How Visualization, Grit, And Faith Changed My Life

A small moment can reroute an entire life. Gary shares how a background of constant moves, a Boy Scout love for structure, and a rough detour into street life set the stage for a Navy career he once resisted—and later learned to master. The turning point arrives during a quiet lunch with Oprah playing in the background, where the language of visualization meets an old foundation of faith and a renewed respect for hard work. What follows is a candid blueprint for advancement: study with purpose, lead like an owner, and visualize the exact outcome you want to create.

We walk through the grind that led to making First Class in a razor-thin cycle, the surprise waiver that opened the door to becoming a Chief, and the mentors who nudged key decisions at just the right time. This isn’t motivational fluff; it’s the mechanics of career advancement, goal setting, and leadership done daily. And it’s balanced by an honest reckoning with a bad housing bet during the mid-2000s: buying into a dream neighborhood near a man-made beach, taking on an adjustable-rate mortgage, and riding the crash into a short sale. The lesson lands hard—your signal attracts outcomes, but wisdom decides which ones you accept.

By the end, you’ll have a practical framework: define your goals with sensory detail, align personal and professional aims, share plans with the right people, and show up every day with consistency, gratitude, and honest debriefs. If you’re mapping a promotion, planning a career pivot, or rebuilding after a setback, this story gives you tools you can use the second the episode ends. If the message moves you, subscribe, share with a friend who’s chasing a big goal, and leave a quick review so we can reach more people who need the push.

https://www.wordsfromthewise.net/

Chapters

• 0:00 New Series Vision And Purpose
• 0:59 Discovering Goal Setting
• 2:04 Childhood Moves And Early Drive
• 3:06 Boy Scouts And Structure
• 6:08 From Scouts To Street Life
• 7:28 Joining The Navy For A Reset
• 10:56 Mindset Shift Toward Mastery
• 12:22 Oprah, The Secret, And Visualization
• 16:40 Making First Class Against The Odds
• 20:07 Aiming For LDO And Unexpected Paths
• 24:12 The Chief’s Waiver And Selection
• 27:05 Visualizing A Home And A Costly Mistake
• 31:58 Orders Chaos, Tattoos, And Career Pivots
• 36:20 Housing Crash, Short Sale, Lessons Learned
• 40:01 Principles: Clarity, Faith, And Aligned Work
• 45:07 Tell The Right People And Handle Haters
• 48:04 Consistency, Gratitude, And Debriefs
• 49:14 Closing And What’s Next

Transcript

Gary Wise : 0:06

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody that is out there listening or looking at me and listening to the sound of my voice. It's Gary here, Words from the Wise. Happy to be here. Thank y'all for listening. Thank y'all for joining us on this journey. You know, we're two days here after Christmas in 2025, and I'm excited to start making some videos here in this new series we're going to be working on, which is it's not going to be focused uh so much, I think, on different guests, but more about just stories that I'm telling and kind of keeping everybody up to date on what's what's happening and the words from the wise uh world, as well as focusing on some of the things we can do uh to help people that have come through our programs as they go forward in the future. And so we're looking to see if this hopefully resonates with you. If you like what you hear, please let us know. If you don't really care for it, give a brother a shout-out, let me know that as well. Uh but today I want to talk about one of the most, I would say, uh impactful days of my professional and personal life, right? Uh and that was when I really took a turn towards understanding how to make goals that I could accomplish and that I would follow through to the end. It's an interesting story for me anyway, because uh there was such a significant shift in my mindset when this happened. Uh and you know, you have to understand that first it starts off with when I was young growing up, I always had a lot of tenacity. I always had the ability to want to go out and do things. We were, of course, limited with finances and limited with different support systems that my family had, meaning we moved a lot, right? My parents and I moved every year. Every year from kindergarten until seventh grade, I was in a different school every year. So that was always a challenge. I was always resetting, I was always starting new relationships, having to find new opportunities to get involved in things, and never really got the chance to get my footing put down. But then, sixth grade, we moved to South Salt Lake, Utah, and we we were going to stay there for a while. My parents, my dad had a good job of working in the Veterans Administration Hospital there in Salt Lake City. Uh my dad was Navy once upon a time. He was a hospital corpsman. Well, first he was an undesignated seaman during Vietnam, and then he converted over to the hospital corpsman rate, which is essentially medical in the Navy. And then when he re when he got out of the service because he wanted to start his family, he went right into nursing. And so he got his licensed practical nurse LPN uh certification. He eventually got his registered nurse education, and he got a job at the Salt Lake City Veterans Administration Hospital. That is what brought us to South Salt Lake, Utah. And we were at South Salt Lake. We were involved in the local church. My family raised me uh as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was essentially Mormon, right? Um and my and at that time, um, there was Boy Scouts were heavily involved in our community. And so I got the opportunity to get involved with the Boy Scouts in a space that I had never gotten the chance to do before with Cub Scouts, which was I got to get know uh the scout leadership, I got to know the other Boy Scouts, and I had the freedom to go up by myself. I didn't have to have a parent give me a ride there or a parent uh make sure that I went somewhere. And so that freedom gave me the opportunity to for to that I can remember, this is one of the earliest times that I was able to actually start making decisions for myself. And so at 12 years old, I'm going to Boy Scouts, and for whatever the reason, I really enjoyed the structure of it. I really enjoyed the process of, okay, you want to get this merit badge, you have to get these things signed off, you have to prove you've learned the content, or you have to learn that you learned what they wanted you to learn. And then you would go to these different merit badge people that were located all around the city and prove to them that you know the thing, and then you would get the ability to earn this merit badge. And so here I am, 12 years old, and I'm fully committed to this process of making a rank in the Boy Scout program. And I'm literally looking up merit badge qualifiers, I guess you would call them, all around the city of Salt Lake. I'm contacting them myself at 12 years old. I'm setting appointments and times to come see them. I'm putting the work in on my own to go learn the things that I need to learn to go see them to satisfy uh the knowledge check, right? And it was two years later, I not only had a marriage badge sash full of badges, but I was also one step away from an Eagle Scal at 14 years old. And what I remember about that process was I just loved the freedom of being able to go and do this, right? And so when I look back on my life and I look back at the things that brought success to me, that period, that two-year period was the beginning of what was going to eventually be my military career. There was very similar things that I found in the Boy Scouts that I I really enjoyed. And it's very similar to the JRTC program that I currently teach, where the cadets love the structure, they love the ability to earn rank and recognition, which is what when I look at the merit badge sash, or when I look at the rank on your uniform, it was really recognition. Right? In the military, it was a very similar thought process. You would get rank, and that would it would be a nice recognition of the work that you're putting in and the opportunities that you had capitalized on and that people were val valuing what you were doing with your time. And oh, by the way, we would also get more money. Um so then eventually, fast forward years later, of course, I get sidetracked from the Boy Scouts. I leave them at 14 years old because I get more involved in my neighborhood. I get more involved with my friends and girls, and you know, get to the point, I mean, very quickly do I go from being this young Boy Scout who is about to get his Eagle Scout to being a Hellion who's out running the streets with a bunch of friends and dropping out of high school and changing my life for other reasons. I mean, literally, it's a year and a half from being full-fledged Boy Scout to being, and it was high school, right? It was it was the ninth grade, 10th grade transition that really changed my life. And I I think I just got bored of the Boy Scouts because I had really felt like I'd crushed most of what I was doing there, and I was finding there was other things I wanted to do in this world that was not aligned with the Boy Scouts check. Um, but so then from 15 to 19, reckless, running wild, living on my own, hanging out with friends, rising through the ranks of the of my neighborhood, which similar recognition paths. Of course, I wasn't rank on a uniform, it wasn't merit badges, but definitely you wanted the respect, you wanted people to like you, you wanted people to respect what you were saying and listen to you, and you wanted to be a person when you were in the room with other people that people valued their opinion. Uh when I joined the military, it wasn't because I was looking for that structure. Um, I was rel I was literally looking for an opportunity to change my circumstance, right? I had pretty much ruined everything at that point. I had no high school education, I had gotten a criminal background at that point. I had really didn't have a lot of constructive friends at this point. A lot of my friends had gotten arrested or gotten into places where they were no longer around. And my mom and dad, well, I they loved me to death, they were not in the mood to, you know, be the ones that funded my continued delusion of going somewhere in life when I was not. Um and so at the time I joined the military, I was living with my cousin Richard, up in Ogden, Utah, working as a baker, you know, working from midnight to eight o'clock in the morning every day, baking donuts. I was a donut flipper at this point. And, you know, I met this recruiter, he tells me he can get me in the Navy. I go in with my aunt, and I and I'm thank God I'm able to pass that the test. And I do eventually get a job with the United States Navy check. Um when I joined the military, the structure uh I hated it at first. I'm not even gonna lie to you. Like I I did not like having so many bosses or so many people telling me what I had to do with my time, and I did not value uh that support system at that time. I thought that I I I hated it. Like most young people that join the service, you're not going to have a lot of fun uh your first year or two in the organization. And I look at that almost anywhere. If you get a job working in a big corporate sector organization and you're starting in the mail room, you're probably not gonna always love being in the mail room, especially if you forget why you got the job to begin with. You know, so at first, uh when I was in the Navy, I I I didn't I didn't enjoy it because I felt like the Navy was stopping me from living my life, which for me was going out with my friends, hanging out after work, living in Japan, thinking that I should just be able to do whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it, and not have to work. I know, delusional. Uh uh, you know, it used to kill me when I would have that same challenge with sailors later in my career. I remember I would let people off work early on a Friday, right? I would go out of my, I would go out on the limb and I would let people off work early on a Friday thinking that they were going to really appreciate that extra opportunity for time off. And then on Monday, they were gonna come back more committed to do a good job. And then it would be on Monday, and the very first thing out of someone's mouth would be like, hey chief, what time are we getting out of here today? And I would just be like, brother, we just got off early on Friday. Like we today we got to put some work in. Like, are you serious right now? And and what what it just taught me was that people only really are selfishly looking uh out for themselves, and and you just have to trust people to be who they are, and they've got to understand what's the reason behind uh the plan for the day, right? And and and don't don't take it personal because they're just in out for themselves for whatever the reason. And they're probably they were like me when I was younger, and job the job, the work was actually impeding what they wanted to get done for the day. All right, I digress. So at this time in my life, I remember uh that I'm gonna focus on which is when I I had a real change in my thinking. Uh I was a second-class petty officer in the Navy. I had married Erica. I had, you know, I'd I'd stayed in the Navy at the end of my first enlistment because I was afraid to get out. Let's just be honest. I was afraid to get out. I had gotten to be in a space where I'd not improved in life. And I got the opportunity to go be a Navy recruiter because, you know, hey, I was actually pretty good at the Navy, and I was good talking on my feet, and they liked what they saw. And some recruiter selection team was coming through the far west region or the far east region where I was at in the Navy, and they they gave me the opportunity to go be a Navy recruiter. Uh I'm in recruiting, I meet Erica, I'm a third-class petty officer, we decide we want to get married. I decide I'm gonna stay in the Navy because that's the best thing that I have going for myself to support my family. Erica's all in, she supports that as well. And the goal is to make rank, right? The goal is to make rank. And I remember thinking, man, if I was good at the Navy when I hated it, how much, how much better can I be at the Navy when I when I stop fighting it so much and start swimming with the current, right? I start working with the people that are trying to get me to do things and I start trying to take it serious, like a like an adult, like a professional. And that was a game-changing idea for me. That was a game-changing thought process. You know, when I was on recruiting duty, I was listening to these cassette tapes that they gave me, you know, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziggler, Power Talk. And so I was really getting into this idea of thinking about changing your life and using actions and words and thoughts to do it. And of course, I was leveraging that on recruiting duty to get people to join the Navy, but then I started thinking, what if I could sell myself on doing good at the Navy? Which at that time it really wasn't my favorite thing to do, but it was what I had. And again, I'm telling myself, I'm selling myself on why I need to go all in to this Navy adventure. Okay, so now we get orders to the USS Ogden uh out of San Diego, California. And we Erica and I moved from Florida to San Diego. And I'm, you know, I I I've been on the ship now for the USS Ogden for about eight months, and it's going really good. You know, I'm actually I'm making a lot of great, great ground. I've got my own shop. I'm studying a lot every day for uh rank and advancement and taking the test, and I and I'm thinking I'm very finding a lot of success, but I haven't yet uh achieved a sense a sense of like focus that the plan was working the way I wanted it to work. And Erica on this particular day, she's working at Pacific Trust Bank, which is a local bank there in San Diego. And and the ship I was on at the time, USS Ogden, had started working like tropical hours. So we were going in at six in the morning starting our day, and we would be home by noon, one o'clock in the afternoon. So I was finding myself home earlier in the day than Erica, which was odd, right? Because it had been previously when she was unemployed, when she was a stay-at-home wife, she was just alone at home, and I was never there because I was working until five o'clock in the evening. And then she goes and gets a full-time job and is working, and all of a sudden now I'm getting home at noon, one o'clock in the afternoon. Uh so that was definitely a shift up in our lifestyle, and and it was an interesting time. This is before kids. And I remember I come home one day, and there's a I turn the television on, and uh, and I'm making lunch, and on the television is the Oprah Winfrey show. And I don't I don't watch Oprah, it's not something that I I tune into, right? Just so happened that this show was on on this date. And I turn it on, I'm making my food, and it's on in the background. And on this particular day, Oprah Winfrey has the authors or a panel of authors that wrote the book The Secret, or titled The Secret. I don't know if anyone's ever read this book before, uh, but it is a book called The Secret. And I had never heard of it before at this point. Now, mind you, I'd I'd been into Tony Robbins, I'd been into Zig Ziggler from the cassettes that they gave me on recruiting duty, but I, you know, I'd never gotten into something like The Secret. And what matters about this is it's not what the book says per se, it's what how how you receive information and how you turn it into being something actionable for yourself. This day is pivotable, pivotal for me because as I'm listening to this panel discussion, things happen that change my life. And I just I will tell you, if you were to have a bar graph of my life or our life, you would see a significant spike after this day. And it's because as I'm making the lunch, I'm hearing these people talk about this concept of visualization and being able to understand that uh everything in this world has a rhythm. Now, this is, I don't know if this is exactly how they say it. I have read the book since then. I've listened, I've I've done a lot of research on it, but I'm remembering back to how I first incorporated this into my mindset. And they were they were talking about how everything in the world gives off a vibration or a frequency. Okay. And I'm listening. And they said so basically everything. It doesn't matter if it's an innate object or if it's a if it's a living thing, everything has a vibration and reacts to the vibrations of other things that are getting sent out to the world. And that there's this law, you know, the law of attraction, which essentially brings things towards you that you that are attracted to the frequency or the vibration that you're sending out. And so if you're gonna follow this secret path, or if you're gonna use this, leverage this secret, then you need to be a person who's able to recognize what it is you want to do. You need to be able to visualize what it is you want to do. I mean, to the point where you can actively put yourself in a state of damn near hypnosis that you can see it, touch it, taste it, feel it, hear it, whatever it is. And then, uh, so that's step one, be able to visualize it, see it, touch it, taste it, hear in this state of damn near hypnosis, then work really, really hard every day, but not just to do the thing you want, just and everything in life. Because what you're doing when you're working really hard is you're raising the level of your frequency, you're raising the level of the vibration, which will then begin to bring things towards you quicker or uh quick quicker, right? So as I'm listening to this, this them talk about this idea on this television show that I don't typically watch, um, something about it resonates with me. And I'm like, wow, that sounds really interesting, you know. And of course, I was raised in a faith-based home, you know, so I believe in prayer and I believe in faith, and I believe that in blessings, and I believe that God has uh things for you in this world, but I also do not believe in preordained destiny. I don't believe that you have no choice in this world. I believe that there are a lot of great opportunities, but you've got to make the right choices to receive the right things. And if you deviate, okay, you get experience, you get wisdom, and you go from there. But I do believe free agency is a main part of this world that we all live in. I think it's a huge gift. I think it's one of the most important gifts we've been given is the ability to make choices. So I'm hearing them talk about this frequency thing and this idea that if I can visualize something, I could actually send out an energy signal to the world and it will possibly, probably help things come that direction. Hmm. Okay. Again, I'm just listening to this while I'm making lunch, right? Just listening to this while I'm making lunch for myself, and I started thinking about how could I use this philosophy, if you will, to possibly achieve my next goal. And at that point, the goal was make first class petty officer, right? I needed to make DC one. I needed to make rank, I needed to get the next rank. I was doing great work, I was doing the things I needed to do. I just, but making rank wasn't easy, right? At that time in the Navy for the DC rent, the damage control rate, which this is like 2004, it was just a tough uh promotion cycle. And I was coming off of recruiting duty where my evals were not that, I mean, they were MPs. Or which is must promotes, which is like middle of the pack. And I'm doing good on the shit, but I wanted to make rank now. I didn't want to wait. I wanted to make rank just because I needed more money, right? It was it was about the money for me. It wasn't about anything else at that point in my career. And so I start uh thinking a little about damn near obsessing about uh how it would feel to make rank. How would I feel when the captain said my name on the loudspeaker? Congratulations to the new first class petty officers and my name will get called. How would I feel when I was able to call Erica and tell her, hey, I had made this next rank. We're gonna get more money in our paycheck. How would I feel when all the studying that I was, I mean, I was studying every time I stood watching DC Central. I'd be driving into work, listening to my North Star, uh, my cassette tapes. I I mean, I was studying all the time because rating exams was such a big part of how you promoted in the United States Navy. Uh, I was, of course, working really hard at work, but then I was studying a lot for this test. And so one thing that worked for me was I'd go early to work and I would get, I'd go to the gym and I'd get on the treadmill or I'd get on the elliptical and I would do like 45 minutes or whatever it was on this machine. And as I was doing it, I was just thinking about how I would feel when I made a rank, when I got advanced, how would that feeling be? And how I could see it, I could taste, I can I was putting myself in that state while exercising. Because for me, for whatever reason, that's a good time for me to essentially meditate. Well, I remember I go to work one day and there's an EN2 on the ship, which means he was a second-class petty officer engine man. And he's like, hey, wise, the result, the quotas are out for DC one for first-class petty officer damage controlmen. They're only making six in the whole Navy. And I was just like, oh man, that sucks. Those are not good numbers. And if, you know, I just really thought that was gonna be another six-month wait. And lo and behold, I make first-class petty officer that day. So I was one of only like it was either six or nine that made it in the whole Navy, and I made it. Right. And at that time, I was maybe in the Navy seven years. Uh so I was very young, very junior, and I and I was like in the 97th percentile of that advancement examination. And I remember again, I got to do all the things I'd always dreamed about. I got to call Erica and tell her I made it. I got to feel the pride of hearing my name on the speaker and hearing the commanding officer say my name. I got the chance to get this recognition from all of the people in my shop and in the ship, and just to know that there was this not this pressure on me right away to have to keep studying maybe to make the next rank. Like that was just a huge relief. And then I remember thinking, like, wow, I don't know if this whole thinking about what I wanted worked. I don't know if this whole secret or this uh visualization or whatever it was worked, but I think I'm gonna keep trying to do it, right? Why not? Like if when I get on the treadmill or when I get on the elliptical, I like when I'm thinking about the future and the I get excited about the opportunities for what we're gonna do in the future, and it and that helps me work out anyway, so why not just keep the two aligned, right? So, I mean, very shortly after that making rank to DC one, the next path is I'm looking at going into the LDO program for the Navy, which is the limited duty officer program. You know, at that point in my career, I had not been exposed to really any strong chief petty officers, in my opinion. Um, it was it was really about this time I was meeting people like Ian Omira, um, who was a big pivotal person in my life, but really the person who I was leveraging the most in my career was my DCA, my damage control assistant, a gentleman by the name of Russell Bryant, who was a former damage control chief petty officer, but he had converted to the officer community in the wardroom. And he was really the person that was giving me a lot of advice. And here I am now, a young DC one. I just make it in like November of 2004, I put on DC one, and I'm just like, okay, in January of 2006, I'm gonna take the the advancement exam for LDO purposes. So I will have been a DC one for an entire year, and I'm gonna take the advancement exam for LDO purposes, and if I make bored, then I'm gonna apply for going LDO in um, let's see, so make it 04 and 06, I'm gonna apply for LDO. Right? So it's a year. So for that next year, I am every day in the gym thinking about putting on khakis, thinking about uh putting in my LDO package, thinking about the pride in Erica when I get to tell her that, oh my God, now I'm gonna be an officer, or now I'm gonna be a part of the wardroom, or that I'm, you know, I'm making another rank, I'm getting another opportunity to promote more money for our family, better money for housing, right? And I'd get so excited, I'd get so fired up, and then what I would do is just work my tail off. I would just work, I would run the shop, I'd run the division, I was doing all these different things at work uh that were finding success for me, but secretly, well not even secretly, because I was telling people that I was taking the test for LDO purposes. You know, and everyone would just kind of look at me like I was a young first class that really, I mean, I didn't know what I was doing, I'll be honest with y'all. I had no real clue uh what it all entailed, but that was what I was gonna do. I was taking the test for LDO purposes, and if I made board for LDO, then I was gonna put in an LDO package. That was the plan. So November 2005 comes around, one year later, my first evaluation as a frocked as a first-class petty officer, paid, right? And great eval, right? Sailor of the year, number one, all that good stuff. And I'll never forget, I take the test for LDO purposes, and I make board. And we're on deployment, Western Pacific deployment, and it's like March of 2006, and I I make board for LDO. And so now I'm looking at the LDO package process and what do I got to do? And I'm trying to figure out all these things. And the the DCA I I had been working with, Mr. Bryant, was gone at this point. So I really was just figuring out on my own. And the CMC comes up and says, Hey man, hey, wise, why don't you want to be a Navy chief? And I was like, Master chief, I'm not up for chief. So I'm gonna put in for LDO this year, and if I don't make LDO, then next year I'll apply for chief and LDO, you know, whatever. He says, You want to be a chief or not, Wise? I say, Master Chief, I don't get the question. Of course I want to be a chief. I don't, I don't get, I just want to promote, right? Like ultimately, now of course I don't tell him that. I just tell him I want, I just, sure, I'm just not up for it yet. Well, he puts in a waiver for me to get a time and rate early promote waiver, which I didn't even know was a thing. Nobody put that in for me before the chief's exam, right? If I had never taken the test for LDO purposes, and that would have never been an option, right? But he puts it in, comes back with the waiver approved, and just walks up to me one day and hands me a profile sheet that says now CPO selection board eligible, and says, put your chiefs package in. And that's due sooner than LDO packages are due. So I remember I go talk to my boy Jardia Jenkins, who was the career counselor at the time. And I said, hey man, how do I put a chiefs package in, right? And we him and I work it together. He's putting his chiefs package in at the same time. And we both apply for chief petty officer that year. And really, uh, there was Danny Burns, there was uh Donnie Lord, there was a whole bunch of us made it on the Ogden this year. And and long story short, I end up making chief petty officer that summer, uh, July of 2006. When I look back on this whole process of visualization and the secret and leveraging rhythm and vibration, the it worked because everything I was visualizing came true, right? Uniform change, status change, where I ate lunch would change, position of authority would change, um, promotion opportunity, and or the ability to go tell Erica that I'd gotten another chance to promote had changed. Like all these things. It just didn't come in the form of being an officer. Because I believe it doesn't always uh differentiate those specifics. It just kind of brought to me uh exactly everything I was visualizing. And it brought even faster than if I would have forced it to go a different route, if that makes sense. Um, if I was so dead set on going officer and not putting a Chiefs package in that year, then I would have, who knows what would happen, right? But because uh me being willing to take all opportunities that were presented, all options were on the table at all times, and just keep playing the best cards that you're given, it worked. And oh, by the way, at that point in my career, we were decommissioning the USS Ogden, and I had just gotten slammed with orders. I had orders originally to go to Great Lakes to be a boot camp drill instructor, and they turned me down because of the tattoos on my arm. And my my commanding officer was pissed because again, I was his sailor of the year. He wanted to fight them because he was like, How are they gonna not let my sailor of the year go be a drill, an RDC? And I wanted to be an RDC because I wanted to say I had done everything in the sailorization process of our Navy from being a recruiter to being a recruit to being a work center supervisor and a maintenance man and a leading petty officer. And I wanted to do every step in the rung on my path up the up the food chain. But at that time, uh I was also we Erica and I were also going through some very hard financial times because the secret or this vibration uh theory can also work bad, right? So the here the good example was making rank. Here was a bad example, right? Eric and I make first class, I make first class, we're making decent money, but I'm recognizing how much money I have for housing allowance that I'm not using because I'm living in military housing. And all my buddies in 2004, 2005 are buying houses in San Diego and just making money hand over fist. I mean, they're buying houses and then selling them a year later, making like 200,000, 150,000. They're just making money. And I'm just thinking to myself, like, we're missing this opportunity to get out here and get in the game, right? And so I'm telling Erica, like, we need to uh get out of military housing and go buy a house. Of course, she's nervous about that because we don't want to be stuck in San Diego. She wants to get back to the East Coast. We moved out to the West Coast to be closer to my family who were in Utah. But after being there for a few years, we're looking to try to get back to the East Coast. And so uh that's her thought. But I'm just thinking, man, we gotta, we're wasting all this money and all this opportunity to possibly get into the real estate game. And I'm, you know, I've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad at this point in time. I'm talking to people, I'm listening to things on the radio. Uh, of course, and this is again 2004, 2005, this is before YouTube and all that other stuff really kicks off. But I'm hearing the opportunities that are out there. And I am now visualizing buying a house. I am now visualizing uh getting into this real estate space and an opportunity for my family to change our trajectory. Um Erica and I are talking about having a family, and I'm thinking about how I can best invest our money to do something significant for our family. And I remember I discovered this neighborhood by where we lived at that had uh a beach that was man-made, and the man-made beach was surrounded by uh a pool that was man-made and a park that was man-made. And I remember thinking, like, what a freaking amazing neighborhood! Like, if you had a home over here, this would be amazing because you would never need to go to the public beaches of San Diego, which were nowhere near as much fun as the beaches in Florida, right? But you would never have to go to those beaches because you could just walk over to the park in your neighborhood, in your community, and have the beach. And I would start going to this neighborhood whenever I was stressed, and I would like drive around it, I would run in that neighborhood, and I started really just thinking like if you lived in this neighborhood, if you owned property in this neighborhood, you were successful. Like I was starting to really believe that a status symbol was having property in this neighborhood. And that was just something I was aligning in my frequency to. Oh, by the way, I was still working the stuff at work, but this was another frequency I was sending out to the universe, right? So then Erica and I have this conversation about possibly looking to buy a home, right? Possibly looking to buy a home. And as soon as she said she was okay to looking to buy a home, I had us looking at properties the very next day. And what started as us looking at properties had me find a property that was literally three-minute walk away from that man-made beach. Like the back door of that property was a down-the-sidewalk walk to that man-made beach. And it went from, okay, we're gonna possibly look at buying property to closing on up that property that I just told you about, three-minute walk away from the beach and moving into that property within a month. And that's exactly what we did. And it was the worst financial decision of my adult life, right? Because we buy this property in 2005, right? I go on deployment, Erica's living in the property, come back from the from the deployment, a chief petty officer, uh selectee, and put on chief, and I got orders to go to be uh in Great Lakes to go be a drill instructor. But what's happening at this point in 2006 is the market is starting to freaking not work out well for us, right? People are not wanting to buy properties at higher value because the bubble's about to burst. It's coming, right? And so I'm looking at this property that I had bought a year ago, and I thought, oh, I was gonna buy it and then I was gonna sell it and market up, I don't know, $15,000 and make $5,000, $7,000, who knows, $50,000. All these things could be possible. Well, guess what? At this point in time, I'm gonna lose money, right? I'm gonna lose money if I try to sell the property now. And that's that's a bad thing. So I got these orders to go to Great Lakes, go be a drill instructor, and then they cancel my orders because of my tattoos. Commanding officer wants to fight it. I say, sir, you know what? I don't want to fight it. Let's just go ahead and figure out something else. Because secretly I know I can't leave San Diego. Right? And so I'm a DC-1, not a chief selectee yet, when this conversation's happening. I'm on deployment and I contact the detailer, who is how you get orders in the Navy at this point in time, and I say, hey man, I need to stay in San Diego. I need to stay in San Diego because my house is not going good on the market, and I can't move. And that's just my thought process. He says, Okay, I'm gonna put you back on recruiting duty again. I was just like, no, that's horrible. Don't do that. Like, I'm leaving a ship where I've been very successful. I I need to go to another ship because I need to make chief or LDR or whatever it is. He was like, Nope, you're done with your short with your sea duty time. I need people on recruiting duty, but you know what? You're not gonna be a recruiter. I'm gonna put you on staff duty at recruiting station, recruiting district San Diego. Like, that's even worse. Like, when you're on recruiting duty, the recruiters are the ones that get all the love. The staff does not get a lot of support. And he's like, sorry, that's where you're going. And it's tough because here I am thinking, like, okay, I've got to stay in San Diego because I I need to figure out this house thing, but this is gonna kill my career. Now, mind you, I got into this whole thing because of my visualizing living in that neighborhood, living in that space. You're gonna be successful if you live there. That's going to solve your problems. That's exactly what you need to do, right? And here I am in this tough financial pickle. Thank God I make chief. And the detailer makes chief. And I'm able to contact the detailer, and because of making chief, I'm able to renegotiate orders and I get the orders to go to a float training group San Diego to be an anti-terrorism force protection trainer, which is a whole nother story because I eventually I changed that and become a DC chief over there. But the but the idea was I had to go there and be anti-terrorism force protection trainer. The good news is I was able to get out of that debacle of leaving San Diego and I was able to get out of the recruiting orders. The bad news is that it's again here I am in this financial pickle where my house was completely upside down. And oh, by the way, I had bought it on an adjustable rate mortgage because at that point in time that's what everybody was doing, you know, buy them, hold the house for two years, sell it, get out of it, and make some make a bunch of money. And now everything is starting to crash uh around us, right? And it was uh 2008. When we eventually short-sold the property, got out of it, and had to eventually go to Japan to recover financially from that very tough decision. I say all that to say be careful the things that you're visualizing for and make sure that they're that they're productive, make sure that they're aligned with your long-term goals, make sure that they're healthy for you and your family, do your research, because the universe or the process of this visualizing doesn't always differentiate what's good for you or not good for you. It's just going to bring things your direction based off of the energy you're sending out. And I b look, I've I continue to use this method to this day. I all the time. And I think wisdom is differentiating uh what's healthy and what's not healthy, and recognizing you don't have to always say yes to everything that comes into your path. Right? I didn't have to say yes to buying that property. I didn't have to say yes to putting in a Chiefs package. I didn't have to say yes uh to go to a float training group, San Diego, with the anti-terrorism opportunity, right? You you do have the choice to say no, um, but timing plus preparation equals destiny. Okay. And step one for me was learning to really lock in on what I want, on what you want. So that's if if I had to give anyone advice based off of my experience, if you're a person who wants to do something with your life significantly, it's being able to really say what you want. Know what you want. Don't just generally speak about it, but be able to write it down or be able to visualize it. Whether it's I want to make a rank, whether I want to get a job promotion, whether I want to look a certain way in the mirror, whether I want to, you know, the home I'm living in right now is exactly the kind of home that I would visualize visualize about for most of my life, right? So be able to, I mean, from down to the how the backyard would look, from down to how the kitchen would look. Like you have to be able to really get specific. Because if you can't do that, do you really want it? Like, if you can't do that, then then it's okay. Take time to figure out what you want. Uh number two, uh, is once you once you know what you want, be able to really allow yourself to believe you can do it. Be able to convince yourself that you can do it. And you can do it through a few different things. Number one, I believe that God wants good things for you. And as long as you do the things He needs you to do, wants you to do, and hopes that you do, you're going to get blessings in return that are going to help bless your life. And hopefully those blessings are going to compound into you eventually receiving the things you're praying for, right? Because essentially, part in my mind, this is a manifestation of prayer. This is a way of praying, even though it may not be the traditional method, right? Number two, so so not only having faith that God will bless you with these things, number two is believing that hard work will pay off, right? And as you are out there hoping, praying, believing, visualizing, you are working hard constructively. I hate when I see people just working, but they don't have any direction in what the work is that they're doing. You must ensure that the things you're doing with your energy are aligned with your goals. If you can figure out a way to align your personal goals with your professional goals, it will be like walking on that moving sidewalk in the airport. You will be moving so much faster towards the things you want in this life. Uh it's when you're not working with professional and personal aligned, that's where you're conflicted and that's where you're struggling. And so if you're a person who's struggling with unhappiness in one of those aspects, whether it be personal or professional, take some time to figure that out. Take some time to figure that out and humble yourself and recognize that you might need to make a change so you can get those things squared away so that you can move forward again. Because living a life fulfilled with purpose will be way more fun than always trying to balance looking left, looking right, looking left, looking right, because you're not sure which way you want to go. Now, if you're at a crossroads, slow it down. Take it all in. Get some information, get some mentorship, talk to some people that can give you the advice that you need, understanding that once you make the decision, you move, right? Shoot, move, communicate, move on to the next thing. So, number one, believe you can do it, right? Leveraging faith, leveraging belief system, leveraging everything you know within your own being and the power of prayer. Number two, align personal, professional to get you to where you believe you want to go. Number three, tell people what you're gonna do. Your spouse, your friends, people that care about you. Now, can you tell everybody? No. No, you just can't. It sucks. I know you want to, but not everyone's gonna be happy for you in this world, man. It sucks to hear that. It really does. Hurts when people you thought care about you talk about you behind your back, tell you what you're not gonna be able to do, say that you're over there daydreaming some craziness and you're never gonna make it work. Or worse, they try to actively prevent you from accomplishing something because if you accomplish that thing and they don't accomplish whatever their thing is, they're gonna feel less than themselves, less than less than. So they feel like in order so they can feel validated, they want to stop you. You know, I you're gonna catch hate in this world. You're going to have people that do not want to see you find success. God, it's tough. I'm sorry to tell you that if you didn't know that already. Look at it as a compliment. Look at it as uh for me, it at times gives me energy because I like to prove my haters wrong. Um, I like for people to let me know who they are. So thank you for showing me who your true colors are when I know that. But stay focused, man. You cannot get distracted, but it's gonna hurt. I wish I didn't, but it will, you know. But again, tell the people that really matter to you in your life. Uh, but you can't tell everybody. I I learned that the hard way. I learned that especially during my time on George Washington. I learned that especially during a float training group San Diego. And you know, I learned that as a CMC. Not everybody wants to always see you in. But for the ones that really do support you and depend upon you, especially, you know, your wife, your kids, your parents, your really good friends, they're going to back you up and they're going to support you. And you've got to get that group of people aligned because it's gonna get hard out there. Right? And then, you know, I would say the last piece is just be consistent. Be consistent. You gotta show up every day. You gotta do something every day to move the ball forward. You gotta do something every day to make progress towards something along that goal. Now, I'm not saying you just focus only on doing things for toward that specific goal because again, the universe doesn't need that. You just need to raise your frequency. You've got to live a life of energy, and you've got to be somebody who's outside willing to work. Help people live in a space of gratitude, be thankful for the things you got, be optimistic for the things that are coming, share with people that are around you the good fortune that you maybe that you have, and help other people come up. Don't just be quiet about it. I believe one of the most important things in this world for us as humans is to share our stories with each other, to share our good fortunes, to share our lessons learned, because some days you're gonna fail. You're gonna not do good. And matter of fact, those are the days that you really got to learn to look at and pick them apart. Get that after action report done. Debrief yourself. What the heck happened? How did I let us get in this situation? How did I let us bond this? And how can I ensure that we don't let this happen again? And then how can I share this story with other people so maybe they can learn from my bad experience? Whether it's your kids, which that's my favorite, you know, my sons, uh, my students, uh, people that come to me for mentorship or advice, uh, talk it over with my wife so we can figure out how to best support one another through the challenging times. All good things. Okay. Well, I'm gonna wrap this one up here today, folks. I really appreciate you. Then, you know, I'm making another video here in the next week or two. It's gonna be about seven areas to focus on if you're a young person, right? So look forward to that. It is after Christmas time right now, here in sunny Ocala, Florida. Uh looking forward to wrap it up 2025. It's been a great year. Looking forward to 2026. Uh, steady as we go, looking to see where those words from the wise podcast goes. Hopefully, y'all enjoyed today's uh, you know, story. Hopefully, you'll get something out of it. And I really appreciate everybody that listens to the sound of my voice, listens to the content that we're putting out there, supports my family, and thank you very much for your time. You guys have a great day, and I will talk to y'all later. Bye.