What The Diamond Taught Us About Life After the Uniform

The uniform may come off, but the lessons stay.

In this episode of Operation Next Chapter, Marc and Cole reflect on what the First Sergeant “diamond” taught them — not just about leadership in the military, but about life after service.

From accountability and discipline to caring for people and leading with purpose, they share how the principles that shaped them in uniform continue to guide their decisions, relationships, and direction in the next chapter of life.

This episode is about transition, identity, and carrying forward what matters most. Because while the role may change, the mission doesn’t have to.

Whether you’ve served or are simply navigating a major life shift, this conversation is a reminder that the best lessons aren’t left behind — they’re brought with you.

OperationNextChapter@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I have learned to have a better understanding and even a lot of times more patience with folks, not relaxed and not, you know, not still pushed, but it's taught me to rethink what's going on. Okay, what else is affecting this? What are the other factors coming in? And what how's it playing out? Having that first sergeant mentality of pulling back and seeing other things and being open to other things. It's made me more successful in life.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome to Operation Next Chapter, where leadership lessons meet real life. We're Mark and Cole, two former Air Force first sergeants. The stories we share come from wearing the diamonds, but the lessons apply far beyond the uniform. This season, we break down real moments of pressure, trust, conflict, resilience, and growth. Because leadership isn't about rank. It's about how you show for people, especially when life gets heavy. This is Operation Next Chapter. Let's get into it. What's up, Cole? What's been good?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Everything, man. Life is good. Been traveling. Jenny's been going with me on a couple of these trips, so that's been nice. We spent 10 days in Hawaii for I'm using air quotes work. I did work, but we also utilize it as a vacation.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So it's been good. It's been fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

We've had a lot of visitors this month. Um some family coming in town for a week here and there, and then I have an aunt and uncle here for the entire month. So yeah. We've been busier than normal just going out and having fun and eating at restaurants and hiking, and the month has flown by.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, man, it's it's crazy. And I know we say this all the time, but it's crazy how fast, how fast time has gone. And you know, it's this is the time to visit Tucson. So your your family took full advantage of the amazing weather that we're having right now.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

It's probably the perfect month in Tucson. Yeah. Minus the heat that we have going on right now, which is kind of out of the norm. Right. Triple digits for the last couple of days, but either way, you can't complain about sunshine and clear blue skies.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah, it it's difficult.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

So this last episode of season two, we've been talking about our diamond and lessons from the diamond being first sergeants in the Air Force. This one, I would like to talk about what the diamond taught us about life after. Maybe share our story about well, for you, the diamond never really came off. You retired. For me, it did come off, and I went back into my career field. So kind of that and how those lessons applied to our life after the diamond, after the air force. And then I know you've got a visit that you just had that is interesting with this subject.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah, yeah, no doubt. For so long, while we were in, and for me leading up to that diamond was a a goal to get to and and a pinnacle to reach. Wearing it was awesome. Being involved in the things that we did, we got to do, that we were uh aware of and and shown and and everything else was awesome. But when I transitioned, obviously, like you said, I retired and I still had my diamond on. I didn't really, I didn't take it off. And the job that I do now is still basically a first sergeant job. You know, I'm still out there, I'm still taking care of people, I'm still being a resource for folks. I transitioned, I took my my uniform off, put civilian clothes on. You know, my job just I'm still doing it. Not not to the exact extent and everything else. Often talking to people, they're like, you're just a first sergeant in the civilian world. And that's true. However, I'm not a first sergeant anymore. And it was tough. You know, that was tough. We've talked about that multiple times. That transition of always being on duty and on call was was a tough one. So while the diamond defined me and defined what I did and and my role in life, if you will, uh for several years, it it doesn't anymore. And and dealing with that was was tough after it came off. Uh my job, I mentioned I'm a I'm a military liaison for hospitals, and I still work with the bases routinely, weekly. I'm daily, I should say. I'm on the call with with the base on the phone with the bases, and and I'm helping people to get to uh get to help for behavioral health and for substance abuse and everything else. And so in that aspect, that's still kind of that first sergeant role of you know providing those avenues. I feel like I am definitely a better person because I got to experience wearing a that wearing that diamond.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, to your point, the uniform came off, but the principles didn't. No. Right? It's about applying those lessons that we've been talking about for the last 11 episodes to life. Life after the uniform, without rank, authority, structure. Now we are our own boss per se. Just like everybody is their own boss in life, not work-related, but you are managing your own life. The military kind of did that for us. We were told where to be, when to be there, what to wear, and what we're gonna do. We didn't have to think a lot. But I agree, after the diamond, I'm a better person. I was a better leader after having the diamond. And that was a hard thing to explain to people because I went back to my career field, and I know for sure I led differently and better because of the experiences I had as a first sergeant.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah. Probably more aware.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Definitely. And with us both coming from aircraft maintenance background, I realized how well other units on base ran their squadrons and took better care of their people than aircraft maintenance did. And it's not a slammed aircraft maintenance, but I think everybody listening would agree the most important thing was getting the iron up in the air. And the people came second. So people didn't get taken care of as good as they probably could have been or should have been. The airplanes got it for sure, and that's what mattered. And people's lives kind of came secondary to the mission. Do you agree?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you mentioned that. That's what I when I go into and I talk with the providers and the mental health folks, uh, every single time if I'm going to a new place and and I'm doing my intro, if you will, my elevator speech, that's one of the first things that comes out of my mouth. You know, for 17 and a half years of my career, I was an aircraft maintainer. And then I just pause for a second and I look around the room at their faces, and I say, Yes, everything that's going through your head right now about a maintainer, that was me. Because the people made no difference. We had to get the airplanes in the air and safely back to the ground. That was the focus, that was the number one mission, and the people were no no part of that, except they were every part of that doing the job. That wasn't a thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, and I also remember kind of correcting people in aircraft maintenance that they were the hardest working on the base. I know it seemed like it, and definitely we worked hard, but there were other units and missions that worked just as hard that they just never saw. That was the beauty of being a first sergeant was we got out of our comfort zone of maintenance and got to go see and lead other units and other missions, and it put the big picture of Big Blue moving, and it took the entire base for the mission to happen. But when you're only in one piece of the puzzle, that's all you see, and that's all you know. Being able to translate that to aircraft maintainers, you know, you were able to explain a little bit about their mission and under help them understand, yeah, they may not have customer service window open right now, but here's why. You know, they're doing training, just like we had to do training. So you kind of had to put it all together, and again, it was about leading from a different perspective that we had just came from. I guess share that knowledge and mentor fellow senior NCOs and NCOs, and for them to be a better leader and encourage them to get outside your comfort zone. Go be assured, go do this, go do something outside of what you know. Yeah, there's so much out there, so many opportunities, and that goes for civilian life too.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, every single person walking around on base, no matter what their career feel, had a hand in making the mission happen.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Putting airplanes in the air.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

You know, I you mentioned finance, right? That was one. Well, that I was the finance first sergeant, and I got to see what happens inside those walls that as a maintainer, I just griped and complained because my pay was never correct and I could never get a hold of them, and I could never get in there to figure out what's going on and talk to somebody. Well, I got to see behind the wall to see why that's happening. You know, finance, all we're all we're worried about is our pay, right? Well, finance handles a budget for the entire base, for every single squadron, for every single thing that happens on the base. That's what they're doing, right? That's why there's only two or three people up doing customer service because the whole rest of the flight is back there handling everything else. We don't see that as a maintenance guy or anybody else coming to the window. We just want our pay, which again, I'm not saying that's wrong, right? That's perspective. Being a first sergeant, I got to see that. The other one that we complained about all the time was medical. You know, I can never get an appointment. They got nine training days a week. Well, inside those four walls, I got to see all of the things that go behind the scene that make medical go and make the the medics who they are and and what it is. And for reference, they really only had one training day, I think, every day. But that's beside the point, right? Yeah, um, but I got yes, that perspective and changing my perspective as that maintainer. At one point in my career, I may um have gotten in trouble because I openly said this very loud in the med group. They're just part of the Air Force support squadron because they didn't fly them, load them, or work on them being the airplanes. That was my mentality, you know, as a young NCO, as an aircraft maintenance guy, busting my knuckles on the flight line.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

I went to weather uh with my diamond, and weather affects everything, right? Decisions are made on weather. Yeah. D-Day was decided on the weather, and it was delayed because of the weather. And on the flip side, I got to teach the weather forecasters how their decisions affect the flight line and their minds were blown. And I'm coming from a career field where we worked with explosives, and I said, you know, when you guys put out a lightning within five or lightning within ten, we're at work stoppage. So it was interesting to see both sides of it, and then I went to Security Forces, and same thing, like we as an Air Force, for the most part, only saw defenders at the gate checking ID cards. They don't see what goes on outside of the gates internally in security forces and the fact that a third of my squadron was deployed all the time. And so we got to explain, you know, why things happen the way they do because we got to see it firsthand. I want this to go back to civilian life and us exiting the Air Force, taking the diamond off. It's the same thing. All of our experiences in the Air Force affect how we see life now and how we approach life now.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Wearing the diamond gave me an open mind for things that I had no clue were going on. And I and I say that meaning that exact thing. As an aircraft maintenance guy, the only thing that mattered was the flight line. Wearing the diamond allowed me to see the bigger picture, right? I had a 5,000-foot view from the flight line. As a first sergeant, I had a 30,000 and sometimes higher view of what was going on, what was making everything tick. And so transitioning that to my civilian world and my civilian job and that transition out, I have learned to have a better understanding and even a lot of times more patience with folks when I'm trying to get something something done, right? I'm trying to hammer, hammer, hammer and push and get it done. And it's not getting done, it has taught me to back up, it has taught me to not relax and not you know not still push, but it's taught me to rethink what's going on. Okay, what else is affecting this? What are the other factors coming in? And what how's it playing out? And so having that first sergeant mentality of pulling back and seeing other things and being open to other things, it's made me more successful in life.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah, and we were used to the military life being pretty black and white, like there was a regulation for everything, and there was a way to do everything. Yes, there was gray and there was flexibility, and I remember prior to retiring during transition, I remember Tiffany always saying, like, you're gonna struggle. It is not like this in the civilian world. And I 100% understood and agreed with her, but we didn't know we didn't know. That's right, and so we had to figure that out and go through the motions of it's a new chapter in life, and we're gonna experience something different than what we've had because we both went in pretty young, right? 17, 18 years old. That's all we knew. You know, going back to taking the diamond off, we had to figure out a way to lead ourselves without necessarily a blueprint in front of us.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, being first sergeant, we lived in the gray, right? As a a checklist guy for multiple years, as somebody who followed the book step by step, that was difficult as well. An even grayer space is transitioning to civilian life. Because Tiffany's right, and for anybody listening that's about to about to separate or retire or anything else from the military, you've heard us say it. It is rough. It is a big change. It is also something that you can thrive in and you can you can succeed a hundred percent. The mindset change, the life change, and everything else, that's the reason for the podcast. Operation next chapter. That next chapter can be your best chapter. And for Mark and I, while I know for myself, it didn't start out as my best chapter, it is becoming that. It is that, and I am still to this day being provided opportunities because of because of that military service, because of that wearing the diamond, because of my networking that I learned to do while wearing that diamond, while in the in the air force. We have things that that the civilian world folks don't, just plain and simple. We have there's a different mindset, there's a different, you know, and it's okay. While it may seem it doesn't fit, it is okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah, that emotional piece. Yeah, right? You know, I've been retired for almost um seven years. I still say I'm in transition. Like there is no magic date or time period that you're gonna officially be out, right? Not physically, emotionally, because it just takes a little bit of time to figure out the next chapter on life, and that's okay. That's normal. If you pigeonhole yourself to a corner and you say, I have to have this done by this day, or you know, now I'm officially a civilian, quote unquote, you're probably gonna set yourself up for failure. It's okay. Take your time. I learn every day something new, something different, and just a different way to look at life itself and apply what we learned in the military and those skills, and there's just so much that can transfer over that it's not as black and white as tap may seem to portray it. Yes, you're gonna have all those things and resumes and next career, and for you and I, from all these conversations we've had, I think the emotional part is the least talked about, but the most important. It's hard to take a uniform off after 20 plus years or whatever, how much time you did, and just adapt to being a civilian. That that's the hard piece, and that's why we started this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Yeah. And I mentioned the opportunities that I that I'm still re still reaping because of my service. This week is a prime example. You know, I went down and and uh and met with, sat down with the the fur the leadership from the first sergeant academy and talking to them about this exact thing. How do you transition? And how am I, or how can I be a resource for every single first sergeant that walks through, for them, uh the leadership team that was sitting in front of me. You know, hey, this is me, this is what I do, this is still putting those pieces together and still, you know, helping folks uh with that roadmap, if you will, and helping them through difficult times. I was blessed to sit down with them and and talk to them. I work in behavioral health, I work for a hospital, but still, how do our worlds connect? Where do they crisscross? And how can I possibly not make those crisscrosses so sudden, such a sudden change, and just be a resource for every single person that's going to go out and in this case be a first sergeant, right? And then I got to sit through the graduation of you know, all the brand new diamonds that just put their diamond on. 97 members uh just put diamonds on and graduated. Those opportunities presented themselves mainly because of my background and because of my military service and because of where I was. That's only because of what I learned. That's only because of the lessons that I learned from being a diamond, the ability to go out and network and keep those connections strong.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah, and to your point, those newly minted first sergeants, that's their next chapter in life. A whole nother chapter in the same book. There's not a lot that can prepare you for that. Sure, they do a little bit of online training, they do some in-house at the academy, but just like the stories we've shared, they're gonna experience stuff that you cannot be taught from a book. Now their job is to do that work as a first sergeant, but also know that they're probably coming up to the end of their career, and they're gonna start preparing for retirement and the next chapter. Always be preparing as if your career is going to end tomorrow. If it was going to end tomorrow, what are you going to do? So I would say the majority of my career, I was always doing something that I thought was going to benefit me after the Air Force, right? Whether that was going to school, learn a new trade, learn new skill, be prepared, right? And I think we don't do a great job of that in the military in general, not just the Air Force, but in the military, we get to that point of okay, my time is up, you're gonna go through tap, and then you're going out the gate. And it's a very short period of time that people are actually preparing for the next chapter in life instead of a year or two or three in advance, and you're working towards the gate. There's only so much you can do at TAP and those first, I don't know, what, six months prior to separation, you should be doing it further in advance than that. Always be thinking down the road, just like we do now. We're always thinking, What's the next chapter? What's the next move in life that's gonna uh enhance our quality of life or enhance our family? If we're waiting till something ends and then we have to figure it out, we're gonna make it harder for ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Yeah. If we're waiting for the boom to happen to change course, then we're too late. If you're not planning the next title of your next chapter, if you're not planning for the next piece of life, the next thing, then you're behind the power curve. And that's where we get into that mindset, that crisis mindset. We talk about the beginning of my career. I came in as an 18-year-old kid who didn't know anything, right? I I knew a lot, but I didn't know anything about the Air Force. Oh, yeah. Yeah. As does every single 18-year-old kid.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

The Air Force took that, broke every bit of it, and started to rebuild me into an airman. It didn't happen overnight, right? We were in basic training and then we were in tech school learning our job, and then you're at your first base learning how to do this. And it took years to become qualified to go out and work on an airplane by yourself, right? You always had to have somebody looking over your shoulder. Years. You mentioned tap. You know, you go through tap, you got six months, and then you're out. Why is it we wait to spend six months to prepare for taking the uniform off?

SPEAKER_00 23:11

The rest of our life. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Always be thinking about it, right? And does that mean you're going to have complete control over everything that's going on? Absolutely not. And then when you think you have complete control over what's going on, the crisis is about to happen.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

And God is laughing.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You want to hear God laugh? Tell him your plan. Yeah. Write your next chapter starting before you're in your next chapter by preparing ahead, by looking ahead. And also looking back and see what are the things that you're bringing to the table. What is it you're going to take with you? What are the things that you're going to leave and you're going to close that chapter and leave them there? It's a constant thing. Wearing the diamond, I truly fe feel made me a hundred percent a better leader. Yeah. And a hundred percent openness to different perspectives.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I think if I had could go back and change one thing when I retired, it would be talking to more people about their transition and experience during that time frame, the new life they were living. I did that a little bit, but it wasn't enough. I thought it was. But looking back at it, I should have talked to more people that already gone through it. That's a lesson learned. And I probably suffered a little bit because of that. But again, we thought we were more prepared than we were. And that was just something we fell into, and I think a lot of people are guilty of that.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

I should have also looked at that too. What what is it? What interests me out there? What do I want to do? Where do I want to go? And start looking and talking to folks that are in those fields as well. Uh you kind of did it with the with Skillbridge. I didn't do that. I just cold turkey just left and I struggled for it. I didn't search out those other perspectives. It was it was a struggle. Taking the diamond off, taking the uniform off, you've heard us say it. It was a struggle, but it wasn't the end.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

No.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

We're still out here writing chapters in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, it was the beginning of a new chapter, and we didn't really know how that chapter was gonna be written. We were we're still writing it to this day. I've just had a lot of mini paragraphs and subjects in there since then. No. But we don't know, and you may think you know what you want to do, you may think you know the avenue to take. Most likely it's not gonna be the forever one. You're gonna go through a couple careers, you're gonna go through a couple changes, and that's normal. Yeah. 100% normal. Just be flexible. I think is the biggest thing for me was we have to be flexible on what God's plan is for us. And some things are not meant to be, and the things that are meant to be, we've never heard of.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yeah. Be flexible, be open to change, be open to taking this step. And here's the other thing if if something's going through your head and something's you know really eating at you, and you should probably be doing this and you should probably be doing that, do it. Go do it, take the step, move forward. You won't regret it.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

And you'll never be ready. No. Ready's a feeling. Just jump in. Go start it. We might have mentioned it with this podcast. We had no idea what we were doing. But what I knew I didn't want to do was overthink it and try to be ready. We just started. And we learned a lot since September. That's when we started it, and I learned something new every time I go in to edit or do a recording session. We just did it. We had no idea what we were doing. We just had an idea, and I asked some people for advice, got a good way to get it going, and we got it going. You can improve later. Just get it going. The more we wait, the longer it takes, the more regret we'll have later from not doing it. Yeah, well said, brother.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

It's that uncomfortable piece, that uncomfortable for us. We spent 20 years in the military being told what to do, being told where to be, what uniform to wear, and everything else. Brief part of that, we were first sergeants and we were the ones doing the telling what uniform to wear, where to be, and what time. And then we come out and nobody's telling us what to do.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Yeah, nobody's telling us what our purpose is now. Yeah. Our direction and life is totally on us. Yeah. And that was a weird feeling. I mean, even in the Air Force, you know, we had a little bit of influence on what we did, where we went, you know, who we worked with, but that's limited in most cases. You can try to prep it and, you know, grease the wheels and get what you want out of your career. But on the outside, it's all on us. I think that was the piece that Tiffany was getting at was you're gonna have to figure this out. Uncle Sam's, there is no Uncle Sam on the outside. Yeah, our life is in our hands, and we we do we have to do a little bit of figuring out on our own, leading ourselves like we've been talking about for the last, I don't know, five, six episodes. Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah, lead yourself, lead yourself so you can lead your family, lead yourself so you can lead your team, whatever that team is. Lead yourself so that you can be successful and move forward. If we don't do that, and that's difficult, you know, you can be a leader all day, but we le oftentimes leave ourselves out of that.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

And we don't take care of ourselves or as good as we could, and we were guilty of that too. We were really good at taking care of other people, and then ourselves were let down. But we didn't even know it until it hit us.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

All we're saying is wearing the diamond defined us, wearing the diamond taught us a lot of things, but life after the diamond has been successful as well. Life after the diamond, Mark still being active duty going back to his career field, me going straight into civilian life was a big change. But those principles that we instilled, that we lived while in those first sergeant roles have carried on throughout and still carry on and still push us forward and still uh motivate us and and keep us keep us on course, even when we have to change course. That lifestyle, that mentality really has paid dividends in my life.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

It's funny because you know, the couple jobs I've had post-retirement, Tiffany and I have joked around about civilian companies really need a first sergeant position. And this is different than HR. This is a person or group of people that are there for help in an emotional way or a mentally and spiritual way that similar to in the Air Force, our sole job was taking care of people and just talking to people and being a human being. And I to this day I truly believe companies would thrive if they had that position. And I think some do. They call them the chief of people or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Right. Yeah, no doubt. The uniform came off, but the principles didn't. Like I spoke about, you know, those principles, those things we did as first sergeants, still carry on and still make us successful our lives. So we took our uniform off, we kept the principles. Now it's time to apply those lessons and apply those, keep those principles going without the rank, without the authority, and most importantly, and the most difficult for me, uh, without the structure.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah, we talked a lot about you know service and lessons from the diamond, uh, a little bit of sacrifice, the brotherhood, the sisterhood, the weight, but also the honor of wearing the uniform and the diamond on our chevron, right? If you've worn one, you know something most people don't. You know what it feels like to take care of people and be proud of what you've done in a single day, right? Every day we came home and we felt good about helping somebody out of something, crisis or no crisis, but you helped somebody in their own life. You know what it means to live under orders, uh, how to you know answer to the standard that was already set for us, and just do something bigger than yourself. And I think that's why a lot of people serve to begin with. But here's a question: What happens when the uniform comes off? You know, we've been talking about that a little bit. At some point it's going to, just like any other career field out there, whether you're a cop, firefighter, finance manager, at some point that career is gonna end. The next chapter is coming. What are you doing now to prepare for that? No matter how far out that is.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

You may not know how far out it is. It may happen next week. What are you doing to prepare? What are you doing to prepare yourself, your family, your loved ones, those around you, your co-workers? What are you doing to prepare for the next chapter?

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Yeah, nobody is there waiting to tell you what to do. Yeah, no doubt.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Awesome talk, brother.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, exactly. Uh looking forward to season three. We're gonna get that going. We're gonna do a little message about what that season's gonna entail. And although we may not share stories from being first sergeants, we may share some principles of those lessons and situations and how we can apply that to life after the uniform. Yeah. Oh yeah. Really looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Yep. It'll be good. Moving, continuing moving this train forward and opening next chapter.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Amen. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Oh yeah. Thanks for listening to Operation Next Chapter. If today gave you something useful, take it with you and apply it. Leadership shows up every day in your work, your family, and your choices. If this helps, share it with someone who needs it and follow us for what's next. We'd also love to hear from you, questions, feedbacks, and stories of what you want us to cover. Email us at operation next chapter at gmail dot com. Until next time, keep leading and keep reclaiming what matters.