Valuetainment - October 11, 2019


Episode 378： 6 Tips For Veterans Leaving The Military


Episode Stats

Length

18 minutes

Words per Minute

216.8231

Word Count

4,004

Sentence Count

359

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

In this episode of ITIBIB, host Patrick Bedevi talks about the transition from the military to civilian life and gives some tips on how you can make it easier for your spouse and family when you leave the military.


Transcript

00:00:00.300 30 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start.
00:00:07.000 Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, touch the stars up above.
00:00:11.120 Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
00:00:17.320 I'm Patrick Bedevi, host of ITIB, and today's episode is six tips for veterans leaving the military
00:00:21.760 and how you, if you're an employer, are able to recruit some veterans to your company.
00:00:26.400 Point number one for military transition to civilian life. Rule number one. A lot of times
00:00:31.180 in the military, we are indirectly taught that civilian people are not as good as us.
00:00:38.440 And I know this kind of sounds strange to people that have never been in the military before.
00:00:42.240 If you've been in the military, military looks down to civilians sometimes because it's kind of like
00:00:47.600 they don't work as hard as we do. They don't put their life on the line. Do you realize what we do?
00:00:51.760 And we are fed this in the military so much. So sometimes the biggest challenge military faces
00:00:57.040 transitioning is respecting civilians that you may work for. Cause indirectly, if you don't respect
00:01:03.480 the boss or somebody you're working as a supervisor, you're going to have a hard time working with them
00:01:08.260 and they're going to feel it and you're going to feel it. So rule number one, when you're leaving
00:01:11.840 the military, civilians are not the enemy. Point number two. If you are married, things get a little
00:01:17.760 bit weird when you leave the military. So when you're in the military, you got formation early
00:01:23.160 in the morning, you know, you're working till late at night. A lot of times you may be at the
00:01:26.240 motor pool or the office or S1 or whatever you're doing, you're going to stay there late.
00:01:32.080 And then on the weekends, you may have to go to the field. Sometimes you got, you're being deployed.
00:01:36.400 So you don't, you may not see your spouse, your wife or your husband regularly. When you get out
00:01:40.780 in the civilian world, you're going to see them pretty much every day. And that part may be good
00:01:45.860 and bad, but initially it's exciting. And then eventually it's a little bit annoying.
00:01:49.900 It's kind of like your wife may want you to leave and go get a job or do something. Your husband may
00:01:54.380 leave and go out there and do something. I know this sounds like a strange analogy. It's like
00:01:59.020 what happens when an NFL or an NBA athlete is done playing professional for 10 years and all of a
00:02:07.360 sudden they're transitioning into a regular life because now the wife is there all the time.
00:02:11.700 Eddie George was just earlier today, former Heisman Trophy winner and former Rookie of the
00:02:15.840 Year. He's talking about the fact that when he was done with the NFL, he had no idea what to do
00:02:19.700 because his wife was there all the time. And his wife's like, dude, why are you here all the time?
00:02:22.680 So as you're transitioning and if you're married, things are going to get a little weird.
00:02:27.740 Give it three, six, 12 months. Eventually things will smooth out. Don't overreact and make a sudden
00:02:33.520 decision for yourself. Give it 12 months. It's going to get smoother.
00:02:36.780 Point number three is for single folks. If you're single, not married, don't even think about getting
00:02:42.260 married. If you're still in the military transitioning out until you're 30 years old,
00:02:46.200 take your time. There is no hurry out there to get married. I know a lot of people are going to tell
00:02:50.880 you, look, again, this is my opinion. You may not have to listen to me. Some other people may give
00:02:54.820 you a different argument, but there is this stereotype that military folks get out where they meet a
00:03:02.040 girl, they don't use a condom, they get her pregnant, then they get married, then they realize marriage
00:03:06.300 doesn't work, then they get deployed, then they get divorced, then they get a DUI, then they get out
00:03:10.000 of the army or the Marines or whatever it may be. If you can figure out a way to minimize that,
00:03:15.180 do so. So don't get emotional when you're by yourself and just because you meet somebody,
00:03:19.860 you decide to get married because all your problems are going to be solved. They're not.
00:03:23.300 If you get married and you have a kid, problems will actually get bigger in your life. So if you can
00:03:27.800 wait until 30 years old to make that decision, do so. Point number four, don't be macho. Let me explain
00:03:32.860 to what I mean by don't be macho. Look, this is coming from a guy that most people that
00:03:36.160 Nomi will tell you, I'm an A type personality, type A, and he's macho, he's this. Latinos may
00:03:41.760 call me a machismo because it's Patrick, but David, he's so this. Sometimes when you get out of the
00:03:45.720 military or you're in about to transition out and you were deployed, okay? I've had good friends who
00:03:51.280 were deployed and they came back and you still got things you're dealing with. You saw stuff.
00:03:54.540 It's tough for you, right? Don't set it aside. Go talk to somebody. Go find a counselor. Go find
00:04:02.400 another sergeant or an officer that's willing to listen. There are many of those counselors
00:04:07.560 nowadays. Speak to somebody before you get out because if you hang on to it and then you get
00:04:13.800 out, what are you going to do? Come talk to civilians and explain your pain. Not everyone's going to
00:04:17.820 understand you. You may as well take advantage of whatever the military offers you right now
00:04:22.060 to talk to them before you leave. But the one thing you definitely cannot do is just try to
00:04:26.480 internalize it because sometimes imploding is worse than exploding. It's better to explode in front of
00:04:31.500 somebody and cry and say, I don't know what to do. I saw what happened in war. I was emotional. I lost
00:04:35.620 the body. That's 10 times better than imploding cure because this can have ramifications on everybody
00:04:41.680 around you, including yourself. Go talk to a counselor about the issues that you're having
00:04:46.260 with PTSD and any of that stuff. Don't think it's embarrassing to talk about it. It's a real issue.
00:04:52.040 Go talk to someone about it. Point number five, there's going to be a few things you're going to need
00:04:55.160 to unlearn. Now let me explain to what it is. Here's a few things you've got to unlearn. The whole
00:04:58.260 formalities of yes sir, yes ma'am, yes, yes sir. In the military, very normal. In civilian,
00:05:05.400 it's kind of uncomfortable for some civilians to constantly hear that, right? The other one is
00:05:09.300 acronyms. Military is filled with acronyms, right? When you come out and use all these acronyms,
00:05:14.180 the average person, civilian person, doesn't understand what you're talking about. Maybe
00:05:17.740 military does, but the average person does not. Next one is the time. Hey, what time do you need me
00:05:23.400 here? 1700. I'll be here at 1700. No, no, not 1700. I'll be here at five o'clock in the afternoon.
00:05:28.940 Okay, great. You know, I'll get off at seven o'clock this afternoon, not 1900. That jargon
00:05:34.180 is confusing for civilians. The next one, military. Let me put it to you this way. I probably dropped
00:05:40.720 the F-bomb, I don't know, 500 times a day in the military on any given day. When I got out,
00:05:46.800 I worked at Valley Total Fitness. There was a guy named Fernando there, and one day he sits
00:05:51.040 me down and says, Patrick, do you realize how much you curse? I said, what are you talking
00:05:55.120 about? He says, every adjective of yours is da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. He said, it's so
00:06:02.760 much that you kind of scare some people a little bit. You're all so big, you're dropping F-bombs.
00:06:08.340 Man, you may want to kind of bring it down a little bit and change some of the cursing.
00:06:12.280 And this guy was a friend. He ended up being one of my groomsmen at my wedding, but he kind
00:06:16.360 of gave me that insight. I'm like, you know what? That part makes sense. Okay, fair enough.
00:06:19.680 I'll consider that. And I toned it down. A little bit of the profanity. The next part's
00:06:23.780 the temper tantrum. Military, there's a lot of temper tantrum. Soldier, I told you, pa-pa-pa-pa.
00:06:29.280 Fine. Military, it's normal culture in the military, not in the civilian world. You got
00:06:35.200 to kind of tone it down when you're making that transition. Some of those things you got
00:06:38.380 to unlearn as you're making the transition from military to civilian. Point number six
00:06:42.880 is one foot in, one foot out. Let me explain to you what I mean by this. So sometimes when
00:06:46.340 you're out, you're in the civilian world, you're not really out. In the back of your
00:06:50.520 mind, you're like, if this doesn't work in the next three months, guess what? I'm going
00:06:53.660 to reenlist. Okay? So for me, I said, I'm going to try this, but I'm going to reenlist.
00:06:58.000 But we don't talk about this to everybody, but we think about it in the back of their minds.
00:07:01.240 Why? Because military is warm and fuzzy. Formation, chow hall, run, PT, you know, go to a formation
00:07:08.200 again. You know, chow, boom, barracks, coming out, field, you know, MRE, PX, all these things.
00:07:16.340 It's like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. You're used to it and we like it because it's trust. It's
00:07:20.140 predictable. It's like there's a routine. Someone's telling you what to do and it creates a lot of
00:07:25.120 comfort and trust. I fully understand that part, right? But if you come out and you have dreams and
00:07:30.560 you want to pursue them and one foot is back in to want to reenlist and you're doing that, it ain't
00:07:35.200 going to happen. If you're coming out, you got to come out and make it work. Don't look
00:07:38.220 back. You made a decision to get out. Make it work. No more looking back. Look forward
00:07:42.800 on what you can do next. It won't be easy the first three, six, 12 months, but many have
00:07:46.540 done it, so can you. Point number seven, lack of finances. Let's talk about finances here.
00:07:50.580 So sometimes when you're about to ETS, my suggestion to you, there's going to be so many more parties.
00:07:57.240 Oh my gosh, we're going to go out this weekend because Johnson's getting out, you know. Hey,
00:08:02.180 this, let's go out this. Okay, beer, six pack, case, ball, Jack, Jim, Joe, hey, Mola, this
00:08:08.660 is great. I'm drinking. I'm having so much fun. And you get out and you're broke. And
00:08:13.160 if you're broke, you panic even more when you're trying to get a job. Let me give you
00:08:17.740 a tip. Go to fewer drinking parties, fewer cases, fewer six packs, fewer Jack, Jim, whatever
00:08:26.160 you want to call all of that, tequila, whatever, Jose's, just fewer of that. Save, save, save,
00:08:31.460 save, save. Any way you can to save, save. Because when you get out, the fact that you
00:08:36.880 have a cushion will make you make a better decision on a career than one that's desperate
00:08:41.760 that the first one you have to say yes to. Little bit of savings helps you make a better
00:08:45.520 decision on which career site to go to. Point number eight, don't go on disability just because
00:08:50.520 everybody tells you to go on disability. Okay, so let's talk about this. This one's a little
00:08:53.700 bit controversial. Some of you are going to agree, some of you are going to disagree with
00:08:56.560 this. So I have friends that when we were in, they were never deployed. They never went
00:09:02.220 anywhere. They never were at a tough unit. Nothing crazy happened to them. But right before
00:09:08.200 ETS Inc., their peers tell them, hey, guess what? What's that? Tyler got 25%. What do you
00:09:13.900 mean? He got 25% for the rest of his life because he went and he says his back hurts. And they signed
00:09:18.980 it in and he reported to the veteran and boom, he's getting 25% of his, oh, guess what? Such
00:09:24.980 and such got 50%. No. Yeah, the other guy put a back brace. He got 75%. That's awesome, bro.
00:09:32.040 Not a fan of it. I have friends who get disability for the rest of their lives. Guess for what
00:09:37.780 reasons? Because they were deployed for six, eight years and it totally had an impact on
00:09:43.040 their lives. And they served 20 years. Fine. Absolutely that person deserves that because
00:09:48.360 they sacrificed 20 years of their life. But there's too many people that are trying to
00:09:52.580 work the system. Here's why I discourage you from doing that. Let me explain to you why.
00:09:57.440 The reason why I discourage you from doing that is not because you're stealing money from the
00:10:01.120 government. Forget about that. It's because you feel you are disabled and you are being given
00:10:09.360 money to do that. It messes with your character. It messes with your psyche. How are you going
00:10:14.620 to go out there and also build a business or go become successful in the company when you're
00:10:18.060 getting disability that you don't deserve? If that is unaligned, the problem is here,
00:10:23.040 not out there. If you had something, broke your back, broke your knee, something happened,
00:10:27.600 happens all the time. I fully get it. Well deserved. You got it. Something happened to you while
00:10:31.480 you were in the military. You were government property. But if you're trying to work the system,
00:10:35.480 you're going to be unaligned. You're not going to feel good. If character's not good here,
00:10:38.540 you're not going to be aligned on the outside. You're not going to get good results. So don't
00:10:41.800 take advantage of the system. It's going to hurt you at the end. So we just talked about some of
00:10:45.780 the challenges you face as you're leaving the military to become a civilian, right? Okay,
00:10:49.160 so that's the challenges. I could go create 30 different of them, but I'm just giving you a few
00:10:54.240 of them here. Let's talk about how to make the transition effective. Number one, way before you're
00:10:59.760 getting out, find out. Every unit you're at, there's a few things that happen. There's always the three,
00:11:06.260 four or five names that you knew who transitioned out who are doing very good for themselves. Stay in
00:11:12.640 contact with them. Message them consistently and ask them, what happened? What did you do? What worked?
00:11:18.060 What didn't work? What blind spots? What concerns should I have? How do I handle this? And if you're
00:11:22.660 married, talk to a guy that was married that got out that worked. If you're single, talk to a person
00:11:27.280 that got out that was single. But stay very close and connected to the people who transitioned out
00:11:31.740 and it was a successful transition. That's point number one. Tip number two, find military groups
00:11:37.280 to be a part of. And what I mean by military groups, you can go on LinkedIn, you can go on
00:11:40.760 Facebook, you can go to so many different places. Pose your question, look at the articles, read the
00:11:44.740 blogs, get closer to them, find out who the administrator is. There's one military group I was
00:11:49.980 just invited to called Elite Meet. And this is ran by former Navy SEAL who he was getting out. He was
00:11:56.340 having anxiety. He didn't know what to do. And then he created the Elite Meet and it's for former
00:12:00.340 Navy SEAL, Black Ops, you know, Green Beret, Delta, all these guys. They go part of this group and they
00:12:06.720 help them with job placement. You may want to go over here, there's a job in New York, talk to this
00:12:11.260 person. And within it, they're helping each other out. There's a lot of sponsorship. Find different
00:12:15.500 groups to be a part of. Those groups typically, you may find a contact that's going to help you with
00:12:19.920 job placement. Point number three, don't necessarily take the career path that everyone tells you to
00:12:26.420 take. Here's what I mean by it. If you're a veteran, you know what happens. When you get out of the
00:12:30.920 military, if you work at the UPS, you get additional 10 points on the test. So what? Go be a cop. That's
00:12:36.200 what everybody does. Because to me, they offered me to be a cop at Fort Lauderdale Mall because they
00:12:41.980 were needing cops for Fort Lauderdale Mall at the time. And this was 1999. I almost took it for $32,000.
00:12:47.240 Go be a firefighter. Go be this. So all of these things is what they tell you. That may not be
00:12:53.580 your next move. Because if everybody is going to some same places and you're going there as well,
00:13:00.120 what is the specialty about you? Find other places that veterans are not looking at. Go to those
00:13:06.440 places that want somebody like you. You have a higher chance getting hired here with a better career
00:13:11.560 than where everybody else is going. Tip number four, find industries and companies who specialize
00:13:16.920 in hiring veterans. Many companies nowadays, they will say, we hire veterans. Last year we hired
00:13:23.200 100,000 veterans. Last year we hired 200 veterans. Last year we hired 500 veterans. Excellent. That's
00:13:28.320 great to know. Go search. Find those companies that who they are. Find the HR rep. Find a person
00:13:34.580 that's hiring. Send them an email. Hey, my name is this. I get out of the military in nine months. I wanted
00:13:40.960 to be proactive and send a message out to you letting you know that I read the history of your company
00:13:45.040 and I noticed you support veterans. I would like to speak to you about the possibility of working
00:13:49.480 with your company when I leave the military. Can I please have a phone call with you? This is my
00:13:53.820 resume. Reach out and do some research to find out what companies are hiring veterans. There's many
00:13:58.740 of them. Send emails to them. Eventually, one of them may work out for you. Tip number five, reach out
00:14:04.280 to influencers who are former veterans. This one's self-explanatory. Look, there's a lot of influencers that
00:14:08.700 were former veterans. Send them a message. Hey, this is what I'm doing. What do you think I ought to do?
00:14:13.080 You know, here's where I'm at. I know you're a veteran. Thank you for your service. I'm about
00:14:16.280 to get out. I'm a Marine. I noticed you're a Marine. What do you suggest I do here? And see
00:14:20.320 what kind of help that can get. Maybe they know somebody to refer you to that's going to help you
00:14:24.660 with a job or help you with a career or give you a reference or give you some direction or put you
00:14:29.120 in contact with another influencer that may be a good thing for you. But there are many influencers
00:14:33.360 out there that are former veterans. Reach out to them. In many cases, they're willing to help out
00:14:37.840 their fellow veterans. And last but not least, feel comfortable self-promoting your military
00:14:43.560 background. Let me explain to you what I mean by this. I get out of the military. I'm trying
00:14:47.580 to get a job. I apply to Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, which requires a four-year degree, but
00:14:53.620 I apply with no four-year degree, no two-year degree. I make it to third interview with Dave
00:15:00.640 Kirby, the branch office manager. I'm sitting here. The other person that's also fighting for
00:15:06.860 the job is sitting to my left. Her name is Saul. I'm Patrick David. Here's Dave Kirby. He says,
00:15:12.560 why don't you present your business plan? She starts. I'll go first. By the way, I got a 1560 on my SAT.
00:15:18.960 I had a 1600. I went to UC Berkeley. Did a four-year program in two and a half years. I ran one of the
00:15:24.320 biggest clubs in UC Berkeley while I was still going to school. And here's what my game plan would be as an
00:15:30.300 advisor. First quarter, dry cleaners. Second quarter, doctors. Third quarter, car wash owners.
00:15:36.760 She opens up and tells him the schedule and her calendar. He's like, oh my gosh, she's amazing.
00:15:43.340 So I'm sitting there saying, oh my goodness, what the hell am I going to say? Okay, here's my story.
00:15:47.580 So Patrick, what's your plan? I said, honestly, I had a one-page business plan. And one of my one-page
00:15:51.940 business plans said, I'm going to talk to everybody. Three-foot rule and all this other stuff. But here's
00:15:55.720 what I said. I said, Mr. Kirby, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to sit down here and interview
00:16:00.080 with you. One thing I will tell you, as a former veteran, we know how to work hard. We know how to find
00:16:05.720 solutions. We don't do a lot of complaining. We figure ways out to do things better. And we get to
00:16:10.960 work. And, you know, it matters to us to go out there and protect people. It's one of the things we do in
00:16:15.580 military. We are wired to protect. And in the investment world, we get paid to also make sure we protect
00:16:21.100 people's investments and we watch over them. It's one of the things we specialize in. If you give me an
00:16:25.960 opportunity, I promise you I'm going to get to work. Pause. He looks at her, says, you're hired. You're going to
00:16:33.720 get this position, and then we're going to talk about what the offer is going to be for you, but you're hired.
00:16:39.040 Oh, my great. Because it was only one job, one person that we're looking for. And he says, Patrick, you're also
00:16:44.480 hired. She says, what? He doesn't, why are you going to hire him? She said this, like she couldn't control
00:16:50.280 herself. But we became good friends afterwards. He says, yeah, I like you as well. As a veteran,
00:16:55.480 you're hardworking, everything you said makes sense. I want to give you the opportunity. I said,
00:16:59.260 I'm all in. A couple months later, I become a series seven broker, then 66, then 31, then 26,
00:17:04.780 then life and health. Fast forward, 18 years later, I'm still in the financial industry. Now I'm running
00:17:09.860 my own agency. We've got 11,000 agents nationwide, 49 states, 100 plus offices. But my career started
00:17:16.240 at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter when Dave Kirby gave me a job just because of my military background.
00:17:24.760 So if you're watching this, self-promote a little bit. Talk about what things you did. Talk about how
00:17:30.300 big the project was. Talk about how many hours you worked. Talk about how disciplined you are. Talk
00:17:34.740 about your PT score. Talk about all that stuff. Because they're not just hiring you to know a lot
00:17:39.600 about numbers and things like this. They're hiring you as a leader, as a person that has soft skills,
00:17:44.620 as a person that has hard skills. They're hiring the entire package. Sell it. Don't hesitate. Don't
00:17:50.000 second guess. Sell yourself. Sell yourself and eventually opportunities will be out there and
00:17:54.620 someone's going to say, I like this person's approach. Come on board. So now you have an idea
00:17:57.680 what to anticipate while you're transitioning from military life to civilian life, as well as what
00:18:01.480 to do to kickstart your next career. Thanks everybody for listening. And by the way, if you haven't
00:18:05.660 already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so. Give us a five star. Write a review if you
00:18:11.660 haven't already. And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on
00:18:15.600 Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. Just search my name, Patrick VidDavid. And I actually
00:18:21.020 do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram. With that being said,
00:18:25.980 have a great day today. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye.