Year-End Pivot: Building A Purpose-Driven Podcast For Students And Veterans

A pivot only matters if it serves people. That’s the throughline as we look back on a year of testing formats, learning from missteps, and finding the work that actually changes lives—especially for the students we see every weekday. What started as leadership certification coaching and casual leadership talk became a more honest creative journey: quitting alcohol, committing to consistent content, and building a podcast that trades easy inspiration for real tools.

We open the hood on the production realities—why “book more guests” isn’t a strategy, how calendar friction kills momentum, and what happens when you stop chasing virality and aim for steady, purpose-driven growth. You’ll hear how inviting shipmates for “behind the anchor” stories added texture, where the repetition crept in, and why the 2026 plan shifts from constant guest wrangling to clear, useful solo episodes with the door open to aligned voices. Along the way we share the numbers that matter, from nearly 800,000 views on YouTube to 1.5 million across platforms, and the real metric we care about: whether the right people are learning something they can use on Monday.

The heart of this conversation is service that evolves. We talk about moving from sailor to teacher, leading 180 NJROTC students, and designing content that helps teenagers step into adulthood with practical confidence. We preview personal stories that carry lessons—an adoption and reunion that reshaped family, the tension and pride of a son heading to the Florida State Fire College, and community work in middle school ministry that keeps us grounded. Expect fewer hot takes and more durable guidance on leadership, habits, purpose, and the messy, human work of change.

If you’ve been with us since the early videos or just found the show, we’re grateful you’re here. Help us reach the next milestone: share this episode with a friend who could use straight talk on leadership and life, subscribe for the 2026 series, and leave a quick review with one topic you want us to tackle next. Your ideas shape where we go from here.

https://www.wordsfromthewise.net/

Transcript

Who I Am And Why I’m Here

Gary Wise 0:00

Hello, everybody. Good morning. How are you doing today? It's Gary here, uh, Works from the Wise. Uh, we're making coming to you today with this video because I just want to kind of talk about where we've been so far, what we might be going into as far as the future, and just kind of giving an update as to the status of everything because it's exciting. I I never would have thought this was going to be the lane that I was going to land into uh in my retirement from the service, uh, plus teaching, right? So I guess just a situational update, a status as to where we're currently at for the listeners, for the people that are watching the videos, as well as uh kind of plotting out the way ahead. You know, 2025 started off with me being in this leadership development space for a leadership certification organization that I was training people to be uh able to sit down for their oral certifications. And that was cool. You know, I never thought that I was going to get into that space. I mean, truthfully, I got the certification on my way out of the military. So it wasn't something that I really uh wholeheartedly bought into. And when they reached out to me, it was because I had recently started a real estate investment business and they they recognized that I had this desire to become an entrepreneur, and then they kind of brought the idea to me, and it sounded great. The problem was, you know, you give them a bunch of money, and it's almost like Amway, right? Oh, you give them a bunch of money and then you do the work, right? And then theoretically they get the money off of you. But what I learned was the value wasn't going to be so much that leadership certification as it was the time with the trainers. And I was doing a lot of work with people online virtually, and that led me into the space of starting to make videos and content. And just, you know, for everyone that's listening to the sound of my voice, if this is your first time, you know, just a few things about myself. You know, I joined the military at a young age, dropped out of high school at 15, joined the military at 19, served 25 years on active duty, retired in 2022, and immediately the very next day became a high school teacher. So I am currently full-time an educator, a high school Navy junior ROTC instructor for my high school here in Ocala, Florida. So it's not that I'm not busy, you know. It's not that I'm not busy. As a matter of fact, a lot of my students watch these videos and listen to these videos, and we took we talk about them in school, depending upon what the what the subject matter is, you know, and so I I have plenty to keep my plate full. Uh, but when they reached out to me about getting to this leadership development space for their certification, I liked it because one I one of the things I loved about being in the military uh was working with people. You know, I found that to be one of my gifts. You know, one of my gifts was the ability to help somebody unlock within themselves uh maybe facets of their of their life that they had not yet recognized and mentoring. And I'm not really so much a coach as I am a mentor and or a leader, which is why I love still functionally leading a team of 180 students, pound for pound, day for day, with my fellow instructors, of which there are two other instructors that are a part of our team. And we get to do a lot of fun things, but it really fills my cup. And so then I as I as I stepped away from working with this leadership development business or this certification group, you know, because again, I gave them a bunch of money, but there really wasn't much coming back from them. It wasn't a good fit, let's just be honest. I didn't I didn't care for their management style and or their their their brand. So moved away, right? Learned a few lessons. That's okay. Life goes on. But then we started off uh this YouTube adventure journey, whatever you want to call it. Um, and the the vision was uh January 2025, uh two major things happened, right? Number one, I I quit drinking, right? So I've I have not had a drink since 2024. And uh unfortunately I'm not the person that is blessed with the ability to just drink and not drink. You know, I have a challenge with that, right? And so I I chose to no longer drink. And this was based off of conversations with my wife. This was just based off of living. She didn't ask me to no longer drink, I just made the choice, yeah, and then I stuck to it. So that's been an interesting journey that I have not podcasted a whole bunch about, nor I've not really spoken about it too often. I might talk about it some this year. But the second thing that I did for 2025 was I decided I was going to become more deliberate uh with with virtual media, I guess you could say, digital media. And my goal was to make two videos a month. So the idea was going to be consistently posting two videos a month onto YouTube and just see where that goes, right? No expectations, just we'll we'll see where it goes. I I had no idea what was going to happen next. You know, I I don't know that I'm gonna step into this space of being an influencer, even though I get the opportunity to stand before a classroom every day and hopefully uh influence my students, right? Same way as I got to influence my sailors when I was on active duty. Um but the idea was two videos a month. That was it. Well, you know, as as Gary tends to do, right? I tend to I tend to take things to the next level. I tend to push the envelope. So then what I did was I recognized that for the two videos a month, uh, they were kind of me solo filming, and I wanted to possibly bring in some other people so that we could have some back and forth conversation. So that that is how we opened up the Words from the Wise podcast, which was originally myself and my buddy Chris, um and a few friends, kind of my friend Jeremy, and us talking about leadership principles and or leadership things. The challenge with that was, I mean, it was fun. It was great conversation. Like I said many times on the podcast, it was almost like my virtual men's group. Uh the challenge with that was it almost becomes repetitive, right? It almost becomes repetitive where you're kind of talking about uh similar concepts every day because ultimately, when it comes to leadership in the vanilla sense, in the general sense, it's a lot of the same stuff over and over again. It's repetition, it's good, it's gonna be repetition, it's going to be consistency, it's going to be enthusiasm, motivation, you know, all this stuff. Um my wife, Erica, then said, Hey, what if you started reaching out to people you served with in the military and seeing if they would be interested in coming on and hanging out with you and uh having conversations on the podcast? So I thought about that. I said, all right, well, hey, I've already committed to doing uh the Words from the Wise podcast with Jeremy and with Chris bi-weekly. So what if I then supplemented the bi-weekly with once with biweekly the behind the anchor episodes, right? Or working with uh people that I knew from the military, having them come on and sharing their stories. And it was around, I would say, hmm, April, May of 2025 that that idea came. And my birthday, I ended up scheduling out like six months of interviews. And and believe it or not, here I am in December of 2025, as I'm having this conversation on Christmas vacation from work. I I've still got a good three, four months of interviews that are already recorded that I'm going to roll out. But the challenge there is as much as I love my friends, you know, and I and I do, it's I appreciate all of them that have come out and have spoken and that have shared their stories, it does become cumbersome trying to find people, to schedule people, to get times that work for everyone. And then of course, just to s to get to get it done. And not everybody wants to be on the camera. And I don't blame them. Like I get it, man. Like I've when I stepped into the leadership arena, uh, I would say it as a young chief petty officer in 2006. I just had to choose to no longer worry that much about what everybody had to say about me. Um and and I just I I carry that into my day-to-day life here as 48 years old, you know, five foot six, still standing strong, trying to figure this thing out, but enjoying the creativeness of the chance to share my energy and my story with the world. But I understand when people that don't want to do that. So I think as I'm looking at 2026, because that's what I'm doing right now, I'm kind of reviewing the year, I'm looking at all the things that we've done. I'm gonna spend the next few days really thinking about where have we come from and where are we going, because we set a goal, uh, me and the AI, right? Me and the vid IQ AI, which is one of the AIs that I use to help me do this thing. For 340 subscribers on YouTube was the target by January, I think it was January 10th. And here we are, December 21st, I think it is, 2025, as to the filming of this video, and we're sitting at 331 subscribers. Not only that, but on YouTube we're almost to 800,000 views. But if I collectively add in TikTok, Facebook, uh, LinkedIn, um, Instagram, and YouTube, we're like at 1.5 million views. I don't know if that's I mean, it feels good. I don't know if that looks good. I don't I don't know if that's I mean, I'm I I've not gone viral, right? I'm not sure that I ever will, but I feel like it's been a productive year. And I feel like there's people that are listening to the stories, that are interested in the conversation, and that are listening to what we have to say. So uh definitely gonna keep this going. But the question is going to be in in what manner, how am I going to keep it going? I think number one, I'm going to continue to offer opportunities to my friends, to my proof to my shipmates from my my previous life uh to come on board the show and to share their stories, right? But I think I'm gonna put that more into a passive space space where if they contact me, if they reach out to me and then via a conversation, but I'm not gonna be going out looking for people to want to book them, if you will, right? That just gets to become uh a little bit of a pain in the like a chore. And you know, I don't do this for a chore. I do this because it's just a lot of fun sharing with the world, and whoever wants to watch it can watch it. And if it's for you, that's gonna be that's amazing. And if it's not for you, I totally understand, man. Like, I get it. Right. So I think number one, it's going to be a little bit less uh in 2026, me looking for people that want to be on the show. Uh on the reverse, I'm getting a lot of emails from people who are not uh my friends from the military, but that want to be on the show because they've got stories or they've got businesses or they've got things that they want to advertise to my network. I'm gonna start looking at those emails a little bit more closely as they come through. Typically, I just said no in the past, uh, but maybe why not, right? Maybe offer to these people opportunities to come aboard the show if it makes sense and to give them a platform to talk about their things. I'm gonna look at that for sure. Uh the other thing that I've been thinking a lot about in the the last little bit is it's a bit therapeutic to talk about some of the things that happened throughout my career. I've got so many good things that I have yet to talk about, though, right? Like I've got so many exciting stories from my career uh that I have not sat down and talked about. I have not spoken yet about my adoption story and the reconnection, uh the reunion that I had with my birth mother, which I think a lot of people are gonna be interested in that, and the fact that she now lives down the street from me five, five minutes away, and she is a major part of my family's life. And I think there would be some people interested in that story. So I think we're gonna definitely need to tell that one in 2026. Um, but the other thing is why as much as I care about my former sailors or my former shipmates or people from my former life in the service, possibly finding the content and sharing in the stories, man, I'm really caring about my students. I'm really caring about these people that I get to spend four years with in this high school experience. And as they're getting ready to launch into their adult lives, am I providing content for them that they can continue to reflect upon, they can continue to leverage and use, and that that is good for them and is essentially a follow-on from what we did in the classroom. You know, I think I'm I gotta get to the point at some space where I let go of my active duty career, I guess you could say, and focus more on where I'm at today and where we're going. Now, the challenge with that is it really does feel like I'm in the military still. I feel like I'm on short duty indefinitely. You know, I wear the uniform once a week. Everybody calls me, you know, Master Chief is the name I go by at work, whether it's with the administration, whether it's with my students, uh, with my fellow instructors, you know. So I I I still very much feel like a part of the military, but I'm not, right? I'm a veteran, I'm retired, I'm more a part of my community here in Ocala, Florida. I'm more a part of the high school, which is Vanguard, and I've got to figure out, you know, I've got I just gotta work on that a little bit, I think. So in 2026, and it might remember, I retired in 2022. It doesn't seem like that long, you know. Uh just you know, but four years, right? This is my fourth year teaching high school. All of my seniors this year were my freshmen, my first year, and they're all getting ready to graduate, which is which is scary as heck, you know. This is something that I'm nervous for. And I've had seniors graduating every year, but this group, more so than my previous groups, I really feel ownership with of with the parents. We were a team since they came into my classroom as you know, ninth graders. And as they're getting ready to go into their own lives, I just I want to continue to offer information and opportunities that I think is value valuable for them. So looking at that, um, thinking about the way ahead. You're gonna see probably some changes in the content this year. Uh I'm thinking less worrying about having guests on, more worried about providing information uh for people that might be looking for it, more worried about providing my perspectives on things, not so much current events. I mean, maybe, I don't know. I I've got opinions, you know, but politics just makes people get it divided. And unfortunately, it feels like in society today that you can't look at anything apolitically. It sounds good. I wish that we could, but unfortunately, there's just always a lens that people put on to something when it comes to current events. So probably not going to get too much into them, uh, but probably looking to continue to continue to talk about things that I think are applicable to living a purpose-driven life, uh, a life that's going to hopefully help you find balance, help you find some centering, authentically talking about my challenges and my concerns, as well as working to hopefully bridge the gap between who what they what people did during high school and what they're doing in their adult life. I've also got scheduled one of my first returning students for the podcast, which is exciting, right? One of my students graduated, went on to college, doing great things there, and is now booked to come back on the show. And we're going to talk about it, right? We're going to talk about what's life like after graduation and what are lessons learned that the kids can pay attention to and how are things going for them. So I'm super excited about that. Um, my oldest son is getting ready to graduate high school and he's gonna get ready to go to the fire college. So we'll probably talk about that a little bit because I'm nervous, I'm excited, I'm happy for him. You know, it's a it's a for the other parents out there that have already dealt with this. That's something that I always ask people. You know, always ask him, what's it like having an adult child? What's it like having a kid that's no longer a kid? You know, because it's just for me, it's strange to see my baby, I mean, ready to about walk out the door and to have that conversation as to where you where is he gonna live when he goes to school? Is he gonna live on campus? Is he gonna continue to live here with us? Because we're blessed. The school is local, right? So he doesn't have to go too far. He's gonna go to the Florida State Fire College. But is this something that uh we're going to uh continue to live together, or is he gonna go there and live? And I I'm not sure what the right answer is there. I'm I'm open to either one. You know, we're gonna go for a tour of the campus here in the first part of January before we go back to school, and we'll get the chance to check it out, and we'll get the chance to give him that option. You know, I I don't believe their dorm system there is like a college campus where it's going to be comfortable. Uh I think it's more like a military dorm where you just they're meant for transient personnel, and then which that case, you know, selfishly, I'm just like, stay home, bro. There's no reason to go do that unless you just really want to get the hell about the house, which uh hey, maybe that's the maybe that's maybe that's his truth. I don't know that I could blame him, but we'll have that conversation. So that's gonna be a big change for 2026. Um, you know, my younger son is doing good. He's in middle school right now, and he's steady as we go, but I think it's gonna be a challenge for him if his brother does move out because they're they really are best friends. Uh so that's gonna be something that might come up over the years we talk about that. Um I've still work in the middle school ministry at my church. So what that means is I volunteered at my church to help out with uh the sixth through eighth graders. And I did that because I I recognized my younger son was aging out of what they had for them available. And so I went to the church leadership team. I said, hey, you know, I I I already work in the high school with kids. I have a dog in this fight, meaning my younger son needs somewhere to go for church on Sundays, and I want, I would love to help out to become part of something that can give him a place to go. And we started up this thing called prime time, and it's going really good. You know, it's I've been doing it now for about five months. We've got typically 20 to 30 middle school aged children, and it's almost it's every Sunday that I'm there usually usually coordinating two to three other adults as we we go into a space where we do fun, we do a message, we do some group conversation, and then we close it out with prayer and we move on move on with our day-to-day, right? So that's been really cool. Maybe I'll look into that a little bit for some content over the year, not quite certain, but that's definitely a piece of it. But really, I just think this year is going to be focusing on uh making sure I'm providing information for my students and my current life and my current my current community here in Ocala. I gotta figure out a way to get more involved with them. I mean, you would think with the high school, I'm doing pretty well there already, but you never know. I could probably do more. Uh with the school, I mean, we're doing really awesome. We've had a couple of drill competitions already this summer, or this new school year, I guess I should say, because we're in the winter now, and done well, right? The best year so far that I've ever had since I've been at the school. And of course, the other teams at my school are doing amazing. We've got a marksmanship team that does awesome. We've got an orienteering team which does amazing things. And we're actually the chief that I work with, he's actually really big into the orienteering space, and he has got us hosting the Navy junior ROTC uh national orienteering competition in March. So that's gonna be interesting. That's the first weekend of spring break. So uh I'll get back to you on how that goes. Uh yeah, I I don't know. This is gonna become more of a vlogging adventure, if this is gonna become more of I don't know. I really don't know. But I'm excited to see where it goes. I'm excited to see if people continue to follow it as still and to connect with it. But I do want to lay the groundwork for everyone to know that it may not be as consistently with me and another person. The other challenge I got is, you know, I just I'm not the guy that wants to sit around and type up a bunch of things that are going to uh I guess make me sound better than what I sound like. Like I'm a I just I am who I am. I've got things in my mind that I feel like if I if I don't say it, I can't sleep. So I gotta get the words out. Um, but I'm not this person that's just structuring all these episodes and gonna be sitting here looking at a laptop as I'm talking to the camera. So we'll we'll see how that goes. We'll see how that goes. I kind of just like that's that was the fun part about having a guest on the show is I had somebody that can go back and forth with me and they could give me information or they could they could give me essentially prompts for conversations. Um, but talking has never been a challenge for me. You know, God's given me the ability to gab, gab, gab. Um, I really do appreciate everybody that watches the videos. Man, I it's amazing. I appreciate everybody that supports my family, my wife, my kids, my students, the Vanguard High School, Navy Junior R OTC, the Knights Battalion. I appreciate all my shipmates, my teammates that have been on the show in the past year. That was just so cool. Um, I'm looking forward to hopefully more of you wanting to come be on the show. And I'm just interested to see where this whole thing goes. So thank you all very much for everything. I'm looking forward to 2026. Uh I'm gonna put together some more numbers via posts where I could talk about what are exactly the high points and the low points for what we've done for the year. And then I'm gonna put together my little strategy for 2026. But but I will tell you just off the top of my head, if the goal was for 320 subscribers uh in 2025, based off whatever metrics it gave to me, I would like to see a thousand by the end of 2026. I don't know if that's reasonable. I don't know if that's realistic. I don't know if I'll do if I'll even get close to that. But just swagging right now, that's kind of a target. So uh just please stay tuned. If you want to help out with that, please tell a friend. Please like, subscribe if you enjoy this kind of content or if you like listening to the sound of my voice, I appreciate you. And I really do thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy new year. Uh, let's continue to make the world a better place. All right, thank y'all. Bye.