institutionalized in a way, not like a prisoner in a prison, but in a way, right, we kind of are no, bro, you're right on.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. You're right on target.
Speaker 2:We are institutionalized so, like you know. That's why I think sometimes there's so much of a disconnect with employers and military veterans is that they don't really understand us. You know, they don't understand UCMJ. They don't understand that we're held to a higher standard than everybody else, and maybe they hear that, but they don't understand what that means. What does that entail? You know, like they don't understand that we're told what we can say, what we cannot say, when we can speak, when we do speak, how long we get to speak for, what we can wear, how we can do our hair. Can we wear earrings and uniform? Can we not Go down the line 150 things? Right, they dictate every aspect of our life. Right, in corporate America nobody really dictates a whole hell of a lot, right, like when you're on the clock, like, yeah, they can dictate a little bit, but at the end of the day, if they do anything crazy, you can always quit, like I said, right, and HR exists for a reason, right.
Speaker 2:So like they can't just willy nilly shoot from the hip, do crazy things, like that and if they are doing that, employees don't stay there very long.
Speaker 2:So like, for example, if you get on LinkedIn and you go look at a company's median tenure rate, you can figure out kind of, maybe they have a good culture, maybe they don't. But if I look at a company and they got 60,000 employees and the average tenure rate is two years, I don't know if that culture in that company is really that great two years. I don't know if that culture in that company is really that great. Why is the average only two years? That means the average employee. That means they're a revolving door. Now if I look at a company and it has the average employee stays there 10 years, what does that tell you? They're probably treating them pretty well. Why else would somebody stay somewhere for 10 years unless they're getting treated well? Yeah, there's a good operational culture.
Speaker 1:There's a good culture there, you know.
Speaker 2:So like um, so like you know, getting into corporate America, like I think sometimes you know now there are some companies that are really doing a great job of getting up to speed on that and I commend them for that. Um, for example, any of the companies that work with uh partner with 50 strong, they are not veteran friendly, they are veteran ready. And there's a difference between the two Veteran-friendly companies kind of talk the talk. The veteran-ready companies walk the walk. They're not just talking about it, they're actually doing it right. And so you know, those companies tend to be a little bit more adapted to us and kind of understand us better and they have positioned teams and employed other veterans to help them understand better. For example, at, like, verizon, our ERG is huge. We got like five 6,000 people in it. You know that are veterans in the company, you know.
Speaker 2:And so, like the company, has a much broader understanding of what it means, like what we're about.
Speaker 1:What does the acronym stand for? Again, what's that, the acronym you just mentioned? Valor VRG.
Speaker 2:Oh ERG Employee Resource Group.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So you can kind of think of it like in the military, like a top three team five, six, sure, sure you know a company grade officer. I don't know what. Each service has their own different, unique names, that they call them right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But basically it's like a similar type organization like Air Force.
Speaker 1:Sergeant's.
Speaker 2:Association, but it's internal within the company.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You know, just like a top three or a five six right. Or airman's council or whatever, and they operate the same way. They run a lot of the nonprofit stuff, community outreach.
Speaker 1:So like for example.
Speaker 2:Valor is the name of our ERG and it's veteran advocates leading the organization responsibly.
Speaker 2:That's what it stands for you know, and so like the company is moving in that direction, to create, you know, opportunities for veterans and understand them better. But there's a lot of employers out there that don't understand veterans and so you know veterans are applying to roles or interviewing or they actually get into these companies, but the companies aren't actually veteran ready and they don't understand. And so you'll find like there's a lot of veterans that get out and you'll see them. They'll be on like their second, third, fourth, fifth job in like two or three years. You know, because they're bouncing from company to company years. You know because they're bouncing from company to company and it could be either one the company culture is not veteran ready, or it could be that the veteran themselves don't quite know what they want either, or it could be a mixture of both.
Speaker 2:You know, but, um, but, but learning, learning. You know how to adapt to that. I think you know. Uh, it's something that I've been able to learn and see firsthand and, like I said, I had a great mentor who was able to teach me a lot of these things like information architecture, when you're sending emails out, presentations, how you present, how you say it. I mean, we learn this stuff in NCO Academy and Senior NCO Academy and Airman Leadership School and things like that. But it's different, like how we communicate in the military is more direct and matter of fact a lot of the times where in corporate America there's a lot of nuance, there's a lot, you know it's. You have to finesse things a little bit more. It can be a little more political, you know.
Speaker 2:You have to be mindful of what you say. You know, like cause somebody might get offended. In the military, somebody gets offended. Oh well, you know what I mean. Like deal with it. You know what I mean. In corporate America it's a little different. So you know you have to, you have to kind of like figure your way around that too, you know.
Speaker 2:But but sense of urgency man, that was just wrapping this up you know, sense of urgency was like that was one thing that I learned. You know, early on in this conversation we had what was the one thing I learned on deployments and all that stuff. What did it teach me was sense of urgency. But now sense of urgency has a different meaning. Not only that I'm not in the military anymore. It's like, yeah, I have a sense of urgency, but I actually have to keep it in check because my sense of urgency isn't somebody else's sense of urgency. But what I also notice is there's people in corporate America that should have sense of urgency but there's no accountability to make them have sense of urgency. So sometimes you run into red tape where you just can't get things done just because, like I said, it takes people two, three days to answer an email just can't get things done just because, like I said, it takes people two three days to answer an email, or you know.
Speaker 2:So you got to learn how to like, navigate that, finesse that, and that's where a lot of networking and relationship building kind of comes into it. You know is one of the things that I've tried to focus on is those things, that piece. So, you know, one of the things that I've had to learn is how to finesse relationships, to get things done when there isn't the sense of urgency, and so what I mean by that is that's one of the things I've chosen to focus on is the relationship building Getting to know the people around you, getting to know the people above you, getting to know the people below you, getting to know your peers, learn from them, learn from everybody, get to know them, who they are as people, what do they value, what motivates them, and then find ways to help them. At the end of every conversation I ever have with somebody that I work with is what can I do for you? Sometimes the answer is nothing. You can't just keep doing what you're doing, man, you don't need to do anything for me. All right, cool, fair enough. The next time I talk to them hey, what can I do for you? At some point they're going to go. You know what? I could use some help on something. Can you help me out with this? I got it, bro. I got it and then I helped them. Now I have solidified that relationship. I have solidified that that person can count on me and I am somebody that they can count on.
Speaker 2:I am somebody who gets shit done and what it does is it's kind of like when we were recruiters in the office. You know, when you first get into your office, nobody knows who the hell you are. You have nobody. Nobody knows who Mach is or Steve is. They could care less. Right, we have to go out and build those relationships with the high schools, the guidance counselors, the chambers of commerce, business owners. Remember the guy that owned the sandwich shop, ed? I still hang out with Ed. I still talk to Ed to this day. Wow, that was a relationship I built in 2009,. But I got to know him right. Remember, he used to help us out all the time, right, you know hell, I even was at his wedding when he got married. You know like, you know like.
Speaker 2:But in corporate America like that's a huge piece is the relationship building. It's not just transactional. Sometimes I give more than I take, and that's okay. But now that I've been doing that for a couple of years now, I've built a reputation and that's where it taking the time to build those relationships. You build a reputation for yourself and a lot of times the reputation is what carries you into your next move, the next level, right, like when that opportunity opens up and you've been crushing it right. All of those people are going to validate you. They're going to go. Hey, I heard Steve applied to this job. Have you ever met him? No, dude, good dude, you know what I mean. They're going to be lifting you up. Right, it's a community is going to lift you up. Instead of you lifting yourself up, the community is lifting you up.
Speaker 2:And they're cheering. They're your cheerleaders.
Speaker 2:They're there to cheer for you, right? And so if you can figure that piece out early on in a military transition, during a Skillbridge fellowship or something like that, even if it's not Skillbridge and you're just direct hire and you're getting in there, you will open up more doors than you think. And it doesn't necessarily have to be in your own company. You could open up doors external to your company and when you're ready to take that next step, your buddy over here working at this other company might have that opportunity, for you have that opportunity for you, you know.
Speaker 2:So that's where you know, that's when you start, like you know, building your. You know you were talking about building a network. That's where LinkedIn comes in. You know, I tell my wife this all the time cause she's absolutely horrible on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:We joke about it, you know, but she's like why would I spend time on LinkedIn when I already have a job? And I'm like that's exactly my point. That's the time when you should be building your LinkedIn network, or not just on LinkedIn, on Instagram, whatever. Whatever floats your boat, you know multiple platforms go for it. You know that's when you should be building your network and building relationships and getting to know people.
Speaker 2:For the time that a random layoff happens, company shuts down Not every company is as solid as a Fortune 50. Companies go out of business all the time. That's when you need that network. And if it's not there because you never took the time to build it when you need it, that's not the time. That's not the time to start trying to build it, because now you're behind the curve. Yeah, so that's why I've spent so much time.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't know this, but when I retired, I think I had like 200 people on my LinkedIn account. Now I don't care about follower count or connections counts. That's not what it's about to me. To me, it's about connecting with people that provide value to the military community. That's what it is for me. But in less than two years, I am now over 20,000 followers on LinkedIn, not because I'm the best dude ever.
Speaker 2:I'm not perfect. I'm not the best recruiter ever. There's plenty of people wiser than me, smarter than me, better work ethic than me but I'm consistent and that's where it really comes down to. I consistently engage with people and try to lend out information that helps others consistently and, once again, you're building a reputation for helping people, being there for people. It's not about me, it's about them.
Speaker 2:You know it's like when I recruit for the company, it's not about me, it's about filling a position for the company. That's what the company needs. Right, it's it's. It's not me, it's we, right, you know. So you know relationship building, dude, huge piece that a lot of people take for granted and don't spend nearly enough time doing. You know I I meet a lot of transitioning service members that they focus all their energy on interviewing and resume and hardly any at all at networking coffee chats, like dude, like, uh, you asked me earlier tonight before we, you know, did this session. You were like how was my transition? My transition was smooth. I was like a grease pig going across a linoleum floor dude, my transition was smooth as shit.
Speaker 2:And the reason for that was because I leaned in way in advance and was building those relationships and talking to the right people way ahead of time. So by the time that it was my moment, I was able to capitalize on my moment and do it quickly and obviously successfully, right so?
Speaker 1:you know if I could tell somebody that's getting out like.
Speaker 2:Some of the things that they could do is coffee chats. Get on LinkedIn, start building your network, get that profile rocking right, start figuring out what industries you want to get into and use LinkedIn to find people in those industries that are doing what you want to do and are where you want to be, and start reaching out to them. Hey, you know, like I'm so-and-so, whatever, whatever, I'm trying to get into this industry, potentially this company, you know. You think you could spend 15, 20 minutes, kind of tell me a little bit about what you do and what your company's about. You know, dude, you do 10, 12 of those in a certain industry. You're going to get a pretty good picture of, like, what that industry is about, you know. And then, of course, you're going to want to go to info sessions and things like that. But you know that piece right there.
Speaker 2:The folks that are doing those things are the ones that stick out and stand out, especially in like a hiring our heroes cohort, where there's 1200 people in a cohort. How do you stand out? Everybody in that cohort's a veteran with leadership experience. They're either an NCO, a senior NCO or an officer. At some point they all trump each other. Nobody has you know, what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Like you know, we're all program project managers quotations, right? Sure, we all have leadership experience. We've all led teams. So what sets you apart from everybody else? Nobody gives a crap what your rank is in the civilian world. They could care less unless you're like a general officer or something. Nobody really cares whether you're a senior NCO or a company grade or a field grade officer or even an airman. Can you meet the requirements in the job description, yes or no? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like, just like that, just like that. You know what I mean Like.
Speaker 2:you know what I mean Like I don't care how many years you served or what you've been doing. If you can't meet what's outlined in the job description, then you're not going to get hired. You know what I mean, and so? But one of the ways to figure that out is relation. This all goes back to the networking and the relationship building, learning the industry, talking to people, having conversations, learning from your peers, those above you, below you, at the same level as you, whatever you know. So that's all I got to say about that man, man.
Speaker 1:Oh man, listen, Steve. Like that's right on target man. So true, man, it all comes down to the relationship Like. So I've been given the opportunity to like go out and do speaking engagements lately which is really, which is really, really, really cool, and and and I'm like what, like you want to hear from me, like, who is this guy?
Speaker 2:Like who are you talking about?
Speaker 1:Like me, you want me to, you know. And then it's funny because they're like bro this is freaking good man Isn't that good Dude, that's like yeah. Cheers, bro. I'm glad you liked it, bro. Bro, that's freaking good you made that. That's my uncle's recipe. Oh my God, dude yeah.
Speaker 2:That's like liquid cookie man.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Oh my God. But, dude, one of the things that I it depends, like what the group is for the most part, how I tailor it, but ultimately I'm pretty much stating like, hey, look, everything you do. What I learned early on in my military career was that everything we do is relationship based. Yes, it, it's just the dude and and and.
Speaker 1:Uh, as a first sergeant, you know, that was a really good position for me because, naturally, like that was another one, that that I, that I felt like I was like a duck in water.
Speaker 1:You know, being a first sergeant, you know, and I would be in these meetings sometimes.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, like you got these company grade officers and they feel that because of their rank, they should be able to turn this information around fairly quickly and whatever the case may be, and a lot of times, you know, I would have to like interject and be like hey, like, let me, let me try to help you. Like my way, and my way was the more like emotional way, because I was tied into these folks emotionally. I knew them, I knew what they were going through, I knew their mother's first name, I knew, you know, like I just knew, like maybe I didn't know every single thing, but the key things that they chose to share with me. It was almost like it's almost like rain man in a kind of a way, like I'm not good with numbers or anything like that, but I can remember, like certain things about a person's life or or something that they're going through yeah and I and and you know, call it like you know, playing the system or whatever, but like that, that was something that was unique to me.
Speaker 1:I felt that I could do that without really struggling to try to figure it out, and I used it to my advantage. And my advantage was like I had these personal relationships with these folks because I took the time to listen and hear them out. So when it came down, you know as well as I know Steve, steve, like when you need dude, it could be a report that you need that literally two people have access to the system. The one person is deployed or on leave or at a medical appointment. There's only one other person that can get into that system, that has the login, that can hit print and you know how to get a hold of that person. Why? Because that person is accountable and responsible. Why? Because you know that you could call that person. You've had that relationship. You've established that thing where, like yo, if I call you, steve, if I call you, I'm not calling to invite you to dinner, like I'm calling because I need you to get something done.
Speaker 2:That's like the difference between a leader and an influential leader. Influential leaders in an organization can be very powerful. It's like do you know who the executive assistant is to a CEO? An executive assistant wields a lot of influential power. They have direct access to that leader If you, if you like, you know it's not. I'm just using that one as an example but yeah, but you're right on target.
Speaker 2:But if you, that goes back to that relationship. But if you build relationships with people, eventually those people are going to promote into other positions, they're going to find their own successes and then, if you've taken the time to build this network, you to find their own successes and then, if you've taken the time to build this network, you can reach out and get a lot done as an influential leader. You might not be a leader positionally, like you might not be a senior vice president of the company. You could be a manager in the company and have more influential power than a senior executive. If you take the time to build relationships within a company and that's like you know, it's one of the things they teach us right in like Senior NCO Academy is like learning, when you take over a team, who are you identifying who your influential leaders are within your unit and getting them aboard with you right Like, for example, when I came into my flight in Philly, I knew who my influential leader was.
Speaker 2:I pulled that person into a meeting and I said hey, man, like you've been doing some great things around here and I could really use your help. You know, you seem to know everybody around here. You, you know you're connected with everybody, you're a good dude, you have a great reputation, you do good work. You know, I could really use an ally on my side Now that that person's on board. Now, together, let's go lead this, this, this flight, together, you know, and they, when the other people are like they'll be like nah, nah, he's for real, like let's, let's, let's do what we need to do.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying. Like, like, that's how you can get stuff done. But imagine, imagine if you would have went in with like ego and and whatever else comes along with that right Correct Ego, yeah, and, and, and whatever else comes along with that right correct ego, and anger, and and bitterness. And you're like, yeah, no, this is my flight. Now I don't, I don't give a shit, what like like who, who like be influential all you want, but I'm the big dog. Right, you could, because it came in like that too yeah and what would that have gotten you?
Speaker 2:they might listen to you, but when push comes to shove and you really need them, are they going to be there? Maybe, maybe not.
Speaker 1:Maybe, maybe not, you don't know.
Speaker 2:It would have gave you a lot of heartache, I would imagine from my experience, you know it's like oh man, I can't remember his name for the life of me One of the pro soups that we had. He was like if you take care of your people and you treat them right, who Ross? No, not Jerome, but he had some good ones too.
Speaker 2:He had some good ones too, but no, no, oh, my God, I can't. You know. It's funny. I was with him in several different units too, but he ended up becoming the group chief right before I left. I would love to talk to him on here. Jerome, I haven't seen him since we were in the office.
Speaker 1:I follow him on Facebook.
Speaker 2:He has his own business now, or something doesn't he?
Speaker 1:I want to hear all about it. Dude, I think he's got something going on. I'm going to reach out to him. Mr Ross, come on, spark and Stratus, hang out bro.
Speaker 2:I remember, during my certification, boy, he boy, he gave me a hard time, uh, but it was all good, though good, it was good feedback dude, he told me.
Speaker 1:He told me on my uh, my first inspection he told me he was like he said it's just too much stuff, it's just too much stuff for you to have all figured out. It's just too much. It's too much like, basically, because I was like, look, I got it like this and I do. And he was just like, yeah, no, it's basically.
Speaker 1:I'm you're being extra you're gonna you're, you're, you're gonna, you're passing your inspection? Yeah, right, right, because I want you to pass your inspection, but if I don't want you to, there's just too much stuff I can. Basically, he's like I can figure out. If I spent a day here, I would figure out what the fuck you're not doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he would pick it apart. You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean, yeah, right, right, oh man, he was a good dude.
Speaker 2:He was a good dude man, yeah for sure he was absolutely good.
Speaker 1:You know, man, like I would love to talk to like a lot of the folks that were in our unit, like at the 314th.
Speaker 2:But like back when we were there, I would love to talk to Chewy. I tell you, one of the Proc Proc man, proc's a good one too, dude, I go see Proc. Look, check this out. I haven't seen Proc in a hot minute. I'm going to tell you a quick story, real quick story.
Speaker 1:So I'm down at Senior NCOA Bro, like four days before Senior NCOA dude, I come down with like a panic attack. I've never had a panic attack and I like had a freaking panic attack bro, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, real, real, crazy steve. And long story short, I'm driving, I have to leave. I have the panic attack on friday and I leave on monday to to alabama. So I drive down to alabama. I'm feeling kind of weird, I feel like mental fog.
Speaker 1:I stop in charlotte at my buddy's house. Uh, him and his wife I know them from Brooklyn. As soon as I get to their house, I'm like guys, listen, I don't know what's going on with me. There's something like weird. Like I just I don't feel right. They're like, oh, just get some rest or whatever. So the next day I still feel weird. So I go to the hospital in Charlotte. Anyway, bro, long story short, all this stuff is like happening. And then I'm down, the doctors in Charlotte are like you should just go back home. And in my mind I'm like you don't understand. Like I've been waiting to go to this school for like two years and pretty much I need to have completed senior NCOA in order to like maintain my position. Yeah, so, long story short, I go down, whatever. But while I'm down there, I go to Nashville and I go to visit PROC.
Speaker 1:Were you at McGee-Tyson. I was at Gunther Annex in Maxwell.
Speaker 2:Oh, you were at Maxwell. Oh, because I did my NCO Academy at McGee Tyson in Tennessee, knoxville, knoxville.
Speaker 1:No, no, this one was at the Annex.
Speaker 2:Yeah at the Annex. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So on the weekend, on this one particular weekend, I drive to Nashville, but I got to write a paper and some other stuff.
Speaker 1:And you know Proc's a really good stuff and you know like Proc's like a really good writer and Proc is, like you know, like he's pretty much like did his master's and everything. And I'm stressing out over this. I'm like yo, proc, like I got to get up early, I got to write this thing and yada, yada, yada, so before we went out to lunch. I'm like Proc, let me just write this and let me get this all figured out. So Proc's like he's leaving me alone. I'm writing at the kitchen table, I'm writing on the back patio, so he comes back. He's checking on me. He's like, bro, you're still writing this thing. What's going on? What are you writing about? I'm like, nah, I got to get my thoughts and stuff. So to this day, me and Proc have this inside joke where we're like see, spock run, sky is blue. He's basically saying I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. He ended up helping me, but it was funny man, that is funny.
Speaker 1:It was funny dude, but again dude, it's just guys like that man that is funny. It was funny dude, but again dude, like it's just guys like that man that like dude like it's guys like him.
Speaker 2:Bish, bish. You brought up Bish earlier.
Speaker 1:Bish was great man Dude like all these dudes, man, and I'm just like, I'm so grateful for the limited time I had them, like in my work life, like I have them in my life life, but at that time you know what I mean, oh man.
Speaker 2:That's funny, you know it's. Uh, it reminds me, speaking of writing, when I went to NCO Academy, you know it was like it was eight weeks at Knoxville. I was down there for eight weeks. One of the meccas of motorcycling in the United States.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, it's like a big windy road, yeah it's like a big windy road in the mountains or whatever. People drive from all over the world and the United States to go to it. Right, right, right. And I'm like I am not missing this opportunity. So the first week of NCO Academy, they give us our syllabus and everything, all the upcoming assignments they gave us up front. So I know what all my homework is for the entire eight week course right now. You know what I did that first weekend I shut myself in my room, ordered some pizza and I crushed all of my homework, all my papers, all my outlines and all my speeches in one weekend. And then the next seven weekends I spent riding my motorcycle. No, I didn't get distinguished grad or anything like that, okay you know. But I successfully passed the course and I had a hell of a time doing it.
Speaker 2:I learned tons, you know but, you know, and everybody else like every weekend they're like what are you doing this weekend, man, I got to write my freaking outline, not me dragon's tale.
Speaker 1:Dragon's tale, gallenberg.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean like we're getting it busy, you know real that that's for real yeah so like yeah, dude, listen dude bro, listen.
Speaker 1:Thank you, man, like it's. This was awesome, steve. I'm so, I'm so glad, dude. I was like I was thinking to myself. I was like man, friday night hanging out talking some shit. Like you know, like what else could we have been doing on a Friday night? Tomorrow I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Wreaths Across America. Oh, you're doing that. Yeah, so my motorcycle organization. Talk about it man, yeah, so I'm the vice president of my motorcycle organization, sinister steel, here in jersey, and so every year we do the wreaths across america. So, uh, tomorrow I'm leading our run. We're going to go to six different, uh, veteran monuments and we're going to lay lay a wreath down oh nice it takes most of the day because we drive from one location to the other. But uh, yeah, so tomorrow I'll be doing that in the morning.
Speaker 1:Oh man, that's, yeah, listen, when, um, when you get done with all that, send me photos so I can plug them in, plug them into this. You know what I mean? Yeah, so, uh, dude, I can't, I can't, I can't wait to uh, to the next time you come, you come back and hang out with me for a little bit, dude, yeah man, oh Steve, it was good seeing you, brother, I appreciate it. Oh man, yeah, listen, that's it for us. We're going to shut this one down. Spark and stride.
Speaker 2:Spark and stride Stay sparked.