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Words from the Wise
Join Words from the Wise with Gary Wise, a retired Navy Command Master Chief, for authentic leadership insights forged in real-world experience. Through engaging discussions and actionable strategies, Gary empowers you to master emotional intelligence, build resilient teams, and unlock your full potential. Tune in for practical advice on delegation, conflict management, and inspiring others, drawn from his over 28 years of service and ongoing leader mentorship headquartered now in Ocala, Florida.
Words from the Wise
The Mentor's Journey: Finding Your Guide
The search for guidance in our personal and professional lives often leads us to mentorship – that powerful, transformative relationship that can unlock our potential and illuminate our path forward. In this deeply personal conversation, retired Navy Chief Petty Officers Gary Wise and Jeremy Moore unpack the profound impact mentors have had on their military careers and civilian lives.
Drawing from their combined 40+ years of naval service, Gary and Jeremy share vulnerable stories about mentors who changed their trajectories – from the commanding officer who seemed unnecessarily harsh but was actually providing protection, to the senior chief who drove four hours to provide support during a personal tragedy. These powerful examples demonstrate how true mentorship goes far beyond casual advice or periodic check-ins.
The conversation tackles the stark differences between military and civilian mentorship cultures. In the military, mentorship is woven into the fabric of daily operations, creating an environment where personal and professional guidance naturally intersect. By contrast, civilian environments often lack these formal structures, requiring individuals to be more intentional about seeking and providing mentorship.
Gary and Jeremy offer practical wisdom for both mentors and mentees. For those seeking guidance, they emphasize the importance of demonstrating initiative, being receptive to feedback (even when uncomfortable), and recognizing that different areas of life may require different mentors. For potential mentors, they highlight the profound fulfillment that comes from helping others grow, the opportunity to clarify your own values, and the ripple effect your guidance creates across generations.
Whether you're currently navigating a challenging transition, seeking to accelerate your growth, or looking to give back by mentoring others, this conversation provides a roadmap for creating meaningful mentorship relationships that transform lives – including your own. The question isn't whether you need mentorship, but rather, what's stopping you from embracing it?
And I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. Don't care for the critics. My words and life is except for us that they can't stop. They just don't get it. I think they forget I'm not done till I'm on top. I know I was born for this. I know I was born for this. I believe. I believe we can write a story. All right, everybody Listening to the sound of my voice or possibly watching this live on the Tube U U-Tube-Yay. This is Gary Wise. Words from the Wise, the podcast leadership conversation show, joined by Mr Jeremy Moore. Chris is currently out on vacation with his family, so just the two of us here, and we are going to be coming to you live and direct tonight, Jeremy. What's up, man?
Jeremy Moore :Hey, how's it going.
Gary Wise :It's going good, brother. We are down to the last three days. You know I got three days in a wake up, right, three days in a wake up and this deployment is done. Yeah, I look at every school year like a deployment.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah, I can see that.
Gary Wise :And so we've got a school day tomorrow, all six classes, a three-day weekend for Memorial Day and then a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and we're done. Yeah, yeah, Looking forward to it. Tuesday Wednesday.
Gary Wise :Thursday and we're done. Yeah, yeah, looking forward to it. So, hey, everybody, just so you know, the goal for tonight's podcast is going to be to talk about mentorship. So if you've ever been someone who's been interested in being a mentor, if you've ever thought about being a mentor for another person, or if you're looking for a mentor, we're going to hopefully give you some good ideas for how to accomplish that goal tonight. So please stick with us as we get through this conversation and away we go. Jeremy, I guess my first question is top three characters in movies and television series, or who any? If I was asking can you give me three perfect mentors? Could you give me three examples of not not doesn't have to be even in your real life just like people that you've seen or that you think, then that's like that's a perfect, uh, definition of a mentor.
Jeremy Moore :You know, really, I can only think of really just one. You know, have you ever seen Kingsman?
Gary Wise :I have not. I've watched it, but not paid attention to it.
Jeremy Moore :Okay, it's one of those spy movies. It's a British spy movie that essentially they're all named after Knights of the Round Table and one of the main characters is trying to recruit the son of the man who saved his life when he was in training back in the day to be one of the new spies his life when he was in training back in the day to be one of the new spies, for lack of a better term and the kid's been raised in the streets and is very rough. But the movie is more of a comedy than you know anything in it. It kind of like spoofs but also does like some really cool action stuff. But the main character, harry, is a really good mentor. He's one of the few that you'll see in movies that like didn't have that alternate, you know reason why he was, you know cause.
Jeremy Moore :A lot of times you'll see like the, the main bad guy, turns out to be the mentor, right, and that kind of stuff. And I guess that really plays a lot off of people's um, mistrust of talking to people and being honest and saying, hey, this is what I want to do with my life, can you help me? And you and I grew up in the streets, where that was a formal thing and really a huge informal thing too, where we pushed that a lot on other people. But in civilian life, no, they don't have that Like. If they do, you're in an official capacity, you're interning somewhere and that just means you're doing all the grunt work and you're still doing that right seat, left seat kind of thing. But it's not that same mentorship that we had, you know.
Gary Wise :Okay, so we're going to talk about that today, actually.
Jeremy Moore :Part of that. I took you deep off that.
Gary Wise :It is deep right, because you're giving trust to somebody about areas you're probably not all the way confident and trusting them to give you the right advice. For me, I got to tell you two of my favorite mentors off of television or off of the big screen, come from star wars, right, and I think obi-wan and I think yoda right. Those are two common mentors that I hear people always like use in common conversation. He's my obi-wan or he's like my yoda right, and and when I think about mentorship, when I think about people that are in this world, and why I like to ask about the movies or about the the tv series, is because when we watch those shows we go for the journey right. What makes our war such an epic tale was that hero's journey. That luke goes on and it was just so perfectly written and so perfectly dialed into that experience. And here were those mentors, right, that he has at the beginning of his journey. Oh, by the way, bader becomes a theoretical mentor right.
Gary Wise :Now I'm your dad right. Oh my God, now I got dad problems right Even more so. And so I think, when it comes to the mentor, that's the thought process you have to have In the military setting, which, of course, for those of you that don't know, both Jeremy and I are both retired military people, both chief petty officers for the United States Navy. Both of us did over 20 years serving our country. You're going to hear a lot of our conversations going to leverage military plus now us trying to come to grips with the civilians world we live in and trying to figure that out. And we're also parents of. You know, he's a, he's a parent of adults and younger kids, and I'm a parent of a teenager and a younger kid, so we're coming through all that as well.
Gary Wise :So these are the different lenses we're using as we're having these conversations, and so I just I kind of wanted to get a frame of reference as to what your perspective on a mentor was. That's mine. Why do you think mentorship was so critical to our military careers? Because I'll tell you, throughout my career, they changed my life career. They changed my life, right. Do you remember?
Jeremy Moore :do you remember, um, a first mentor that you actually had, as a man, as an adult right, not even as a teenager well, I mean, my father was a really great mentor for how I wanted to be as far as a parent and be as far as a person. He helped me develop my character. I had certain people at key times in my life. The one that means the most to me was my chief back when I was a first class and my spouse passed away. He drove like four hours and sat by my side and hung out with me and I didn't have to do anything. He was like hey, I need you to sign this piece of paper, sign this piece of paper. Like. He was like hey, I need you to sign this piece of paper, sign this piece of paper. Um gave me time to get myself together. You know, um got all of the um, the insurance stuff taken care of, so I didn't have to do that. Like got me put on leave and and just really had everything to do with. He was just a good dude. They loved people, yeah, and that's all it was like. He was a little brash and and would say fantastical things sometimes just to kind of get people's attention Right, but when it came down to it, you know, he just cared.
Jeremy Moore :Okay, and there's so many people that I come across that they're just going through the motions, man, and they just a lot of them don't care or they're thinking about other things at the time. When they're interacting with their people, they're interacting with numbers or a dictatorship and the relationship. You know the that binding, you know you can't just, you can't just know, like the name of their kids oh, how's Tommy doing today? Which is good, don't get me wrong. But you can't just know that and have no idea that somebody's starving at home.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah, you're just trying to hit the wave tops. Oh, you got a five-year-old, I've got a five-year-old. Blah, blah, blah. You got to know when people are struggling and when people come to you and you find out they don't have furniture in their house, or they don't have pots and their house, or they don't have pots and pans, or they don't have money to go grocery shopping, because you know whatever, and you know those are the things that some people turn a shoulder to and the other people, you know, wrap their arms around somebody and say, hey, I've, I've got you.
Gary Wise :You know, I always wonder why we dealt with that much stuff all the time in the military, cause it felt like I remember one day I can walk out of my office and there's this AO one. I never met the kid before. He's an AO, is an aviation ordinance man, he's a first-class petty officer. I'm in my office, I'm the base mass chief, naval base Guam. He comes and knocks on my door. He says Mass Chief, do you have a minute? I was like, yeah, what's up man. He's like well, I met this lady last night and she's on the couch out here right now in your front office. Her husband just went to Hawaii yesterday and she has nowhere to live. I'm just like what yesterday?
Jeremy Moore :and she has nowhere to live.
Gary Wise :I'm just like what, wow, what? Like you met her where, bro? Like what? How do you know this woman? She's like I met her out of the bar last night and I let her go stay in my house last night, but her husband, she's been staying in the barracks and she doesn't got a key to get back in. Oh yeah, bro, wow, all the perking's up right. So I contacted the master chief for that group of people that was in the barracks. I was like, brother, this is now your problem, not my problem.
Gary Wise :Come get your spouse right yeah, you know, for me as being a baseline, it's tuesday, right, like it's just the amount of times things like that happen to us, to me, to you, to any of us out there in the fleet. I think it's because we had so much involvement in our people's lives that we would get all those extra carry-ons, them, yes, and so they're dependent 100 on us as a military force to also help them when it comes to housing and pay issues. And and then the other thing is we have access, as we we had access to so many different social services that we could then initiate to support them, and we're so used to that. And then again you come into the civilian sector, where you know I've got students and if I trip into any of them having these kinds of issues, it gets quickly escalated, and I do find in the schools we do still get a chance to have some of these conversations. But then you also have law enforcement and you also have, like, real social services and it gets it can, it can get moving.
Gary Wise :And I do think all of this comes to the heart of mentorship, because being a mentor, in my mind is is much different than that of being a coach, right? People often ask me if I'm a leadership coach and I push back on that because I don't want to be a leadership coach. Right Like I. Just I don't. I don't have the. For me, a coach is somebody almost like an athlete. Right Like I. Want you to go out there and run X amount of reps.
Gary Wise :I want you to go do a certain amount of things, run X amount of reps, I want you to go do a certain amount of things For one specific thing go do this and that's it Right, whereas a mentor is going to help guide you, shape you, care about you and then give you all the access to all the tools.
Gary Wise :But, brother, I'm not going to freaking, eat it for you, right, you have got to learn to eat for yourself. And I think it's a higher level of a calling to be a mentor. And the other thing is, because of so much having it in the military, I mean, I ran mentorship programs of multiple commands where I would have to sit down with people and sign off on these contracts with why did you ask so-and-so to be your mentor and how come you want this person to be your protege and all these things. So I have a very, very, very big affinity for the mentorship program. But you know, what's funny is, coming up through life similar to you, I didn't really think of certain people as my mentors. Looking back on them, I see the mentorship right. But it wasn't until I was much older that I recognized like, oh, this is my mentor, right, like so, like my dad, my dad was my first mentor, right as a young person as an adult?
Gary Wise :um, because I had mentors as a teenager that were unhealthy mentors. These are guys that I listened. They were mentoring me for the wrong things. That can happen too. My first authentic mentor that I outside of my father or my uncles or my cousins that was, I think, a good, positive influence on me was a second class petty officer. He convinced me to get qualified in a watch station that I didn't want to get qualified in because I thought not being qualified was the best thing in the world no responsibilities, right, I just getting paid to do nothing and he eventually, you know, got me to where. He inspired me to get the qualification right because I valued his opinion. Um, so I guess my first question now will be who do you believe are the best mentors? Uh, in 2025 for somebody? Is it really just somebody who just cares? Is it somebody that? Um, what should a person be looking for if they're looking for a mentor and, and let's say, in life, yeah, well, so one the person has to have life experience check.
Jeremy Moore :I mean, you can't get, you can't expect the average 18 year old to just be a life mentor. Now, I'm not Sanders, not exceptions, because we all know there are, but you know you're the average 18 year old, you're not going to be able to be. Hey man, how do I do this on my taxes, you know? Or?
Gary Wise :man, I listened to these you know when your wife said this, or yeah, but I listened to these kids talk in school and I'm just thinking to myself the blinders over here leading the blind they both think they're making some serious sense and I've got to jump in here and reframe this conversation because this is going nowhere fast.
Jeremy Moore :But then you get some 18-year-olds man that lost their parents at a young age or dealt with juvenile cancer or diabetes, type 1 or something affected their life and they've lived 10 years longer than their lifespan. You know, you get those exceptions where you've always got that one person that seems to always in your scope, always have things worked out going through school and everything, when you had that cool guy that just knew where he was going and just had everything figured out. Sometimes you see those rare people and everybody, everybody's got somebody kind of in that scope. But you need to look for the person that's goals align to what you do. So ideally you would have one for um work. You would have one for, maybe, professional skills outside of work. You would have one for, like you were saying, you know your dad and my dad, for being a father or for being an adult or both. You might have another one or two or three for being a Christian or you know.
Jeremy Moore :I mean, there's just I guess what I'm saying is you don't need just one mentor, but if you do, they got to be really good at a lot of things. Yeah.
Gary Wise :I agree, I agree, and I think that I know that young people, or people in general, need to know areas they need to get some help. So in the Navy we have this thing called shoring, which is essentially when a bulkhead, which is a wall, is starting to concave in. That's what we will then do is we'll brace wood up against it to shore it up, to help it from caving in. And so when I think of shoring something up, I'm thinking of weak areas in my life that I need some help and re-getting some support there. And one of the first things I will almost always think Google somebody that's done something and I can read about them and get some inspiration. Because for me, part of mentorship is inspiration to want to continue to get better at the thing, right, right. And then it's super God, it's super special when you actually find people in real life that can be a mentor for you, and people just can't take that for granted.
Gary Wise :And for me, when it's not, it's not always so much what I'm looking for, because none of my mentors have ever found me. I found each of them, them, every freaking one of them. To this day, I'm still finding mentors. Um, and what the thing is is I know what I'm looking for now after years of doing it, and it typically starts with I want to know about a certain thing, so I'll seek these people out and then I'll ask questions and by stop their answers it will. It will trigger me to know, like, okay, this is a person that I want to get more information with, I want to talk to them a little bit more and I want to get that value from them.
Gary Wise :Right, and I think that shows a an emotional maturity for for man or woman to know that they're not able to do it all by themselves. I love how you boxed it out as well, because I had it right here. How do you have a mentor in life and education and faith at work and all of those things? For example, your work, the politics of your work, may not be similar to other places, so getting someone to tell you what you should do that doesn't understand the intricacies of where you're at now is, unfortunately, probably just going to give you excess energy that you don't need. Sure, you need good information, you need good feedback. How do you approach somebody in your workspace for a mentorship conversation? Right, especially if it's not an official thing, because, like you said, some people might feel uncomfortable having that conversation, but I still think it can be done.
Jeremy Moore :So this is where, like, every professional writer will tell you not to um, not to kind of downplay your words, not to um, go around an issue or to kind of box things in a little bit. But words matter and the sharpness of words matter, right? So you don't have to bring somebody in and be like, hey, sweetheart, how are you? You know, you know it's going to be okay, that kind of thing, but you one always start from a point of caring. I feel anyway, it's it's most important to always start from that point of caring, because once I've stopped caring, really I should just fire the employee or whatever, because they're beyond salvage for how I feel anyway.
Jeremy Moore :But you got to come from that point of caring, but you got to come from that point of caring so that they understand that there's a difference between counseling somebody and, you know berating somebody, or even telling them, you know disciplining them in whatever way. If you come at them from caring, hey, I just want you to be better, or I want us to be better, or here's some ideas on things that could help you, or I've noticed that, and then you start that conversation, like I've had those intrusive conversations where a female that works for me came in and I was like hey, you got a couple of scratches on your face, or are you okay, you know, and just making sure that if you come from that spot of caring, check the sharpness of your words and bring somebody to that understanding that you're trying to help them be better. You're not trying to discipline them in any way or anything, you're just trying to make them better. Yeah, you know, they'll understand where you're. They'll see your heart in it.
Gary Wise :Yep, where you'll see your heart in it. Yep, I think. The other thing for me is when I talk to people about how to go find mentors in their workspace, I will teach them how to open up the conversation by asking for feedback in a way that, hey boss, I want to do the best I can do possible here. I like to think this is on the right track. What do you think? And give them the opportunity to provide you that feedback, because that feedback is not always asked for. And typically for me, whenever someone asks me for my feedback, it shows for me that they're trusting the organization and they're trusting in me. And, to your point, as long as I handle that effectively, I'm probably going to build a stronger person. That's a part of my team. On the reverse, I also believe that it's important as a, as a leader, to be authentic and to be honest, right, so if you're going to come.
Gary Wise :So, one time one of my sons asked me a question. That was. It was, it was a. It was a question that I had not yet had to answer for him honestly in life, right, and he, he asked it to me right in front of my wife, and I looked at my wife and I was like that's a lot of bass in his voice. I gotta give him the answer straight up, right, like I can't afford to not give him the authentic answer, because he's not a little kid anymore. He's asking me Dad, is this true, yes or no? And all right, yeah, it's true. And here we go. And I think that when you're able to have that mentorship moment with that person, because they're asking, then they may continue to ask more in the future.
Gary Wise :On the reverse, what you can't do is say one thing and then do something else. Yeah, that's going to confuse people, right, and I think, especially in the workplace, I think every manager has a responsibility to mentor their people, right? I just believe that. I think it actually part of the job is right, right, you should be.
Gary Wise :If you're part of your tasking is to teach or manage or lead, then there should be a underlying tone of mentorship and that job description or in that PD, because I've got to be able to mentor you to get you to the space where I can then teach you or I can lead you or I can direct you. Sometimes you can't just manage people. I need to mentor you to get to the place where I can help best manage you until you're eventually doing so well on your own. You don't need to be managed anymore now. You just need to be mentored right, which is a lot more freaking fun. Let's be honest mentoring people is way more fun than managing people right, because we're getting deeper. Um, how do you do you have any rules for your protégés or people that you mentor?
Jeremy Moore :Well, the only rule I've ever had is honesty. You know, if, if, if I come to you and I'm like, hey, gary, I just need some help, you know, let's talk for a second. The moment it's me and you, you know, it didn't matter which position I was in. I wanted to feel like I could speak my mind, and we can't do that if one person is fearing that the other person is going to judge them or harm them in some way, physically or, you know, through their career or whatever. I mean there's that relationship and just that honesty that you have has to be that rule that you can't do something halfway. You can't walk in and say, hey, I need help and then have that secret, okay. You can't walk in and say, hey, I need help and then have that secret, okay, you can't. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's really hard to explain how that honesty has to be there and not get away from all the issues I've ever had in the past with it.
Gary Wise :I get it. And if you can't have that honesty, you should not be the mentor. Yeah, right, I think you have to have boundaries there, right, I think you have to have boundaries there, right. And I've had. So my only rule for mentorship cause, you know, in my life people would contact me hey, gary, could you mentor me or can I be your? Whatever. And my thing was, I've got so many people that I'm constantly mentoring that I'm just for me to take on another person. I I was very direct, right, don't tell me. No, yeah, don't come in here, argue with me about what you're not gonna do, because now we're just buddies and you want to sit here and argue with you, bro, like at the end of the day, my, my, how I got right. In my life I'd never tell my mentors no, my mentors were some of the freaking, most ruthless, most expectant. They would give me taskers.
Gary Wise :I remember one time I had a mentor and I was the senior chief. We were on board the George Washington and he was a master chief. He was a PRCM. If he's listening, or if he ever watches this TMFT, todd Mother F'n Tucker, you know who you are. And Todd Tucker is in my office one day and he's like hey, gary, what's your Master Chief package looking like? And I was like, well, I've got all these things. I showed him all the things that I did and I was like and that's what I've got done? Showed him all the things that I did and I was like and that's what I've got done. He's like well, what about your PME for the Senior Enlisted Academy? I was like I'm not doing that, bro, like I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I'm done. I got a bachelor's degree. Now, if that's not good enough, if that's the one reason I don't make master's degree, so be it right, I'm good right.
Gary Wise :Right, right, and Todd like throws my stuff at me like bro, screw you, bro. What the hell is wrong with you, gary? You better get your damn PMEs done, you know, because at that level of competition everything matters. Right, the minute you thought about leaving one thing on the table, that was like you're making the conscious decision to not promote. Yeah, because I was going for the top of my rating, right, like the senior senior senior title, and Todd had been a senior chief a year before. So he was recently just promoted to master chief. So he had gone from being with me as a fellow senior chief I was trying to make nine to now he's a master chief. But he wants me to make master chief too.
Gary Wise :Right's like, you're too hard of a worker, you're too much of a motivator to not do that. You could get that and I went and got that crap done, bro, I was so pissed off at him for making me do that, right, because he was, and he was my in that moment. He was my mentor in that moment. He was my mentor, right, and you know it's funny about that. He was just walking by my office and dropped by on me. Right, we're on the ship, of course we can't go nowhere, but he knew that it was coming to be time for mass sheet packages to be done and he just thought about me, and having those kinds of people in your life that will challenge you and will call you on some of your bs, I think is critical, right.
Gary Wise :And for me, um, those are the kind of mentors I need. I don't need the mentors that are always going to tell me I'm great because I need that tough love. Yeah, you know, I really do. Now, other people, they need different styles. When you do 20 something years in the service, I respond much stronger to a little bit more of tough love than I do to people just giving me a certain level of appreciation. Now, with these high school kids, there's a different approach, definitely a different approach, and I think that's something that I'm, that I'm learning as I'm working with this younger generation, or at least these children 14 15 year olds. You know, what's incredible to me is how much these kids change from 14 to 18 yeah, oh, it's scary Huge.
Gary Wise :I'm watching every year beginning of the year. I see these little 14 year olds come in and then I've got these big 18 year olds over here and I'm like I got these little babies yeah, adults Right. And it's like I remember when he was a baby, yeah. And now, having been here, this is my fourth year coming up I will have seen their progression the whole way, and my own kid, plus all these other kids, yeah, um.
Jeremy Moore :So I wanted to ask you too, because you were talking about you know that was a good mentorship um time, you know, a good relationship. Have you ever had a mentor that you didn't want?
Gary Wise :I've had bosses that I didn't want. I would not classify them as mentors, but I've had some tough. So so I to that point. I had a command master chief one time that I thought that hated me. I thought, right he, I thought he just hated me.
Gary Wise :He was always cussing at me, always calling me names always making fun of me in public in front of everybody, right, and I was a. I got to the carrier as a chief petty officer and not even when I checked in with him. I checked in with him not even my third day on board the ship. And I went in and I said, hey, mass Chief, I'm DCC Wise, I'm the guy you guys handpicked to come from ATG to be on this ship. I'm coming to be the best I can be. And he's like oh, you're the F stick from ATG. I was like that's exactly what he said to me. He said you're the F-stick from ATG. And I was like well, you know, I guess I mean you guys called me. I didn't call you, but he was like I can tell. And then that was the first conversation I ever had with that guy.
Gary Wise :And then I made senior chief, not even two months later. So I dropped in on his office that morning. I made senior chief, I swung by. Hey, master chief, I freaking made senior chief. Can you believe it? He was like I can't believe it. You're going to get three years as a senior chief on an afloat aircraft carrier and you've only been in the Navy 12 years. This is ridiculous. Like he made me feel like such a turd for making senior chief Right, but making senior chief right, and I was like damn bro.
Gary Wise :But of course I did not get a lot of love that day from anybody Because I was still new to the ship and nobody else in my department made it but me. And so all these chiefs were pissed off Because here I was, this young guy that just made senior chief, and they were all pissed. But I mean, none of them knew my journey to get to where I was right. It was different experiences. And then I remember I went, we were having a chief's meeting, my very first ever chief's meeting on an aircraft carrier.
Gary Wise :So there's like 100-something chiefs in this mess, right, and I go to the CMC and I'm like Mass Chief, I want to put something out about the DCPO program and how. How I need help from the chief's mess. Do you have any advice for me? He was like I gotta do that for you. What the hell do I got you for? And I was just like, well, there you go like. And so I really I really thought he hated me right. Um, fast forward two and a half years later and at that point I had put a command senior chief package in and he'd worked with me on it. And here's what he did for me. He was like you want to work command senior chief? You've got to be in my office every night 10 o'clock at night, because I work only on that, from taps to midnight. I'm like I'm on the watch bill, bro, I'm working full hours going on the clock.
Gary Wise :I'm the only chief in the DC division. He's just like I don't care, but I worked with him on it. Well, my package is in. And then my wife and I decided that it wasn't time for me to go command senior chief. We decided that for the sake of our family, um, I needed some shore duty. I was burnt, I was cooked, right, I was just done. And she was just like look, if you just go from this into right to a command program, I don't know that we're going to be okay.
Gary Wise :And I and my family had had to become a priority, right, it was a hard seat. And I went there and I was like crying, I was a hot mess because I'm like bro, I've been working around the clock to satisfy what you've made me do and now I'm coming to tell you that I'm pulling a package back. And that was like one of the first times he ever showed me kindness, because he was like Gary, brother, you got to lock that down, bro. You got to compartmentalize that hurt. He's like I get it, I'm not, I get it. You do what you got to do to care of your family. But you got, you know, 70 sailors out there that need you not to be a mess. And oh, by the way, I was going through a lot with my whole personal life, right, I was just trying to figure it out. And then you know it's funny.
Gary Wise :And so then fast forward like another, the end of this tour. I mess around, I make master chief, so I'm he'd already transferred off the ship. I had a new cmc he was the base cmc at the time and yacuzca and I may, and I make master chief because they uphold me on the aircraft carrier, and I make master chief while I'm still there. And I go to the chief's club one night and he's in the chief's club and he buys me a beer and uh, and I asked him, I was like man, why are we always so hard on me, bro? And he, like our CEO, was very mean.
Gary Wise :And he basically was like look man, our CEO is so mean that it was better for me to be the mean guy to you guys than for him to be the mean guy to you guys and I, you know it was a complicated relationship but definitely was a hard one for me to understand, cause I worked so hard for his to, for his approval Right, and then we got to a good place and now we're, we're, we're, we're professionally good, you know. And then eventually I became a CMC and I got it all. How about you? I'm going to return it to you you ever had a mentor that you?
Jeremy Moore :were no. No, yeah, it was kind of the same thing A lot earlier in my career had this chief. That man, this dude was not what you would want in your chief, like he didn't feel, like he didn't have those qualities any of them.
Gary Wise :But it is what that is.
Jeremy Moore :I mean, can't do anything about it. Maybe I was just a jaded, you know, ticked off third class, I don't know he was a corpsman, he was an HR. Yeah, he was a corpsman, so I was an HN E3. And he's like never going to make third class, Never going to make third class. I was like, all right, this is my first time taking the exam. The day before my exam.
Jeremy Moore :So I just walked in and like bubbled in my bubbles and walked out yeah, yeah got to got to thinking about that and got to really kind of stewing about that over that next uh, six months, you getting ready for the you know the next one, and, man, that was one of those times where I took that negative energy and made it kind of like my tackling fuel you know where it was like I'm going to go get this.
Jeremy Moore :So then, anytime something came up whether it was, hey, you want to get your fmf pin to, hey, you want to go to this deployment, or you want to go on that deployment, we go on this training or that training or whatever I was always the first to raise my hand because I was tired of holding back, thinking that people weren't going to think I was going to do something. Yeah. So I kind of let that guide me. And it really wasn't about, you know, trying to, you know, be the master chief petty officer in Navy or anything. It was just about I just wanted to be a chief so that I could be a better chief than he was. I don't care either, because he got med boarded out and never retired and you know, I retired.
Gary Wise :So karma is a thing, yeah, yeah, you know I there's something to. I purposefully challenge people often because I want to see if there's emotion in there somewhere, even if it's anger, sure, right, I want to know that you care and even if I've got to poke you a little bit to get something out of you, because then I can work with it. It's when people just don't care at all, yeah, but I struggle, right, I struggle with that because I just, I really I always care, I really do it, like you said earlier, until I don't.
Gary Wise :Then once I don't, then I gotta be authentic with that relationship and be like okay, you're cooked bro, like at the end of the day, and for me it's usually when I can't trust you anymore. Yeah, right, once the trust is gone, then we're wasting each other's time and I'm gonna look for ways to get you out of there. Um, I had a chief when I was at DC. Once I was a first class petty and I was upper chief this year. I'd never been upper chief before. As a matter of fact, I took the test for LDO purposes. Only, right, I wasn't upper chief when I took the chief's test. I was a first-year first-class.
Gary Wise :Yeah, that was a common thing to to get around that well and just to get that experience to take it that was what they taught you right and so. But here that I was the number one ep. That year I was sailor of the year. I took the test for for ldo purposes only. And the cmc comes up to me. It's like, hey, wise, um, why don't you want to be a chief petty officer? And this is like 2005, right. And I'm like I don't, you want to be a chief petty officer? And this is like 2005, right. And I'm like I don't know, I never thought about a mass chief. Like ultimately I'm not up for chief, so I'll put it for ldo this year and if I don't make ldo the next year I'll apply for chief at ldo, whatever, right.
Gary Wise :Because the chief's mess back then is was not what it has become today. Right, there was really technology, was not it was. I remember back then I had a. I had like a one of those Palm Pilots with like the QWERTY board and all that I thought I was. You know so we were. It was just not what it is, what it becomes Right. And so for me the Chiefs mess was not this big exclusive organization, it was just like another promotion. And, as a matter of fact, I was still excited, I was geeked up on being on the first class mess because we had our own place to eat and I was the first class vice president, right. And I whatever. And he comes up to me in a couple of days and he gives me a piece of paper that says I'm chief sport eligible and I didn't even know that you could do that. Right. If I had never taken that test for ldo purposes on my own accord, they would have never even caught up to do that waiver for me to make chief right. And so first off, I took the test on my own. Nobody did that for me. Then they they adjusted my chief sport eligibility because they wanted to see if I could put on anchors, which I did. I put on anchors that year. But I remember when I got the chief sport paper I go I just tell my chief like chief, that they set him up for chief.
Gary Wise :Now I'm around DC one. He's like, oh, you'll never make it. I was like what, what do you mean? I'll never make it. He was like you're too young, you're too young. And I was like, oh well, I don't know any different right. So okay.
Gary Wise :And I remember I went to a Bosa Mate senior chief and he was my section leader and that was my duty section. He was my section leader and now Ian Ian, if you're out there, brother, I love you. He is a pastor now up in Washington state. He's a retired BMC. I'm the guy with an AV of 20 freaking years became pastor. But Ian at this time was a BMCS. And I went to Ian and I was like senior chief, my chief doesn't think I'm going to make chief because I'm too junior. Now my chief did not like Ian because Ian just made BMCS in like 12 years. So I knew that fun fact. So I was like, oh well, if he doesn't like senior because he made it early, I need to go talk to that guy and figure out how he's making rank early, right. And senior chief O'Meara was like oh Gary, or DC1, there is a lot of opportunity here, don't let that worry you. He helped me write an eval, he helped me get my package together, he helped me do everything and I messed around. I made chief that year, right. And the other thing was my chief. He ended up getting flown off the ship midway through the Westpac because of medical, because he didn't take care of himself, and he ended up having diabetes, right, and I became the LCPO of our division as a DC one, and then I made chief on the way back.
Gary Wise :So you know, it's just that there's having the right people in your life, or knowing who to listen to and knowing how to. It's okay to question what someone says. Just because somebody that you're around says something doesn't mean it has to be the gospel truth, but what you do need to do is go find people that you believe have the right information, and I believe that's a responsibility for every adult in this world, right, male or female doesn't matter. If you want to find success, you've got to get up off your butt and go find someone to help you Because, like I said earlier, none of my mentors have ever found me right. They never came to me and said well, now, truth be told, people have come up to me and said hey, gary, I think you got a lot of potential. Let me give you some advice. But how did I get to that point? I showed them through my actions.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah, got to be noticed.
Gary Wise :That you're worth their time, because time is freaking valuable right.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah, you got to put in that work so that you can get that recognition, not recognition like awards, but recognition like getting someone's focus, their gaze. They see you're doing it. And you know I was one of those old salty guys that was like how is this kid making chief at 12 years? You know, or at 12 years was a lot. But you know, when I was at the schoolhouse we had guys making senior chief at 12 years. You know, or at 12 years was a lot. But you know, when I was at the schoolhouse we had guys making senior chief at 12 years. And I'm like, you know, here I am 16 year chief and I'm like, come on, what's going on? So I get it. But at the same time, like sometimes you just see those guys, those people with halos, cause there's plenty of plenty of, you know, female master chiefs that I know that man they were just they'd walk in and light up a room and then you have some that walk in and and command a room and and that's that.
Gary Wise :You know that different feeling that yeah, um, I guess almost dictatorship kind of feeling, and I will tell you that for a lot of the people that I've mentored, that I've mentored to early success in the service right, because I made it a point to find talent throughout my career as I learned my lessons. Right, I made it a point to listen and when I heard some of the people saying the right things, I'd be that guy that pull them in and say I think you're someone that I can work with and I would offer them, I'd give them some of that trail of crumbs and I'd see if they'd go do it. And if they'd go do it, I'd give them some more. Right, and what I can tell you is typically there's a long-range plan that's been in place and they've had some people in their career that help them line it all up. Because it's typically not luck, right, I used to give no. No. I used to give training to people on seashore rotation and peaks and valleys and where to hit certain wickets in your career, and I'll give the same training out of these students about life, because I'm like look, if you're not already at 16 years old, if you're not at 16 years old already mapping out your next five years, you're probably already a day late and a dollar short, because you need to be thinking what life's going to be like after high school and you graduate. How are you going to pay for college? Or how are you going to go to tech school? Are you going to join the service? Are you? You got to be thinking like that and throughout my career, you know, I so many good guys that I knew that were just working their butts off and had no real strategy to their life and to their career.
Gary Wise :That's like. And when I would tell them all right, brother, I want you to to adjust a couple of things. It was humbling for them to take that on board, because maybe they didn't want to do those things. Yeah, cause he, teaching an old dog new tricks is sometimes not what they want to hear. Right, teaching an old dog new tricks is sometimes not what they want to hear. Right. On the reverse, um, because sometimes, uh, the lesson that we're supposed to learn isn't going to be the result in getting a new pay grade or getting a new uniform. I, something was always hard for me was seeing these first classes that retired at 20 years yeah and and never put on anchors, and I would.
Gary Wise :I would scare the hell out of my 15 years. If you don't do something now, you're not gonna make it right because you don't like I know it's a five year window they're looking at for that promotion um, I mean, you know that's.
Jeremy Moore :That's one of those things, gary, that, um, you've got to, you've got to have some people that they don't have to become a leader in themselves outright, they don't have to have that position. We're bringing people in. You identify people and you bring them in because they're of the same caliber, they're of the same cloth, there's something in them that reminds them of you and you throw them. That reminds them of you and you throw them that crumb. See if they come over a little bit closer, that means that they want to. If not, I've had some great guys that retire. Or I've had some great guys that got out at 12 years, got out at 10 years. Great people went on to do great things at just being themselves and not excelling as far as a career is concerned, but excelling in life yeah not everybody has to be a leader.
Gary Wise :Not everybody can be I agree as long as they're happy. Like truthfully, have you know, I used to tell I had this one chief, my mess. He was committed to getting out of 20 years. He was like, bound and determined he was not going to make senior chief. He was like Gary, you better not give me anything higher than a P. He would tell me that what I loved about this guy was whenever I gave him a job he would crush it. He was such a good freaking chief and I would keep Gary, you better not give me higher than a P. But then he didn't make senior chief and he would get a little frustrated. I'd be like no, no, no, I don't want to hear that, bro, don't do that.
Gary Wise :Don't do that because you told me we weren't making senior chief you told me like let's be honest with each other, because that's the other thing for me. If you were to, just when a person tells me that they're happy, I don't push any further, because if you're happy, I'm happy. But if you come telling me you want more, I believe you, I will take you at your word and I will start to give you opportunities. But the problem with that is now I can get disappointed, and if I get disappointed, I can get frustrated and it's a path to the dark side, right, because now I'm like bro, you said you wanted more, I'm giving you opportunities, you're not doing you never returned.
Jeremy Moore :That's the point that makes it right there. If you either excel or you don't, you can't go backwards, you can't unlearn, don't give lip service man.
Gary Wise :Be honest about where you want to go with your life and be honest with yourself. Right, if you're okay only making a certain amount of money every year, own it right, and then live within your means, manage your funds accordingly so you don't get yourself into stressful positions and and you can be great, right. But if you want more than that, it's going to take work, right, you're going to have to and there's, there's going. So again, I talk to the kids at school about grades Right. And if you're happy being a C student and probably not going to a four-year university after high school and you want to go to the local community college or you want to join the military, then let's have that conversation. But don't come complaining to me when you're a senior who can't even pass the ASVAB because you've never challenged yourself academically for four years because you chose to not try. Right, right, and you're going to miss out on opportunities because you chose to not try. And I tell my son that. I tell him, brother, don't, let's not do that, let's try, maybe not the hardest in the world, but let's try harder so that we can at least have as many opportunities available to us as we want, and nothing is worse than missing opportunities because you shortchanged yourself. Yeah, right, and your life is just beginning. Right, you're not work.
Gary Wise :I was talking to a guy today at a business meeting that I had and he's in his 30s. My brother, I'm 47, you know. He said, well, you look good for 47. I was like I will take it, thank you, but you know I'm not, I'm not trying to to conquer certain mountains. This is me in my retirement. On the reverse, theoretically, I'm kind of curious to think about where could we be 20 years from now. But theoretically, I'm kind of curious to think about where could we be 20 years from now? Right, just what if? Yeah, what if? Right, and away, we go Back to the nature. Go ahead, no, go for it.
Jeremy Moore :I used to tell my guys all the time, like, tell me what you want in life. You need to have some goal. Whether it's long-term goal, short-term goal, I don't care what it is. And I would tell them, like, if you want the shiniest, shabbiest trailer to live in the walmart parking lot, just let me know, we're going to start looking and we're going to figure out how you can get there. But you got to have some kind of plan like, yeah, you're getting out or you got kit. I mean you've got something going on somewhere like everything's coming. I mean you've got something going on somewhere Like everything's coming to an end and you've got to transition.
Gary Wise :Yeah, and you got to earn your freaking paycheck while you're here.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah, that's it.
Gary Wise :That's the other thing. We're not going to sit around here and just talk about the future when today there's work to be done. And that's another thing that would annoy me. People would be like, well, I don't want to, I don't want to promote, I don't care. Today, you got to work a party, get your people out there for that crap. Right, we're getting paid to be here right now. And whether or not you want to invest in your future is not okay, I can, I, I like those conversations, but we got to get the work done first, right, right.
Gary Wise :And I think that's where a lot of people also lose sight of it. So, again, I watch people. They don't know what their future has in store, so they lose focus on the day they're currently living because they don't know why they should put the work in. Well, it's because if you don't put the work in, you're going to be lazy, you're going to get bad habits and you're getting not get paid. You might even get fired. And now it's even worse, right? Um, what are we? Talked about this a little bit. But why should somebody want to be a mentor? Right, cause I'll tell you, I think there's value in mentoring people.
Jeremy Moore :Definitely.
Gary Wise :Right. So why do you think somebody should want to be a mentor?
Jeremy Moore :Definitely Right. So why do you think somebody should want to be a mentor? Well, there's a couple of reasons. One, I think you're going to find that you're going to learn a lot about yourself in that process. You're going to learn more about what's important to you and you're going to kind of hone that. I mean you're changing every day. You're not going to be the same person tomorrow that you are today, but you're going to get a really good idea of that. But then you're also going to feel it's going to give you an outlet that oh, jeremy, I think I lost you.
Gary Wise :Well, either that or my internet dropped out. One of the two. We'll see if jeremy comes back or not oh here I am. Hey, all right, go for it. All right, learn more about yourself is what I heard you learn more about yourself.
Jeremy Moore :But then it also gives you a rare outlet to actually kind of figure some or feel something you've never felt before. You're going to give yourself a fulfillment of doing things and kind of a responsibility of doing things that you've never done before. Of doing things that you've never done before Other than outside of like that parenting kind of feeling. You kind of almost get that same sense of feeling. But that's a relationship and this protege or mentor you know, mentoree now kind of becomes a child or a part of you somehow and you take extreme joy in watching their success. And I never wanted to do anything for myself. Really, I never was like one of those people who's like I'm going to go out and do this and do that and I wanted to just take my opportunity to impart a little bit of what I could and other people kind of just help them be better people. And in doing that I feel like far as the way to be um, kind of out to more people and help them make a decision.
Gary Wise :You know, remember, so you remember that movie. We were soldiers.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah.
Gary Wise :Okay, so in, we were soldiers. There's that young man, that young soldier has a baby, right, and he's in the chapel with mel gibson. They're getting ready to go to vietnam, right, and he says to mel gibson he says how do you wrap your head around? This is me paraphrasing. But he says how do you wrap your head around being a father and being a soldier? Right? And mel gibson's response is you know, I hope that being good at one helps me to be better at the other.
Gary Wise :yeah, and I remember watching that movie, like back when I was a very young chief with a young baby, and just being like, just like, what a freaking brain wave. Right, like, if being a good sailor can help me to be a better father, then if being a good father can help me to be a better sailor, then that's a freaking cheat code. Yeah, right, because I'm going to spend the rest of my life being one of those two things and then I apply it to everything else. Right, if I can be, being a good father can help me to be a better friend. Or being a good friend can help me to be a better teacher, or being a good teacher helps me be a better husband, or whatever.
Gary Wise :I start to look at all these interchangeable relationships that are symbiotic and they play off each other. Right, that whole line of thought changed my life. Each other, right, that whole line of thought changed my life. Yeah, when I think about mentorship, I just think of it as a wedding stone. Right, it's an it's. It's an opportunity to keep that knife sharp. Baby, like, I gotta have chances to work with people, to give them strong advice and or mentorship. And oh, by the way, if works and they're freaking successful. I get to help celebrate with them and be like man. We did that. That's so cool Right and be proud of them. And I've had so many protégés. I even I got protégés right now that are CMCs out in the fleet and that are still doing it Right. And now they're looking at me like, what are you doing in the high school? Are we going to do that next? And I'm just so proud of them. And I'm looking at my sons grow up.
Gary Wise :I'm looking at these kids going through college and I it's so much gratitude that I have for the relationships to help contribute and it's giving back because I believe that I owe right to the people that contributed to me yeah you know, I feel like I'm always going to be in debt to the people that gave me opportunity and the only way I can I can even come close to paying that back, and that's even all the way through my faith and through Jesus Christ and for him. For him, not from our sins, for my sins. How do I help contribute is I work with people, and I believe that part of our callings is to talk to people about our journeys, how we came through similar challenges, and give advice based off of our wisdom. Challenges and give advice based off of our wisdom, based off of our experience. And if we don't have experience, well, let's go get a book, let's go get active.
Gary Wise :You know, I've literally had people come to me and want to do something in life and I will sit down with them, find a person on LinkedIn or Facebook that I'm connected to, message that person for them, get their email addresses, set them up with the conversation and then what? That's the right mentor for you, because I don't know how to become a veterinarian or I don't know how to become an officer, but I know a guy. I like how Chris said right, I know a guy, right, and I can recommend some people to go talk to to help you, and then I care that you hopefully go do it and hopefully you can keep me filled in, and I think that's another sage thing. But I think that people should want to help people because I believe the more you help people, the more you're going to continue to get help in return. And that's my next point why should people want a mentor, right? Why should somebody want to be the mentee or be the protege?
Jeremy Moore :right. Well, it's, I mean, that is very it's a very easy question, but it's. The question is the answer, the why is the why? The fact that they've identified that they want to be better is the reason why they need a mentor. That's, I mean, that's where it comes from, that's where it starts. So, the moment that they look over the neighbor's lawn and they're like that grass is green, but they're like I hate that, I hate the neighbor because their grass is green, they're actually like I'm gonna ask him how I can, how my grass can be that green. Yeah, like they stop thinking about friday night and saturday night and they start thinking about two years from now and what they're going to be doing. And you know, that's that's the difference.
Jeremy Moore :And some people, you know they, some people don't care. They go through life, they, they make their own path, they, they're dead set that I'm going to be the best Corvette mechanic there is in in all of Ocala. And they go out and they do it. They're successful, they live their life and they're happy. But some people feel that pull that, that calling to do something, the moment they feel it. If they don't, you know, act on it, they might lose it. But it's that feeling that makes them want a mentor. As soon as they know that they have, as soon as they had that question, they need to ask.
Gary Wise :Well, and to your point, I think that, again, as soon as you have that question right, as with anything in faith, my gut tells me, if I ever think it, it comes from somewhere and I should, I should scratch that edge, right, I should, I should, I should look into it and try to figure out why I felt about that thing. Number two I know it's a faster way to getting something figured out by finding someone who can help me solve the arithmetic. The other thing is one of my favorite mentors is my wife. Right, a hundred percent, good days, bad days, whatever it is she knows me probably better than I know myself, and so and she loves me for every part of me, not just the good parts, and so she'll tell me the things I need to hear. And I think that for people that want to be in a long-term committed relationship, more than friendship, more than just love, there's got to be this ability to mentor one another interchangeably, as you hopefully go on this thing called life, because I believe and I tell this to the students being in love is really just choosing to communicate with somebody for a long time. Right, you're just committing to communicate for a long, long time, but if you can be my mentor and you want to be successful in certain areas, or even to help me be balanced or help me to not overwhelm, or whatever it is, because you know me. Those are the things that are critical, and I think that goes back to what we talked about earlier is having more mentors than less mentors.
Gary Wise :I couldn't imagine being in the place where someone looks in the mirror and they feel like they have nobody, right, that'd be tough. Yeah, that'd be a tough place to be, and if you're listening to the sound of my voice, you don't got to go far. You could literally get up on youtube and google how to do something and there's probably somebody on youtube talking about it and you could get some freaking intel. You can get some intelligence about it, but it's just. You can hear the talking as much as you can google, but where are you going to go out there and do something about it?
Gary Wise :Well, that's up to you, right, and that's up to the person that's got to make the conscious decision that they're unhappy with some sort of a thing, that they're going to make either a growth adjustment or they're going to make an implement, a an upgrade to their current situation, or they can. They can make a change right and call a spade a spade and make a change to their current plan, because you know, like I know, typically things don't just change on their own the way you want them to go. Things will evolve, things will grow. You will gain weight, that's true. But if you want to gain weight in certain areas and call it muscle mass, you might need to work out and eat right, right and there you go, it's just.
Jeremy Moore :there's not a lot of rocket science to it so I mean you know we kind of danced around this, but just to kind of spell it out plainly for everybody is mentorship. If you notice, or you ask yourself the question do I need a mentor? The answer is yes. You got three paths really. You can choose to do nothing about it and you can go on and do whatever you fall into. Or you can educate yourself, and when you educate yourself, you're going to do things to get you noticed. And when you do things to get you noticed, like we were talking about earlier, those mentors see that beam of light, that reflection back and they're like there's something over there. Let me see if I can get a reaction. So you educate yourself and that's how you find your mentor. Or you go out looking for your mentor and your mentor helps you educate yourself.
Gary Wise :Yeah, or you might get a date right, you might get someone to pay attention. You're like, oh, they might have some conversation that could be interesting. I think, about these young men, these young guys, and it's like they're either freaking, completely oblivious to what's going on around them, or they're way too obsessed about something that's probably not nearly as important as they're making it out to be. And then I see these young women that are typically way more focused on things, way more. It's just an interesting thing, right? I guess it's because I'm a dad of a son. I'm a little bit more like, oh, like yeah. They're like yeah, but make a weird sounds and just have a good conversation.
Jeremy Moore :You've got this insight that not a lot of dads will get is not only do you have a son in high school, but you also work at a high school.
Gary Wise :Yeah, so you know exactly.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah, you know that progress that you're going to see and you know the current things that are happening. You know, I look back at my dad and my dad tried to act cool around the house and I was like what was he doing? And all he was doing was just showing that there was that information gap. You won't have that information gap you. You're still in it.
Gary Wise :And that's part of what I wanted. Right, I wanted to be embedded in that environment because, as a dad you know I have I have no important. I have no more important mentorship role than my children. Then right behind them will be my, my family, myself, my wife, because personal mentorship matters too. Right, when you what is the mentorship? You're telling yourself what is the story, you're looking in the mirror and you're giving to yourself that self-talk matters, man, like people shortchange that, um, taking care of themselves by looking in the mirror and being proud of who they are and what they stand for, and I think that's that's crucial too and finding that validation that you're not too far off track. That's another good thing for a mentor is they can help validate things that you're not quite certain about. Sure, right. And and the other thing was, man, I'm going to recover what you said earlier about putting yourself out there, cause it can be scary, right, me sharing a deep, dark concern or a secret or a fear or something, and and letting somebody else in on that and hoping they don't look at me like I'm less than, or that I'm weak or whatever. And I think that when you can offer that kind of, I would say vulnerability. Then people are more likely to trust you in the future because they understand you're being authentic.
Gary Wise :Okay, brother, I think we're getting to the end of this one. Are you still working on your education? Are you still doing that? Your PhD? How's that going? It's going good. Is it going good? Okay?
Jeremy Moore :It's different. It's definitely different because you're not learning anymore. It's self-guided, self-guided sacrifices.
Gary Wise :So one of the ladies that I know here in Ocala. She's one of the speakers at the Ocala Inspired event and she's one of the adjunct instructors for Liberty University's leadership programs. Do you know her, Dr Byers? No, so she's somebody you might want to communicate with because she's done work. She works at Liberty and she's one of the professors for those programs in general. But yeah, good on you. I have zero desire to go get any more education, man, but I think that's a big deal. If you get it, bro, you'll be a doctor.
Jeremy Moore :I was three-quarters of the way and I was like oh, I stop now.
Gary Wise :Yeah, get it, get it done, man.
Jeremy Moore :It's just one more paper, right.
Gary Wise :Yeah, 30 pages on the color purple. You know, like what I know for me, i've've got wait till this deployment's done and then we're gonna blink and it's gonna be the first week of august. We'll be back at it again. You know, these kids, summer vacation is like nothing. No, you know, they think they act like it's so much, but they, they get eight weeks.
Jeremy Moore :That's really what it feel like ours was closer to like 12.
Gary Wise :I feel like it was too right. I think that they've changed the amount of days in school based off of natural disasters or school days or whatever, but I do agree. I feel like we used to get like all June, july and August.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah Well, mine was I grew up in North Carolina in the tobacco belt was I grew up in North Carolina in the tobacco belt, so you didn't go back to you didn't go back to school until all the tobacco was in.
Jeremy Moore :That's when the school year would start. So if it was mid September but we had a drought in you know July, we might still be waiting for tobacco. So you know it was was. That's how it was. So that's what really kind of guided us. So that fine line between tobacco and corn is when school starts that makes sense yeah that's just like when they talk about getting rid of that.
Gary Wise :Uh, the change in the time change every year.
Jeremy Moore :You say that every year.
Gary Wise :I'm open to it. I'll be honest with you. I wouldn't mind it. I think that it always throws me off when we do it, but we'll see. I appreciate the conversation, brother. I do appreciate the time you take to do this with me. I look forward to talking with you again in a couple weeks, man.
Jeremy Moore :Yeah, talk to you soon.
Gary Wise :Yes, sir, man, yeah, talk to you soon. Yes, sir, we'll talk to you later. Bye everybody, good night. Thanks for watching and listening to us and hopefully you got something out of that. If you did, please like the youtube channel, please subscribe to the show and hopefully contact us for more information. Man, here we go. I was born for this, I believe. I believe we can write a story.
