SPECIAL EPISODE: Have You Ever Wanted to Change Your Career Path? ( Dwight “Turbo” Dillard)

This week on Bounce Back in Business & Life, I sit down with a man who didn’t just change careers, he changed battlefields.

From dual deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq…

To 23+ years in federal service…

To walking away from “safe” and stepping fully into entrepreneurship, media, and empire-building…

Dwight “Turbo” Dillard shares what it really takes to pivot from security to significance.

We talk about:

🔥 Leaving a stable government career to build legacy

🔥 The Six Pillars of Success: Motivation, Sacrifice, Consistency, Perseverance, Persistence & Resilience

🔥 Building The Final Boss Podcast to 350,000+ followers

🔥 Why “safe” can be the most dangerous place to live

🔥 His powerful new book: GOTIME: All Aboard the FIRED-UP TRAIN

Turbo’s story isn’t about hype.

It’s about systems. Discipline. Identity. Execution.

If you’ve ever asked yourself:

➡️ “Is this all there is?”

➡️ “What am I building?”

➡️ “Is it time to pivot?”

This episode is for you.

🎧 Listen. 

#BounceBackPodcast #CareerPivot #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #VeteransInBusiness #MilitaryToEntrepreneur #Resilience #LegacyBuilding #PersonalGrowth #GOTIME #FinalBoss #PurposeDriven #ExecutiveLeadership #MindsetMatters

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you ever feel stuck in pain, or failure, wondering how to rise when life knocks you down again, then bounce back is for you. So gather your resilience, hold tight to hope, and get ready to reimagine what's possible in your life. So here's your host, Frank Sicari.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Welcome to Bounce Back and Business in a Life Podcast. Here's a question for you. Have you ever wanted to completely change your career path? Now think about that. Most of us have. Let's be honest. Let me give you two more questions. If you ever thought that, what prevented you from making a change? Or, and have you ever watched somebody completely change their life and thought, wow, man, he or she was so lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Well, here's a news flash for you. There is no luck involved in a successful career change. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. It's recognizing or it's developing a situation and then taking action. Luck has nothing to do with putting in the work needed to create the self-discipline, the motivation, the transferable skills, and the confidence to completely move into a new area. Remember this, remember this. Actions prove who we are. Words only show what we would like to be. He's also known as Turbo to his legions of friends. Now, Turbo has successfully shifted careers multiple times, and now he's going to share this process with a series of three upcoming books. The first one, Go Time, All Aboard the Fired Up Train. He's offering as an ebook, Spring Rebirth Special on Amazon, 99 cents. It's there now. Go order it right now. Turbo, welcome to Bounce Back in Business and Life.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Thank you, Frank. Glad to be here and great company.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

We're thrilled to have you. I've read your book. It is spectacular. And there's two more coming. So share with us how did you get here? How did you get to this point?

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Man, I'll tell you, you know, I could talk a lot. Let me say that first. So this is kind of lengthy, right? My story starts exactly where a lot of stories start in this beautiful country of ours, right? A young man who needed structure, who needed purpose, who needed something that was bigger than his circumstances, right? To pull the absolute best out of me, right? And that was the military, right? Shout out to the military or all of our service members. That's it was the military, man. I joined the U.S. military, and what that institution did for me cannot be overstated. It didn't just teach me discipline, it taught me how to become the kind of person who wins before the battle. Wins before the battle even starts, right? And I know you know about that too, Frank, as you were a service member, right? It also showed me that character isn't built in comfort, it's forged under pressure, refined through adversity, and proven through consistent action regardless of your circumstances. I want people to really sit with that and let it marinate, right? Because that's not a quote. That's my life, right? I was um deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, OEF 6, Afghanistan, and then I came back and went to war again, this time in Iraq and Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2007 to 2008. During that particular surge, right? One of the most intense periods of the entire conflict, both theaters, dual deployment. Less than 10% of veterans who served in that area can error, can say that, right? I earned those stripes, Frank, and literally the Afghanistan campaign medal with campaign star, the Army Accommodation Medal, second award, the AAM Medal, third award, the National Defense Medal, Armed Service Services Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Service Medal, and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal with M device. I got a medal from the District of Columbia, which was accommodation medal. Of course, I'm like a sharpshooter, I'm a sniper, Frank. So I have certificates, man, of accommodation from Operation Silver Sword. And those decorations, man, aren't just for the wall. Those are proof of who I am when everything is on the line. And before any of that, I was at the Pentagon as a uh fiber optic technician. I was there on 9-11. There, Frank. I was around the corner. I had co-workers who were injured after that incident. I felt it, I smelt it, I saw it, I witnessed history unfold in the most horrifying way imaginable. And it kept showing up. That was the day that changed my life. And it's kind of hard to put into words how it crystallized something in me that I never felt before. It gave me the energy to be more of a patriot. And before any of that, I had to sit back, Frank, and I had to understand that this was the most pivotal moment of my life. I still get emotional. I'm sorry, I apologize. I remember seeing the mushroom cloud. I was leaving the building and running. I'm telling everybody to just run. We and you know, my military training kicked in. So I'm saying don't breathe because we I didn't know if it was uh biological, chemical, or anything, right? So I transitioned into the civil service and I spent 23 years in the federal government in DOD, rising to the position of branch chief at the DC Army and Air National Guard Joint Force Headquarters. And it may sound like a fancy title, but basically it means that I was responsible for making sure critical government infrastructure ran when it absolutely had to run. No excuses, no downtime, no second chances. Mission critical every single day. I completed my Bachelor's of Science and Business Administration with a concentration of entrepreneurship from uh Strayer with the Nakam Laude uh award. And I'm currently finishing my MBA one semester to go at the University of Maryland Global Campus, graduating this May. And that's just the beginning, Frank, because in July I began my doctoral program in AI Foundations and Ethical Considerations at CTU. Because the next chapter of this story is bigger than anything I've done before.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Wow. That's it's that's that's impressive. Everything you've accomplished. Thank you. This is a question I hear a lot, Turbo.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

You left a very, very secure government position. You moved into the entertainment world.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

What was that like? That's a massive transition.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

But let me be honest with you, Frank. Safe is a trap, right? Safe is a trap. And like you can read in Go Time, I'm always speaking about how comfort is the enemy of growth. I watched people spend entire careers chasing safety, pension, benefits, a guaranteed paycheck. And at the end of it, they didn't own anything, they didn't build anything, they serve somebody else's mission. And there's there is honor in that. I enjoyed those 23 years of service. Don't get me wrong. I gave those years as a public service agent. And, you know, I'm proud of every single one of them. But somewhere along the line, I had to ask myself the question. And that question is this what am I building for my beautiful daughter? Her name is Chai, by the way. What am I building for her? And that is my why. That's my non-negotiable generational wealth is not built on a government salary. Legacy is not built by staying comfortable. So I made the call. I resigned. I walked away from the security, the clearance, the titles, the retirement trajectory, and I stepped fully into my purpose. Was it terrifying? Heck yeah. Absolutely. It's still terrifying, Frank. Was it the right move? Without question. I would do it again every single time. And moving into the media and entertainment space, building the Final Boss Pack podcast and growing to over 350,000 followers across several platforms, that was not accidental. That was the same system of thinking, the same mission planning, the same discipline execution. I developed over two decades in the military and government, and I just applied it to a different battlefield. You know, people see the platform, they don't see the years of building the person who could operate the platform. That's the part I want our listeners to understand. The entertainment world is brutal, but so is war. And I was already trained for being in a brutal space.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

There's something I hear quite a bit. They said, in particular, entertainment world, they're an overnight success. And I've read your book about that. That section doesn't exist. It does not exist.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

No such thing. Overnight success does not exist. You need at least 10,000 hours of dedicated, particular, whatever your concentration is. You need 10,000 hours.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

It's building that craft. Yeah. Your story is very similar to what uh I heard uh LeBron James say one time. They were, I guess they were going to the Olympics and they were in Monte Carlo. And everybody's out gambling, having a good time. So by 4 a.m., LeBron says to Come El Anthony, some of the other ones, we need to go up, get some sleep because practice is at 10. They go before there, 4:35. Kobe Bryant's coming down fully dressed with the ball, and he says, I'm gonna be on court 20 minutes. I expect you to be there. And they all look at each other and like, we were just gonna go to bed. He goes, No, you're gonna get dressed in the gym.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

That's the thing no one sees that you have done.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

And you've you've had a common denominator. You have you've you built these six pillars, which just blew my mind when I read this. Touch on these, touch on some of the quickly on these six pillars.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

So the six pillars of success, right? Which are motivation, sacrifice, consistency, persistence, perseverance, and resilience. And a lot of those core strategies and pillars are disciplines that I learned from the military. Those are disciplines that I learned from being in the federal government with 23 years of service. Those pillars are what defined me. And I said, you know, these are six non-negotiables. And I want to be clear, I didn't read these in a book. I extracted them from my own life. Sitting back and just, I've always been a writer. You know, you've been in the military. Look, I look what I have next to me, Frank. I don't know if you can see it. I have one of these everywhere I go, right? My famous, infamous green book. These are full of my writings. And I said, let me put this on paper, right? And number one, speaking of motivation, and there's motivation not from an energy perspective, but a discipline perspective, but not the kind that comes from we're talking about motivation, the feel-good kind, right? I'm talking about deep-seated, immovable reason for you to do something. And for me, it's my daughter, she's my why. And I guard it like I would guard my own life or guard her life, right? Because legacy does that for you. And number two, we're talking about sacrifice, which success costs something every single time. You cannot have the outcome without surrendering something to get there. Sleep, comfort, relationships, your ego, something has to go on the altar. The question is whether you're willing to pay the price. You have to sacrifice. And number three, consistency. This is where most people bleed out, right? They sprint for two weeks and disappear for two months. Consistency is not an exciting thing. It's not glamorous, but it is the only thing that compounds over time. You show up every single day, regardless. And number four, which is perseverance. Life is going to hit you. Life is life, and that's the thing that the kids say all the time, right? Plans fail, people disappoint you, markets shift. Perseverance is what keeps you in the game long enough to win. You don't quit, you adapt, and Frank, you keep going. And you know what, man? The next one is persist. Persistence. This is one of my favorite, right? Perseverance keeps you going, but persistence makes you push harder. And there's a difference. Persistence is the act of force, the relentless pursuit, even when the doors keep closing and you just keep knocking on the door again and again and again. And that's why my podcast is on five days a week, live at 9 p.m., because of that persistence. And resilience, the ability to absorb the blow, process it, and rebuild stronger than you were before. I've been knocked down so many times, Frank. I've been counted out, and resilience is why I'm still standing and still in the building. Ah man, those are the six pillars and the architecture of everything I've accomplished. They are the foundation of the go time system and they work, right? Because they are theories, they are proven.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

And the beauty of this, ladies and gentlemen, is as Turbo mentioned, he didn't read this in a book. Real life sacrifices things that he did. And one point that you mentioned, Turbo, about sacrifice. So many people miss that. I want this kind of a life, but I'm not willing to do what it takes to get that level of life. Yes. I was with the University of Washington volleyball program, women's volleyball program years ago, and they were horrible. They were horrible. Jim McLaughlin comes in as the head coach and he said, Greatness has a price. Are you willing to pay the price? And that's where the sacrifice piece was. You're gonna have to change what you your diet, you're gonna have to change your focus, you're gonna have to give something up. And anybody who's accomplished some level of like you have, of achievement, has had to walk away from some creature comforts, correct?

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Yeah, absolutely, Frank. Absolutely. You know, I say all the time, man, if you've been you're living your life, and I use this, I say if you've been living your life and you've just been in a state of above water, and you're trying to get to the shore, and you're treading, and you're in shark-infested waters, right? Sharks-infested water. That's the the sharks are the metaphor for life. And every single time you find yourself, just you're having your head above the water, and you can't get to the shore because you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. With they say that's insanity, but in order for you to get to the shore, you have to do something different. Why not use go time and the six pillars of success to assist you in getting to the shore? I believe that in order for you to be successful, you have to document, you have to start writing things down, you have to plan your life. You want to be a certain place in life, you have to plan for it. And that planning requires you to write.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Absolutely. And well doing that in the military.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

It's got to be written down. You have to be written down. And you had this tremendous success. You put these pillars together, and now you're willing to share it with the world. A lot of people would hold it. No, wait, this is mine. I'm not going to share it. Why are you writing the book and why are you even let the rest of the world have it?

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Because the world is drowning right now, Frank, and hype and starving for systems. And I saw an opportunity. I see opportunities and things. I believe this is my gift that God gave me. I'm able to see through the layers and see the opportunity, right? And everyday people they wake up motivated. They want to lose weight, right? They want to do this, they want to do that, right? And then they go to sleep, having accomplished nothing, right? Because motivation without a system is just noise. And I wrote go time because I was tired of watching talent hungry people spin in a place. I wanted to give them what the military gave me: a framework, a methodology, a personal operating system that you could actually convert. You can convert ambition into consistent action and consistent action into legacy. Go time isn't a book about feeling good. It's a book about building something real. It's for the person who is tired of hollow hustling. That hollow hustle culture and ready to construct their life with the same precision that engineers construct infrastructure. Time and energy audits, right? I say it all the time. Time and energy audits. Excellence, flywheels, identity alignment, behavior integration. These are not just buzzwords, these are tools. And I wrote it for my final bosses, the warriors, the motivators, the smarts community, right? If you watch the podcast, you'll know exactly who they are in the final boss community. I wrote it because of the conversation I was having on the podcast every week. I was listening and I understood, right? I understood it was needed to be in people's hands. At 3 a.m. when no one's listening, and they needed to be reminded of who they are. That's why I wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Beauty of this book, folks, is this not for a wannabe or right? This is your series. It's a series. Ready to move. I'm tired of where I am. I have to have something. Now there's going to be a series. There's three books in this series. This is just the first one. It's out now on Amazon. Get it today. 99 cents. Get on Amazon now. Go order this book.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

It's the ebook. All right. But there's two more in the series. What are they about?

SPEAKER_03 19:28

So, book one, the one you have right now, Frank. Establish the foundation. It's about identity, character, and building the internal infrastructure that makes everything possible. You have to become the person before you become the empire. That's tier one, right? Go time two, which is dropping uh very soon, goes deeper into the strategic build. This is your tier two building. And you have to know that the pillars are in place. And then we get into the architecture of empire building, the moves, the systems, the decisions that separate the ones who dream from the ones who execute. That's the blueprint. Then go time three, which is coming early next year, I probably it's the culmination of tier three. It's the culmination. It's tier three. We're talking about elite execution. This is the book for the person who has done the work, built the foundation, and is now ready to operate at the highest level. This is where legacy becomes tangible. This is the final boss level. Three books, three tiers, one complete system for anyone who is serious about transforming their life from potential into permanent. And just like my final boss podcast, we're ending season three, The Reckoning. This is the pursuit. Season four, the rebirth, comes in alignment. This is who you become. Season three, the pursuit. Season four, who you become. And the series of the books are are in alignment with the podcast as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Exactly. And the beauty of this, ladies and gentlemen, is you you can't go from the basement to the penthouse in one leap.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

No, not at all. I wish.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah, we all do. There has to be a foundation first. True. That's internal. That's an internal foundation. And I hear people say to me all the time, I work for this organization. It has it. No, it starts with you, the person. And that's what this book is about. And that's what this series is about. It's about you, the individual, and what it takes for you to get to a position where that door opens up. What we said in the beginning. No, you were just lucky, right place, right time.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Luck had nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. No, sir. Not at all. Not at all.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Not even close.

unknown 22:01

No.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

All right, Turbo. With all you've accomplished, and you've got quite a cachet of success here. What makes you the proudest?

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Oh man, that's too easy, Frank. I'm so proud of my daughter. I'm so proud of my daughter, man. We as parents, we we look at our kids and say, Oh, my kid is a genius. She's a genius. I love her, man. She's so intelligent. She's my everything.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

I've heard that.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Exact state. I'm gonna tell you how many times, with very, very successful people like yourself, like Trisha Stetzel, like a number of other people we had on the show. And I ask them that question. And more times than not, it's being a dad or being a mom. And that completes the cycle.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Completes the cycle, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Right. Yeah. Outstanding. So, Turbo, how do people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Oh man, I'm without the vanity, I'm everywhere, Frank. But listen, um, I'm not hard to locate. I'm live on platforms because that's where community is. I'm on Instagram at turbo the C E O, all one word, right? T-U-R-B-O-T-H-E-C-E-O. I'm also on the Final Boss Podcast on Instagram. I'm also on iTrinity I T R I N I T Y E on Instagram and I TrinityWare on Instagram. The Finder Boss Podcast at the Finder Boss underscore podcast with new episodes every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday live at 9 p.m. Eastern time. And then we have merger Wednesdays for the deep doctoral research into consciousness technology integration. For business inquiries, you get um at satdignet. My email is dwight at satdignet.com. The website is www.satdiginet.com. For media and podcast inquiries, that email is at infoinfo at the finalbosspodcast.com. One word. And then we have our website at www.thefinalbosspodcast.com. I'm also on X at turbo the CEO. Listen, people, go order go time now. All aboard the fire it up train. It's available. Order it today. Read it this week. Apply it to the rest of your life. And if you're a final boss, a warrior, a motivator, smart thinker who's done playing small, come find me. Let's have a conversation. The train has already left the station. Our destination is excellence. And the you that you're meant to be.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Exactly. Folks, order this book. Order it now.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Order it now, people.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

We are uh we're almost out of time. I want to thank my friend Turbo here again for showing us you. We individually have the ability to determine our destiny when we're willing to put in the work and follow a proven model. None of us are in this alone. You cannot do this by yourself. You cannot attend every show this way. None of us are in this alone. And the secret to walking on water is to know where the rocks are. Today, Turbo showed us where many of those rocks are. And together we're going to find more of the rocks and bounce back in this podcast better than ever. Share this message with a friend. Please subscribe. I'll see you next week. Turbo, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

So that's it for today's episode of Bounce Back. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a ten thousand dollar private VIP day with Frank himself. Be sure to head on over to Bounceback Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Frank's gift. And join us on the next episode.