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The Protectors® Podcast
Welcome to The Protectors® Podcast, where the valor meets the storyteller. Hosted by Jason Piccolo, a seasoned veteran and retired special agent, this series is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the courage and tales of those who pledge to protect us. Beyond the front-line stories of bravery and dedication, this podcast goes a step further, weaving in the perspectives of those who bolster and narrate the protector's journey—featuring a remarkable lineup including New York Times Best Sellers and acclaimed Hollywood actors.
The Protectors® Podcast offers a diverse array of voices, from those who wear the uniform to the authors and entertainers who amplify their stories. It's a unique blend that highlights not only the raw realities faced by our protectors but also how their sacrifices inspire the narratives we cherish in literature and film. Each episode is a testament to the interconnected worlds of service and support, bringing listeners an unmatched depth of insight.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a retired federal agent, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain (Iraq 2006), and author.
Past Guests Include:- Sean Patrick Flanery - Andrews & Wilson- Mark Greaney- Stephen Hunter- Remi Adeleke - Florent Groberg - Clint Emerson - Travis Mills
The Protectors® Podcast
#488 | Isaac Lee | From Combat Pilot to Executive Leadership | Author of Hangar 4
Tune in to hear how this veteran Marine, with seven deployments under his belt, channeled the camaraderie and team spirit of the Corps into a civilian career that not only matches but elevates his passion for guiding others. Isaac's transition is a masterclass in strategic planning, showcasing the foresight needed to move from combat boots to corporate boardrooms and, eventually, into the empowering world of entrepreneurship.
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
Hey, welcome to the Protectors Podcast. Got an excellent guest today Decades of service to the US nation, the country and the world. I should say, hey, you know what? With how many? Seven deployments, that's a dedication to a lot of protection. Brother Isaac, welcome to the Protectors Podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, you know we're going to talk about your book Hanger for in a minute, but you know we're going to talk about your book Hanger 4, in a minute. But you know you have a lot of experience, a ton. You know a lot of deployments, decades of service. But the thing is, with all that experience comes a transition.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, in 2017, when you retired. I want to know about that Because that's like my big thing now is, like, having just retired about a year ago, I'm happy to talk about that. Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, for sure, especially coming from like that dynamic world of aviation to now whoa, what's next?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I will tell you, I'm, admittedly, a huge nerd that tends to be overly prepared for all things. Transition wasn't an exception to that. I started thinking about it really a few years in advance and going into the tail end of my career. I got slated to take command of a squadron and I knew that I was going to be too busy during that time period to really do any transition prep. So I did a fair amount of stuff ahead of time, kind of narrowed down my options, got a pretty good idea of what I thought I wanted to do. So then I did.
Speaker 2:Command came out of that in the summer of 2016, and I had one year left on active duty before I literally retired and I was doing all the things you're supposed to do, taking all the classes. There's a ton of great resources and groups here in San Diego that help transitioning veterans, so I was going to those. I was networking like a maniac, you know, and in the early stages of that I didn't really even know what that meant. It just meant like I had to learn how to dress semi-normal and go to these events and talk to people. But in the course of doing that, I quickly discovered that for me. I was looking for what I thought of as a situation and not a job, and that really helped. So once I realized what that situation was I was looking for, I was really able to kind of narrow my focus and ultimately got where I was trying to go.
Speaker 2:And in my case, despite being an aviator, the whole time I was in the Marine Corps, the thing I really fell in love with was the people part. You know I love the Marines the whole time I was in the Marine Corps. The thing I really fell in love with was the people part. You know I love the Marines, the people, the leadership, the camaraderie being part of a team. That was the thing that I loved and I came to the conclusion that the operations lane of business would be the best place for me to find that and I will say that's a very non-standard conclusion to come to and just about everyone I said that to was like you're crazy, it doesn't work that way. You know, either go be an airline pilot or get line at Lockheed, like you're supposed to, right.
Speaker 2:But I kind of just stuck with it and ultimately narrowed down that situation to smallish company that's trying to grow, preferably with a bunch of problems they're trying to solve.
Speaker 2:And my theory, if you will, at the time was the things that I just inherently knew how to do be in charge of people, lead process improvement, that I could put those skills to use right away while I was learning the business, and that's really how it played out. Just through a bunch of networking, I found that basically exact situation in a manufacturing company here in North County, san Diego and ended up landing a job as a chief operating officer before I even did my retirement ceremony. So I ultimately did my retirement ceremony on a Friday, took one whole week off and then walked in the door of this company as the chief operating officer, admittedly and a total fake it till you make it situation, but it worked out well and I partly laid that into the next thing and the next thing and now I'm a couple of jobs down the road, but still same thing operations executive, small company. It's a good time. I like it.
Speaker 1:I tell you what. That's the first time I've heard about it. I'm using that. We're going to you know what, after we get up here, I'm going to be quoting this, I'm going to be writing an article on this Because you know when you brought up that you know, get the typical job. Either you're going to go fly somewhere for someone else and you're going to be just another piece of the cog, or get the typical job with Lockheed or one of the other contracting agencies and just turn in your turn in your one ID and get another one. But the situation I love this situation, not a job, because that's that's one transition. People are always like, well, you know what. They look at the title and they scan the titles all day long. They're like, okay, well, I could be a business consultant, I could do this. This is not. But, yeah, that's a job title. But what's the situation you want to be in? And, like you saying that you're a people person and you want to be around people and leading. Still, that's a great, great actuality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really helped me a ton. I mean in that first company I worked for, the job was perfect for me, I loved it. I learned a ton. Company I worked for, the job was perfect for me, I loved it, I learned a ton. Parlayed that in the starting my own consulting company to kind of the idea of being I'm going to go around and help a bunch of small companies do this, you know, do these things and in the early stages of that, ended up getting recruited to a different company and I've now been with them for a little over five years.
Speaker 2:Totally different type of company Retail in this case. It's a small company that owns a bunch of car washes, community stores and gas stations as random as that sounds, but I love it, it's a blast. I mean I tell you know every now and then my buddies will be like what are you doing? And I just described it. It's like it's like having a bunch of little flight line shops scattered all over San Diego. You know it's very similar in structure and the age group that I'm working with is very similar to what I worked with in the marine corps. So I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1:It's familiar another great topic right there is like you're not looking, like a lot of people think when they go on to that next thing, the next thing like, especially like when you're coming out of like a career or something you've been doing for 10, 15, 20 years and you're going into the unfamiliar, when you're transitioning out of like what I call the protector, like type lifestyle whether that's military, law enforcement you're looking for that perfect next job. You know, and it's gotta be, it just gotta line up perfectly. But you, you jumped into something and, yeah, it did line up perfectly. If you're a little while, but you know what you said, hey, you know what, there's another opportunity and you go for it. You don't have to look at everything as like the next big thing that's going to take you on to the rest of your days?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And I kind of went into it knowing I'm probably going to work for, say, several different companies over what remains of my career but also have other interests. And you know, having a lifestyle outside of the military allows me to do that too. So I'm on a couple of boards of nonprofits that do good things for our military here in San Diego. So you know I get to stay connected that way. And then, you know, just having a little free time to do things like go to Padres games and you know you can actually make plans where for 20 years while I was in the military, it was very difficult to plan anything because you know there's always another debt springing up or something's going on.
Speaker 1:It's a fast pace, obviously extreme lifestyle to be in for a couple of decades, just like it is for first responders.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing is, if you have the opportunity to give back, let's say you're not like your fiscal. You have to put in all your time and everything in order to survive. But let's say you're not. You're not like like your fiscal. You have to, like, put in all your time and everything in order to survive. But let's say you have, you have a good career, you have another career, but you have time to give back. That gives such a sense of purpose and such a mission that the transition won't be as hard, because in that you know when you deal with a lot of non-profits, you're dealing with a lot. You know there's a lot of authentic people in there. I mean, obviously, that we know about the bad cases of nonprofits, but when you find some people that are in a common goal, that are volunteering their time and out looking for profit, there's such a camaraderie and such a camaraderie towards the mission that I think that's perfect, that you have another opportunity for this transition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And you know two of the nonprofits I work with. Both do great things and one of them is what we're talking about Marine Executive Association, camp Pendleton literally does transition classes and networking events and helps veterans transition. So that's been really good to stay connected with them and then also support the enlisted project. They just do great things for our active duty military primarily junior enlisted coming in, help in times of financial crisis, provide counseling, you know, kind of help them get things sorted out, but also give them some education so that they don't come back as repeat customers. So those things have really allowed me to stay connected to the military community here, which is great because it still gets that. You know it fills your cup up. You know you're still doing something that you can to help take care of the Marines and sailors here that are local and those are all good things.
Speaker 1:I know, Granted you left out one of the best branches of the Army, but hey, it's cool. Well, San Diego is a very Navy Marine Corps, I know Well that brings us into the book hanger for is like, why the Marines? Why aviation? How did you like I? I'm really excited to get the book and read it, but the thing is why, you know, it's like yeah, I know I wanted to be the armies Cause I, you know, growing up in the 70s and 80s, you know we had like everything was army centric.
Speaker 2:It was. Tell me the books, everything. I'll tell you. It was interesting. It was not something I grew up thinking about. I did not grow up with pictures of airplanes on my wall. You know, I grew up in Lubbock, texas. My dad was the high school coach, which made him a little bit of a celebrity there. In our hometown and at our house all we cared about was sports. It was football half the year, baseball the other. Maybe you shot a couple of baskets somewhere in between. That was really it, and that was the focus that I had my whole life, and my dad was fairly certain he was developing an athlete and a future coach, and I was on board with that plan.
Speaker 2:And then what ended up happening was when I got to time to go to college and this was probably the first really mature decision I made in life was I just acknowledged and accepted I'm probably not going to play Major League Baseball, I need to figure something else out. And so I enrolled in classes at Texas Tech, which was local there, but I really had no clue what I wanted to do, like not whatsoever. So I was sort of banging around the business school, the School of Mass Communications, admittedly a little bit lost, not particularly enjoying myself. I was just checking a box, right, I got to get this college degree and then I'll figure it out. But what happened was it was one night in the summer after my junior year went out to my parents' house. They live kind of on the outskirts of town and Reese Air Force Base was out there on the outskirts of town and you could see the landing pattern at Reese from my parents' driveway and I'd never really seriously thought about the military before then. I'd sort of loosely thought a couple of times, yeah, that might be kind of cool, you know, it might kind of be like being on a sports team. That was it.
Speaker 2:But that night, as I was talking to my dad, he kind of started pressing me a little bit.
Speaker 2:I was like well, what are you going to do? You know you hate this internship, you don't like your major, and you know he was, admittedly, a little annoyed at the conversation and I just of struck me. I was like you know what I think I'm gonna do, that I want to be a pilot in the military. He looked at me like I was insane, got up and just walked in the house without even responding, but in that moment I was like you know what, I'm going to figure this out. And I honestly I was totally clueless when I said that I had no idea how to go about doing that. But that really started me down the path of doing the research, doing the homework Ultimately had an uncle by marriage who was an enlisted Marine. You know that immediately piped up and was like hey, you know, the Marine Corps has aviation too, which frankly sounded pretty intimidating at first, but I kept looking into it. And next thing I know, I was heading to officer candidate school with a flight contract.
Speaker 1:I tell you that is a big, big decision to make and it's weird how the little things in life, kind of like, just change your mind. You look out there and you're like, huh, maybe I can do this, maybe there's something different, maybe like this bigger picture thing, especially when you're young.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and at that age I'll I'll be honest and tell you everyone I told hey, this is what I'm going to go do. They almost all looked at me like I was crazy. I mean, it was the same reaction that my dad had and it was fair. It just seems so foreign. You know to anyone that I grew up with that you would go do something like that, me included. But the more I learned, the more interested I became and I just was like you know what?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna figure this out?
Speaker 2:this is what I want to do.
Speaker 2:So what's it like? Did you like so? Do you go and say, hey, I'm gonna do ROTC, do college? It was too late for any of that. I was just a regular college student. I'd missed, you know, any odds of going to the academy were already gone, rotc. I talked to them and they're like you really needed to be here two years ago. If that's what you want to do and you know it was this is mid 90s Military's, drawn down under the Clinton administration.
Speaker 2:So I mean, it's not like they were. There wasn't a big flood of people coming in the military and they weren't particularly recruiting hard, at least not for things like aviation. But I ended up talking to an officer selection officer that covered my region for the Marine Corps. He was very interested. Right out of the gate I took a physical fitness test, took a flight aptitude test. Apparently those went well enough that he called me a couple of days later and was like, hey, this is, this is probably going to happen. If this is what you want to do, I think you're going to get in. And sure enough I got in and summer 97 took off to officer gambit school and it was off to the races from there now talk about a kick in the butt.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, you know baseball camps or whatever. It might be a little tough come on, we're talking about marine ocs here, right?
Speaker 2:yes, yes, marine corps, ocs. Uh, I will tell you, I did have. Uh, between my dad and I played high school baseball for another guy that I would classify as old school hard, so I had some decent training heading into it, especially on what I think of as the mental toughness side. So when I showed up at OCS I knew right away like I'm not going to be the fastest candidate, I'm not going to be the smartest candidate, I just have to be one of the most physically and mentally tough, I just have to be one of the most physically and mentally tough. And my going in strategy was just pay attention to the other candidates, figure out who knows what's going on and do what they do, at least until you figure out what's going on. And that's really what I did. And I got lucky that two guys in the rack next to me one was a Citadel grad and one was prior enlisted they definitely knew what was going on. So I was just like, hey, if I'm doing what Jones and Klosterman are doing, I'm probably okay.
Speaker 1:And that was how I got through those first few weeks, don't look at me. Don't look at me. I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2:Just be squarely in the middle of the pack. Yeah, that was. That was my only real goal initially, and then, once I started figuring it out and you know, you gain some confidence and just go from there. It was a great experience.
Speaker 1:Now at OCS, do you guys like pick your branch? So I did ROTC, so I was enlisted. Then I did ROTC. So when I did ROTC I was able to pick my branch. Now did you pick your branch there, or this was all really planned?
Speaker 2:No Well, so as an aviator I actually had a contract, an aviation contract, going to officer candidate school for the Marine Corps. But all that guaranteed is a shot at flight school. You still have to get through it. So you know, ocs at the time was about a 65% success rate and flight school was similar. So went through OCS and then for Marines we go through a six month infantry officer course called the basic school, did that and then headed down to Pensacola for flight school. So I'd been in the Marine Corps almost a year by the time I got to flight school. And then we go to Navy flight school, you know. So it's a bunch of Navy ensigns and Marine second lieutenants running around. We get down to Pensacola and it's about two years of training from that point until you're you're a functional aviator that can head out to a, to an actual fleet aircraft, and get trained up in that and get ready to go.
Speaker 1:I really dig the idea of going to infantry school first too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Marine Corps is great about that. It falls in line with that. Every Marine's a rifleman mantra. So every Marine Corps officer goes through the basic school and it's just six months of infantry officer training really. And then the actual infantry officers do a follow-on course called the infantry officer's course. That's a little more advanced, but every Marine officer gets exposed to that ground element of the MAGTF right out of the gate there, so that you understand it before you go do your next thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think later on, like so, when I first I think after I commissioned and went to infantry school man, what was that like 2001? I think after that is and went to infantry school man, what was that like 2001?
Speaker 1:I think after that is, they started doing like a lot of different branches would send their people to fort benning and train and stuff and then it would go on to like your special yeah I think it's a great idea, and I especially love that idea for aviators, because not only you're learning basic you know, you're learning how to be a basic entry man, but you're also learning hey, you know what that's? That's my bread and butter right there. That's who I'm supporting.
Speaker 2:It is, and that is a hundred percent. The focus of Marine Corps aviation is to support the Marines on the ground. So having that fundamental understanding going into that helps a ton, because you know all of our planning and execution and aviation is always built around the ground scheme of maneuver, especially as a helicopter pilot. So you're a vehicle for them, you're a piece of the equation and one you don't want them to have to worry about. Hey, I need to be here at this exact landing zone at this exact time and when I call you, I need you to come back and get me. But understanding what they're doing while they're on the ground is very helpful to building a plan that supports that now I'm like I'm doing my like google search here as we're on here.
Speaker 1:So when you went in aviation, like you said, hey, I want to do fixed swing, or I want to do helicopters, or how did that go?
Speaker 2:the way that it worked is um, I started out wanting to fly jets, which I think is pretty common for everyone that goes to flight school. That's what they think initially, but in my case, in primary flight training, I acquired a mentor, I'll say, who was a Marine Corps major. This guy was like an action figure. He was the coolest guy I'd ever seen in my whole life. He was a Marine Corps Cobra pilot. He did an exchange tour with the Task Force 160th, which I barely knew what that meant at the time. I just knew it meant he was awesome and, uh, I really took to him and he was a great mentor to me and he's really the one that kind of got me on the helicopter track, because the more I learned from him the more I realized like, hey, as a road rooming pilot, I'm down in it with those marines on the ground and and that sounded appealing to me and so I followed that and ended up in the Rotary community.
Speaker 1:Now was it CH 53?.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ch 53 echoes.
Speaker 1:Now hold on, let's let's do a little Google. I did my little Google search on basics. I knew like, okay, I knew, I, me, I was for the audience, whether or not you went fixed swing or you wanted to go think. But I'm like, because it's like me and I love, believe me, you, your career was a hell of a lot better than mine. But, like, when I was a kid, I was artillery and I remember my first artillery piece was like a 105, but it was like I remember looking on a barrel and it was like 1960s. So I'm like, I'm like me, I'm thinking to myself oh man, it's h53, that's got to be like one of the when the blackhawks came out, like the 80s or something like that. But no, it's like 1960s, like when the first one came out the very first one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the echoes, which is the variant I flew, started coming off the line in the 80s. So, interestingly, when I got to the fleet finally was in december 2000, the first fleet squadron here at marine corps station miramar and, uh, the 53 at the time was the newest aircraft in the Marine Corps Aviation Fleet. And then, conversely, at the end of my career, when I'm retiring as lieutenant colonel, it was the oldest and it is now having its turn being replaced by the 53 Kilo. So you know, all those things are cyclical, but that was where I caught the ride.
Speaker 1:I know that was like me. It was like the 105, like A4. And now it's like then it became the Paladin.
Speaker 1:It was like oh, the Paladin is like this big, huge, like it's so weird technology and stuff and how much it changes. But it doesn't. It's still the same factor. And you just add in some technology and add in a. There is, you know, I always assume that you know fighter jets have to be like the most complicated thing in the world, but when you're looking at helicopters and you're dealing with a different trajectory, you know you're dealing with like wind and air and all these other factors and you're using your feet and your hands and your eyes and how do you get in? I mean, how, how tough is it to learn a fly a helicopter?
Speaker 2:it was challenging and it is a very complicated machine relative to an airplane. Airplane is fairly simple in terms of just the the basics of the machine. Right, you've got thrust, you got a couple control surfaces, obviously way more to it than that, but as a machine it makes sense. The helicopter almost doesn't make sense as a machine. It makes sense. The helicopter almost doesn't make sense as a machine, you know, especially a 53. You got three different engines feeding into this crazy transition system that spits out one output to a main rotor up top and a tail rotor on the back of the aircraft. Those are turning at two different speeds. So you've got this torque element. That's always happening with the tail rotor. You know the aircraft's going to want to spin if you don't do it exactly right. Once you're in flight it's very similar to flying an airplane, but the takeoff and landing phase is completely different and just getting used to hovering and the precision hover work is a difficult thing to learn initially, for sure.
Speaker 1:So you know post. And this brings us right into, like you know, when you joined up, you know it was pre nine, 11. Yep, so now you're. Now you're a combat aviator. Now, your whole life of 2001,. Your life changes and at this time you're still junior. You're probably what? Oh, two or three at this time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the way it worked out. I got to my first fleet squad in December 2000. So my timing was either great or terrible, depending on your perspective. One of my first deployment I was on my first deployment when 9-11 happened and I had literally just pinned on captain on September 1st. So I got promoted to captain September 1st. 10 days later, 9-11 happens and everything changed. I mean, the whole trajectory of what the Marine Corps that I knew up to that point was different. My life got real different, real fast, and then the rest of my career was really fighting the war.
Speaker 1:And like seven deployments. You know this isn't like yeah, you know like a fly I'll get out, but no, you stuck in.
Speaker 2:You stayed in. Yeah, I did, I did, and that wasn't necessarily an easy decision to make, I'll tell you. You know, the war started and I stayed in the squadron and did three back-to-back deployments to Iraq. So I ended up doing four total as a company grade officer, which prior to then had not happened. You know, you may extend for a third maybe, but it was very rare. So extending for four was unique and I was in the fleet almost six years and that was really just a byproduct of the war broken out. There was a demand signal.
Speaker 2:You know the Marine Corps had 53 squads nonstop rotating in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan during that time. But it was great and I did that. And then I got asked to go to our weapons and tactics school to be an instructor out at MOTS 1 in Yuma, arizona. So I went there and when I initially went there I wasn't sure what I was going to do after that. You know I was fried. My wife was fried. We had a three-year-old daughter that I barely knew. But we got a good reset there, you know, decided to have another child, so we had our son.
Speaker 2:And somewhere in there it was actually her that came to me one day and was like hey, I think you should stay in the Marine Corps. And I was really surprised by that at the time, I'll tell you. And I kind of looked at her like are you trying to trick me right now? And she just said no, you know what. Like it's important, we're at war, you're good at this. Like I think you should stay, we'll figure it out. And then from there it was like okay, we'll figure it out. So at that point I knew I was committed to another, you know 10 years or so, and did that. And they sent me through a quick one year master's program and then I went right back to the fleet, took a detachment to Afghanistan, so it was just right back into into the mix.
Speaker 1:Ok we know that the countries at war, you know we're fighting 20 years, 25 years, a million years. We're always going to be fighting, but somewhere in there you must have had some kind of like non-combat aviation deployment. That must have been really cool, I did.
Speaker 2:Well, it was actually the very first one and the very last one, so my very first deployment 9-11 happened, but we didn't really do anything.
Speaker 2:We had a big spool up blah, blah, blah, but we were out in Okinawa, japan, and prior to that we got to bang around to Korea. We ended up right after 9-11, flew down to Guam via Iwo Jima. That was a big adventure. I did some stuff like that. And then at the tail end of my career, after I'd done the Afghanistan deployment as a major, I randomly on short notice got asked, if you want to call it that, to go take out a Marine Expeditionary Unit detachment. And that was good, that one. We just ended up banging around the Pacific and you know, philippines and some other places like that. So that was fun. And then when I had command, we did another deployment out to the Pacific, based out of Okinawa, japan, and banged all over the you know the Pacific out there, korea, japan, australia, got to take the Marines to a bunch of cool places. So it was kind of like bookended my career with called the good deal deployments, and everything in the middle was just this combat, combat, combat, which was which was good yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, how do you key down to your adrenaline? Now you know you transitioned out of the service, but like what's? What's your go-to for adrenaline? Now you know you transitioned out of the service.
Speaker 2:But like, what's, what's your go-to for adrenaline? That's a great question. Um, I would say like, like most of us in these type of careers, I definitely became my word is like addicted to the rush. You know, initially combat is something that's kind of scary, and then I quickly discovered that I liked it. Um, you know, and I liked it a lot, and at some point then you start questioning yourself and thinking like am I crazy? Like I shouldn't like this? This probably isn't good for me, but it was something I was very aware of heading into transition, and so I actually personally just sought it out and started going to counseling at a vet center here in San Marcos, california, as part of my transition prep, and at the time I felt like what to me was normal, or what I'd become to know is normal, like I felt okay, but I just knew like, hey, this experience was kind of extreme and I'm going to go get someone to help me unpack it smartly so that it doesn't come back to bite me later. It was more like a precautionary move on my part. So I dove into that as I was doing all my other transition prep, and it was extremely helpful. But about two years into that.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you asked this question. I remember I said the same thing to my counselor. I'm like, hey, I'm kind of worried. I don't have enough action in my life. Like I'm worried, like I'm going to get just bored one day and go off the rails.
Speaker 2:And he started laughing and he basically said to me he's like you are so attracted to risk subconsciously that you don't even see it. He's like your career path now, working for these entrepreneurs and small companies he's like that's probably the riskiest thing you could have done. He's like at the point you chose to do that, the safe answer for you would have been to stay in the Marine Corps, get promoted one time and go hang out at the Pentagon. He's like you actually instead decided to bet your livelihood that you could do this other thing. Everyone told you you couldn't do it and then you did it. And now you're sitting in my office saying you're worried because you're bored. He's like you're not bored. He's like you don't even realize sometimes the ways that you're stimulating yourself with risk to keep yourself interested in ways that you know. And admittedly, at the time that had not occurred to me at all. But as soon as he said it, I was like oh, that makes total sense.
Speaker 1:You know what For once? For once, something makes a lot of sense. I'm not saying like in general, but like about this. Certain thing is like, because I watch social media a lot and I see a lot of different people on there, especially a lot of like the former types, and I see them doing a lot of different things and I I see them like really jumping headfirst into it and it's like interesting, like maybe they're doing that just to quit and it's not like, you know, bungee jumping, skydiving off of a balloon in the air. It's like jumping into business world and jumping into these different sectors of like where there is risk. It's a different type of risk. Yeah, it's not life and death, but it's like.
Speaker 2:It's that feeling, that like little nervous feeling of jumping into something new yeah, and the the feeling of like this could all go upside down tomorrow, right, like if this, it wouldn't take much to knock this little company sideways and now I don't have a job or whatever, like there. There is a fair amount of inherent risk in that world, especially with the small companies that are growing fast. But so it's a. It has been a good way for me to kind of feed that side of my personality. But I do all the other standard things to work out religiously and entertain myself in other ways that I know are, you know, quote unquote good for me, uh, to kind of keep me, you know, on an even keel and help me manage myself in a smart way last question advice.
Speaker 1:Advice for the next generation. Like you, you walk down the field. You saw some aviation stuff I had. It was trying to come up with a cool word but I didn't but like. So what kind of advice would you give like a 20 year old who's like, hey, you know what? Because I'm saying 20 year old, this is some kid, that's either like you know what. Because it's like me when I was 20, I'm really asking for stuff because, like that's when I joined their service. But I I was like OK, community college, you're in college, you have the different opportunities available to you, but how do you find out about them? What kind of advice would you tell people to get out of their comfort zone, to go look for different opportunities that they might not even have thought about?
Speaker 2:I think really the best way to do it is everyone has a network, whether they realize it or not, and to just lean into that network and start asking questions and asking people just for advice or perspective on what they're doing. I think that, as corny as it might sound, people are generally good and willing to help and will make time with that sort of thing, and you can learn a lot about different careers, different options, different paths, if you will, from literally the people who are doing them. So just even a loose connection to somebody that's doing something that looks like it might be interesting to you is worth reaching out to ask. I mean, the worst thing that happens is they don't have time or they say no, but more often than not I think people will end up talking to you and that stuff is priceless in terms of education.
Speaker 1:Just to speak to someone who's already doing it or has done it. You know, that's another lesson I've learned out of 490 something episodes. Now it was like I'm always telling people to network in their careers for themselves, but now I'm thinking as a dad and as a lot of people who have, like you know, teenagers and stuff like that is for kids, that you know, teens and young adults to network to see what's out there, Cause a lot of times they're getting their information from, like social media and and TV, but there are such a network of people that are willing to provide, quote unquote, their testimony of their lives and what they've done and their lessons learned. That's a great idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And now that everyone's connected for better or worse, but you can find just about anybody in any field on LinkedIn, send them a note, ask a question. Hey, do you have 15 minutes for a quick phone call? I'd love to ask you more about what you do or how you ended up doing it. I think a lot of times, people are willing to do that. It's extremely helpful.
Speaker 1:Now Hangar 4,. I shouldn't have said last question what should the reader expect from Hangar 4?
Speaker 2:Hopefully it's something that's a little different, maybe, than what they're used to with these type of books. It's obviously about, you know, my time as a CH-53 pilot in the Marine Corps. There's a lot of cool, you know combat stuff in there. Corps there's a lot of cool, you know combat stuff in there. But what I really was trying to do was give them an honest, brutally honest look like kind of inside my head and my thought process as I was living this adventure, and I actually kept a journal throughout my time as a Marine, which really was the base document that I used to create this book.
Speaker 2:So I think it's unique in that you can see me changing, growing, developing over the course of time.
Speaker 2:You know, from a nervous young lieutenant to the iron captain that thinks he knows everything since he's been there and done that to now you become a major and you kind of low-key hate yourself because you always hated majors when you were a captain and, you know, ultimately end up as the the CEO of the squadron, and so you can really see that full evolution happen. I was really honest about that and also just really honest about how challenging it is to have call it a normal life while you're living that extreme lifestyle. So I was it talks about, you know, trying to balance home life and those other things in there too. So I hope that it's a it's something that people enjoy. But it'll be out in a couple of weeks, april 9th, and Hangar 4 is an actual reference to the CH-53 Echo Hangar Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, and since I did all of my fleet time there, that's kind of a central location. The story keeps coming back to you, so that's how I ended up using that as the title for the book.
Speaker 1:You too. So that's how I ended up using that as the title for the book. You got it all in there. I was going to say the book comes out on April 9th, I'm like, and you know what this is another great thing about having books about. You know there are a million books about special operations a million. And it's great. You know you can always get lessons learned on there. But you know, as a young officer or a young leader, young enlisted NCO or even just anybody thinking about it, it's good to get a fresh perspective on a career from start to beginning and especially like pre-war to post-war. Because now we're kind of going into that weird phase now where we're you know it's like the 90s over again. You know it is. We're kind of in that generalization where we're kind of in combat here and there but we're not like full scale, you know, g-watt war type yeah, and it was important to me to do it for that reason too.
Speaker 2:You know, I think the best way to capture our history as a country, especially for our conflicts, is for the the people who were there participating, to write about their experience, because you just get like a real raw, unfiltered. This is what it looked from my vantage point, you know, not from the vantage point of an outside entity like a reporter or a very upper level general officer, but just one of the people that was down there in the dirt doing it. So I hope that that's interesting to people.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm excited for it. Hangar 4, April 9th.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, hey, thank you again for the time. I really appreciate being on with you.
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