I realized most people, myself included, we never go to failure. There was a point there where I thought, how many times would people succeed if they never quit? I'm lucky that I've gotten to the successes I have because I've listened to my mentors 50% of the time. Imagine what would have happened if I listened to them a hundred percent of the time. Welcome to Veteran Voices, SITREP, with your hosts, Tom and Chris Faust. Welcome to Veteran Voices. I am your co-host, Tom Faust. I am here with my son, Chris, and today we have with us Frank McGaha. I hope I pronounced that right. Perfect. Awesome. He's a Navy veteran, went into law enforcement after the service and now coaches law enforcement candidates, including veterans, on how to succeed in the hiring process in their careers. Frank, why don't you give us, just to start off, a little background on yourself, how you got decided to join the Navy and all that. Yeah, I'll try and keep it as short and sweet as possible for you guys. It was pretty fortuitous. My brother joined the National Guard a couple of years before me, and just the natural thing. I had nothing else. I was enrolled in college, but not really taking it serious, just working the whole time, and my whole family did tree work their whole lives. I saw how hard it was on my dad. It just beat his body down. I said, yeah, I definitely don't want to do that. Keeps you in shape when you're young, but destroys your body when you're older. I said, oh, I know what I'm going to do that's going to save my body. I'm going to go join the Navy and try out for Navy SEALs. That was a real smart idea. That's what I did. I said, I'm going to go do the hardest thing I can, that I can think of. That's what popped up, and I did that, and I got my butt handed to me through SEALs training, and then I got really blessed after I rotated out of buds. I had two compression fractures in both tibias. I rotated out, and I fell through the crack somehow that I was able to leave Coronado and go to North Island, which was just right next door. It was just in time. I had a really good mentor, a really good senior chief who was there. A bunch of billets just opened up to go air crew and drive and stay into that special operations type aspect. He asked me if I wanted to give it a shot. I said, absolutely. There was a lot more that went into it. I said, absolutely. He told me, if you get hurt again, they're kicking you out of the Navy. I said, I'll make sure that doesn't happen. Then that's what happened. I rotated into aviation side, went to Pensacola, Florida, completed my A school there for NAC, Naval Air Crewmen. They had a billet, like every other class, they had a billet for a dry air crewman, which was on 53s for Marines. They're very familiar with them, but maybe we have them too. We use them for multi-mission platform. Primary mission was anti-mine warfare, but they were multi-mission platform. They could do anything from NSW to logistics, transport, gunning operations, anything, right? Well, they had one billet for that, like I said, every other class. And I said, I want that billet because I didn't really want to be stuck on a boat the whole time and once again, really good mentors, really good advisors. I managed to pick up that billet. And yeah, and that pushed me out into my C school in Norfolk and then hit my squadron in the same city. Three deployments to the Middle East later, two operational deployments, one tactics deployment, shorter tactics deployment, and yeah, just great guidance when I got out or when I was getting out, all my mentors, they all do what great mentors do. Tell me I'm an idiot and I'll end up on my mom's couch and I don't know what I'm doing. But they didn't know that all their guidance and mentorship had prepped me beforehand. And I had already got accepted and I was already enrolled in a hybrid EMT Academy. I got enrolled during my last deployment to the Middle East. So anytime I got internet access out there, I was doing EMT classes remotely. And then I also got accepted into my first police Academy with the National Park Service, which happened to be in North Carolina, Western North Carolina, where my family, a lot of my family is originally from, and it just worked out really well. And so they're all saying, Hey, you know, you're, you're, you're never going to make it on the outside. And I said, well, you guys already set me up for success. So I already start the Academy. My CEO really liked me. He allowed me to start terminal leave Christmas Eve that year. And I had from all my deployments, I had enough terminal leave saved up that I was able to get paid the entire time through the Academy on terminal leave. So nice, really, really blessed. But like I said, I can't take the credit for it. Just good mentors and guidance along the way. You mentioned Buds and another acronym NWS or something like that. That I'm just one for, you know, for the listeners to understand what the acronyms mean. So Buds, uh, so Buds is basic underwater demolition slash SEALs training. Um, it's what you have to go through for, uh, to go get into the Navy SEALs. When, when I was going through, I don't know if they still do this, but they were specifically recruiting for that. You would have to get an initial rate, but if you passed your entrance test prior to a bootcamp, you could be put in a specific division and bootcamp everything like that to follow that SEALs pipeline, which then started with pre Buds. You stayed in great lakes for some time and that's where you had pre Buds. That's where I did my first set of stress fractures to my legs. And I was just trying to push out to stay out with my class. Um, and then after that, uh, I did it right. I got, I got put on med hold recovered. I was mentioning this in another podcast, the recovery was almost like asking me to break my legs again. I had to run three 23 mile days on a treadmill on a Monday, Wednesday, and a Friday, and that was the, that was the exit to get out of med hold and go back into training. And it was towards the end. So I missed my class at two seven, nine, I think it was. And then I rotate out with two eight. Early in training with two eight. Oh, I felt him come back immediately. I was going through training farther, farther, kept running and, uh, came off the dirty name, one of the obstacles on the obstacle course felt them just. Pop. And I was like, oh, that's fun. And then NAC, uh, Naval air crewman is the, is what it's called now. My, my rate or my MOS would have been called an AWS. Um, but they kind of took that way. It used to be aviation warfare specialists, and then it just transitioned to, they still call you AWS, but it's still your, your description is just an NAC Naval air crewman. So that would be anyone on a fixed wing. Anyone that would be a rescue swimmer. Like rescue swimmers, their, their title would be AWR or AWS as well, but they'd be on the wet side of things. Um, there's a couple other AWS for fixed wings and stuff like that, but we all had the designation of NAC Naval air crewman. So, um, the, uh, the buds training that you went through then, uh, which obviously you, you couldn't complete because of the injuries. No hand got my butt handed to me. Yeah. Yeah. So do you see that, um, as, do you see that as a failure or a turning point or, uh, you know, Actually, you know, I'm glad you said that. Uh, I truly feel, um, that was the first time I failed something in my, in my life. I gave it everything I had and I just wasn't good enough. I just wasn't. And it's what it was. And for the longest time, it was one of those things that like eats at you. And I, you know, I was 19 when I finally made it out to Coronado and then it motivated me in two ways. First. And like I said, I've mentioned this before. Um, it made me train so hard. So that would never happen again. So when I got to Pensacola, I was doing soft sand, uh, barefoot, six mile beach runs, almost six mile beach runs, um, every day after training, because I didn't want that to happen. Uh, and then, so there was that. And then the other aspect of it is I really got to thinking, why is this the first time I failed? And I started looking at it as a, as a, I guess, a different aspect. And I'm sure someone could, could persuade me to think that I'm probably not articulating this as well as it should be, but failure is in my mind. It was fantastic. I knew that I couldn't go any harder. I just, I gave everything I had to it and I just wasn't good enough. And there was a sense of, I don't want to say success, but there was a sense of relief in that because I realized most people, myself included, we never go to failure. We quit before we can fail. Right. And I, there was a, there was a point there where I thought, man, how many times would people succeed if they never quit? You know, you think about businesses, people that start businesses, you know, they say, you know, the average business, like 90% of businesses can't make it three years. Is that because people, you know, couldn't actually do it or is it because they quit and they gave up on it? And so that was, it gave me a new mindset shift that, um, this is not something I actually talk about all the time, but that is, that is one of the biggest things is I took all that and I probably, honestly, I could probably equate it to the mental toughness training from Bud's because I still utilize that today. You know, if I'm ever in a situation where I'm, um, stressed or, or I'm under a lot of pressure, you know, just try to calm myself down, start with some four by four breathing or whatever. And, uh, and looking at it from that perspective, like, okay, so maybe 90% of success is just to not quit it. Do something long enough. You'll win more. Yeah. In, in business, it's like, um, failure is really just a lesson, something to learn from, and you will succeed if you never quit unless you die for it, I guess. Yeah. But then you're just, you know, you still played the game your entire life. So yeah, exactly. And that kind of segues into, since you didn't quit, you pivoted part of on your way to getting there. Uh, like when you left the Navy, you know, um, I see that you took like, you know, many transition classes as you could, uh, but they didn't air you for anything. Um, you know, kind of, what did you expect those classes to do for you and what did they actually do? Yeah. Um, for anyone looking to join the military, join the air force, you'll leave with actual skills that translate into civilian life. Um, the other branches, not so much, at least not, not what I did and not what most other branches do. Uh, there, I mean, I flew in helicopters. I, you know, I, I shot guns. I moved logistics. I moved packs. I towed, uh, anti-mine warfare equipment through water. And, you know, I controlled a fiber optic C Fox with a missile on it to shoot mines. Those are, those are really cool things to say. They don't transition. Everyone I know that left my, my platform, um, got a job within the contracting space, dealing with DOD contracting within our platforms. Cause that's how their skills were translatable. So they were still working DOD. They were just doing civilian contracting side of it. Uh, I took, I took a couple of classes. I took everything I could to transit, hire for heroes, resume writing, everything like that. Hire for heroes was great. Uh, that was a course that was offered that I was able to, uh, get time up, helped me write a resume, but then I went federal and it did not help me write a federal, federal resume, which at that point in time, you know, you think a resume, no more than two pages. Well, at that point in time, a federal resume, if you didn't have eight pages, you weren't getting looked at. Now they just changed that as of September where it's actually has to be two pages now. So I had a really great two page resume. Did me absolutely nothing in the federal sector for law enforcement. But yeah, I took, I took as many classes. I mean, I took TATS and once again, it's, I guess they do the best they can, but there was nothing there that actually prepared me for it. Didn't prepare me for registering with the VA. It didn't prepare me with, uh, get it working my GI benefits for school. Uh, it didn't prepare me for actually applying to jobs, you know, hire for heroes, that was a civilian course that I managed to get approved with, uh, with, uh, um, uh, a request. So I'm not digging on because they're trying to cover such a wide swath of individuals that are going, you know, wherever, but I just wasn't, the program didn't individually prepare you for success on the outside. And if you think about it from a logical reasoning, why do they care? Right. You're no longer an asset to them, you know, at this point in time, if anything, at best, you're a liability to them. Right. Um, but if you think about it, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. And I'm not dinging the transition program. I mean, I think you can always improve on anything, but. It, it was the individual people that, that were the motivation. And when I was, when I was registering for my EMT, I didn't think it was going to matter, right? I, I didn't want, I didn't want to become an EMT, the school and where I was going through my police academy, when I got accepted, the director of the EMT program said, Hey, we have a billet open. Would you like to register for it? Uh, we have, we've asked some of your other candidates. They said, no, it ends three days before your academy starts and we'll have you trained, tested, and you'll just have to take the national registry test. And I said, well, what do I need this for? And I thought it was just a sales tactic. They were just trying to get more money out of me, right? I've already paid in full for the academy. The deciding factor for me getting recruited for my dream position, which was the back country law enforcement ranger in the smoky mountain national park. It was between me. I was the Sergeant of that police academy, my corporal and four other veterans. There was, uh, five veterans total in that class out of, I think we started with 24, 27, uh, five other vet or total of, yeah, five other veterans plus myself. Uh, four of us interviewed for that position. I got hired because I was the only one with an EMT, only one with the EMT and I got picked up for it. So, uh, that's because they all had very similar backgrounds. They had successful careers, honorably discharged, but both, uh, the other four vets were, or the other four applicants, um, just got, got out of the military to some of them were still in reserves. Uh, so yeah, the deciding factor was I had a mentor and a lot of times my mentors don't even know they're my mentors. I don't even recognize them as my mentors sometimes when they're right in front of me, but I had a good mentor and he said, Hey, this would really, not only would it look good for a law enforcement ranger, but it's a skill that would immediately allow you to succeed because you're going to, in law enforcement, you're doing more than just arresting people and doing traffic stops. You're going to respond to a lot of medicals. Um, and it was a, it's probably in law enforcement to this day. My number one, most used skill is my EMT and my medical training. Matter of fact, it made me go get my first and it continued when I lateraled up to DC. I was brand new to the department. Um, this ticked off a lot of my colleagues, uh, was able to become an instructor right off the bat because I was able to become a tactical medicine instructor because one of the prerequisites was EMT. And my department had set a bunch of candidates the year earlier before I got on board to their EMT and they all failed. So none of them could get tacked. Met. So I came in within my first year, I was already an instructor in the department of tactical medicine. When we talked earlier, you said you're a big proponent of, uh, veterans moving into law enforcement, excluding air force, I guess, because they have other training, but anyway, can you describe a moment on the, on the job where you, you know, as a, in law enforcement where you felt like, yeah, this is that brotherhood that I've been missing from the Navy. I'll, I'll kind of go even a little bit deeper than that. I'll compare the military members in law enforcement to the non-military members in law enforcement. The military members in law enforcement are picking it right back up from my personal experience are picking it right back up. And this isn't a blanket statement, but generalities picking it right back up. They want to work in a team. They, they want to motivate everyone that they succeed. If the team succeeds individuals without that background, what I'll see is very similar to civilian, you know, professions. Everyone's trying to beat everybody. Everyone's competitive. Everyone's out for themselves. And, uh, and law enforcement doesn't really allow for that because it's paramilitary from a standpoint, rank structure is very similar, everything like that, um, but if you can't trust the guy or gal next to you to handle your six or cover that flank, it's a real scary time out there. Right. So, I mean, and it's only getting worse for law enforcement these days in regards to needing to have situational awareness, right. In some ways that's making law enforcement even a tighter community and have more commodity, but yeah, that would be the, the big factor is if the prior law enforcement or prior military individuals I see coming into law enforcement, they're, they're choosing that because they don't want to work for, for DOD or whatever organization that they worked for prior, but they still want that major benefit, which, which was the fact of I'm doing something that's supporting and serving my community and country, as well as I have family and camaraderie with my, my fellow colleagues. So those are the two big things that I see from every veteran trying to get into it. And then the other aspect is you still get that kind of, like, I don't want to say guaranteed, but you still get that guaranteed government benefits, pay, every, everything like that. Yeah. That's the job. Isn't generally going to go away. No. Yeah. I mean, AI is not replacing law enforcement. We'll put it up. Matter of fact, a lot of my current members and clients are coming from the IT space because their contracts are being washed out. They're not being renewed. They don't want to work behind a cubicle anymore or in a cubicle or behind a desk all the time because they want to do something more meaningful. That's a misconception. I know I'm going off on a tangent here. If, if you're a police department and you're watching this, start recruiting or moving towards the emotional side again, stop focusing on the money because most people, as long as it pays their bills and they can provide for their family, that's fine for them. It's whether or not they feel that they're actually going to make a difference and more so to the veterans than any other candidate. So kind of on the flip side, just because some people either, you know, may or may not be aware of. Was there a culture clash between military life and law enforcement life? Uh, and if so, you know, you know, what was that difficult to maneuver? I think any person getting out of the military can, can attest to that cultural shock of, um, of trying to reacclimate to civilian life. A perfect example, you know, is the rank structures in the military. Someone outranks you, you show them the respect that their rank deserves, right? But also at the same time, if you're a lower rank and you're a squared away, you know, soldier, sailor, what have you, military member, that rank or that, that respect came, came back, um, or at least came down. And, you know, if you were a relied upon individual, there was a mutual respect there, even if someone outranked you. Civilian life, it's not that way. Right. That's, that's going to be the culture shock. I'm going to kind of use a story here. I had an EA that got out recently, uh, wanted to get into law enforcement. And when I was working with him, I told him you need to lose all that EA bravado, E8 bravado, lose it because no one's going to care out here, especially when you go in front of the psychologist, they're going to fail you. And we did some more talk and I was like, Hey, you want some coaching specifically for the psych? Or he said, no, I think I'm all right. I'm like, okay, don't do what you did in this interview with me with the psych. Okay. Goes, fails the psych, comes back, gets some coaching, goes to the next site, blows the psych out of the water. But that's it. And I use the analogy. I said, as soon as you get out and you're, and it's the same in law enforcement too. I, you could go to the, an E1, let's not say an E3 or a new police officer, right? And say, Hey, I'm a retired police officer. Say I'm a retired, uh, you know, E8. And they're going to be like, I don't care. Get away from me now. Should it be that way? No, there should be some level of respect there because you stand on the shoulders of those before you, right. But at the same point in time, that's just the culture of it. So civilian side is even worse than that because if someone's a civilian, first of all, there's the, um, Oh, I thought about joining the military. That's what you always get. But I decided input, whatever excuse we've all heard there. Right. And then you get into it and you say, Hey, yeah, you know, prior military now in law enforcement, it just doesn't matter to certain people. And you're coming out thinking, man, I put in all this time to serve and support my country. And, and, you know, most people don't realize how hard it is to go through the entire military and get an honorable discharge or to not get written up or a page or, or captain's mass or some type of UCMJ, um, which will shoot you in the foot for law enforcement. I mean, it, it's going to make it that much harder to get into law enforcement with any of that. But if you're coming out and you're saying, Hey, I'm just going to go military to law enforcement and not expect a culture shock, you still got to deal with civilian life as a law, because you're a civilian law enforcement officer. There's going to be culture shock. If you don't want that culture shock, well, you're going to get it on your personal life, regardless when you get out, if you don't want that, go become a DOD police officer and just patrol the bases and the surrounding area of the bases, because outside of that, you're, you're going to have culture shock. You're going to come out here and you're going to say, you need to listen to me. I have the authority as a law enforcement officer and a civilian will say, cool. I have the constitution. So let's see who wins this battle. And if you don't know the constitution as a law enforcement officer, you're going to make yourself and the department subject to a lawsuit, which I promise you, the department is not going to stand behind you. If you get them sued for a million dollars. Yeah, I imagine that. Um, so, um, when we spoke earlier, you talked about, uh, the fact that you eventually had to leave law enforcement as well, um, because of injuries. Again, I think that's what you said. Yeah. They kind of compiled up, you know, added to what you were injured with before. So when did you first realize that you might not be able to do the job the way that you used to? Yeah, it was a, it was a very pronounced moment for me. So, um, while I was in the service, I was a part of a couple of helicopter mishaps. One of them was, uh, was a major crash that came up, claimed the life of two of my fellow crewmen. And, uh, it was early on in my career. I young and thinking I was invincible. Um, in the middle of, of trying to rescue the crew that I could get to, I jumped off a pretty large cliff. In doing that, I winded up, uh, I winded up costing me some injuries down the line that ultimately I had my hip completely redone cause I fractured the, the head of the femur. Um, uh, apparently I had some foreign object in my ankle and then my left shoulder would just always dislocate. Um, and it got worse, the more it would happen. So, um, so right before I left the military, I had the hip surgery, felt pretty good, got back into it, was able to, to, you know, go through, be the back country law enforcement ranger, which required a lot of hiking and carrying gear. Uh, and then in DC, I had the ankle and the shoulder done a week and a half apart from one another because, you know, I made an agreement with the department. Hey, I'd work these times. This is the amount of leave that I get. And so I didn't want to be down on, on limited duty for a long time. And I got pretty quick doing all that soft sand beach running. So I never had lost the foot pursuit at that point in time. And I was with another veteran buddy of mine and we got into a foot pursuit of three individuals. And this individual, he was, uh, he was a little bit huskier than I was. Um, but after the ankle surgery, I came back too quick and we got into that foot pursuit and I couldn't keep up with him. Disappeared one around a construction site with all that tarping on it. You know, when they're working and building something and I couldn't see them and as a law enforcement officer to lose sight of your partner while you're in the middle of a pursuit is one of the scariest things that can happen. And it was maybe only a few seconds, 10 seconds or so. I'm not sure, but it was the longest 10 seconds of my life. Um, or even shorter. I don't know. It just, it felt like an hour before I could get around that corner. Now, thankfully nothing happened there, but it really got me thinking, man, I don't want to be the person that has to use a tool on my duty belt, whether that be my firearm or my baton, when a, another fitter officer would not need to do that, right. Um, and I knew, I knew the liability that that would bring to the department, uh, to myself, um, but more importantly, it, it wasn't fair to the community, you know, and those that I was serving with as a law enforcement officer, just because someone decides to resist me while I'm handcuffing them and my shoulder would say my shoulder would have dislocated and now I have a dislocated shoulder and I know I can't fight with a dislocated shoulder. That doesn't mean I should immediately go to my firearm just because this person jerked their arm and took my shoulder out of socket. That's what, what I was starting to, um, starting to look at and I was doing my annual 40 hour refresher training and it popped out every time I was getting into it before it wasn't that way, um, when I first started, but it popped out every time I was getting into defensive tactics. Uh, I knew at that point in time, I was like, I, there's no, if I get into a scuffle with somebody and which I'd been in plenty before, uh, it's going to come out, it's going to lead me to have to draw my OC spray, my taser firearm, whatever I have to defend myself. If the person keeps advancing where someone who was fit for duty won it. And I've said this before, it was the hardest professional decision I've ever had to make in my life. Getting out of the military was a hard decision. Deciding to switch from operations and patrol to get into training full time for, for law enforcement. That was a tough decision. The right one, I think, but a really tough one. Yeah. So, you know, losing the duty belt, you know, it's, it's more than losing, you know, tasks, you know, it's losing, you know, a symbol. Uh, what did that badge and belt represent for you? I don't necessarily know if it represented anything for me. It was what I was trying to, I felt like I was always trying to earn it. Right. You know, um, I think that's how a lot of people feel. I think sometimes officers will lose their way. I'm not going to sit here and say that we're a perfect profession, but I think it was, it just gave me a sense of purpose. Right. Something that every veteran that gets out that eventually starts looking for again. You know, some of them get out for five, eight, 10 years and say, you know what, I got to go back this. I can't deal with this stuff anymore. I've heard that plenty of times. Um, but for me, it gave me a sense of purpose and that purpose was, Hey, I'm still, I'm still doing good within my country and now I get to do it on the home front, which is so much nicer. Cause I don't have to deploy and leave my family. That was the main driving factor of getting out of the military was I wanted to have a family. And I knew I deployed so much that that was, wouldn't it be, you know, a, um, wouldn't it be fair to a family. So for, for, so losing the badge and losing the duty belt was, was. Like I said, it was a tough call, especially cause I had to make that call and then go back to what I said before. I, I didn't know if I felt if I was quitting or if I had failed again. So it was kind of coming full circle for me. And ultimately it's the decisions I made that led me to where I was that led me to, to that decision. Now, once again, I got lucky cause I had really good mentors that even told me early in my law enforcement career. Hey, no matter how much you love it and how much you chase people, eventually you're going to age out. There's always going to be a stronger, faster, smarter kid that comes in and it's going to beat you. And that was true even after a couple of years in the law enforcement, I kept getting older, weaker, and slower. They kept getting younger, stronger, and faster. Um, and then they said, so, you know, start gaining some knowledge, start getting some instructorship, start going that way, and then I found that I really enjoyed instructing. It was a passion. I, I really, I mean, I enjoyed instructing, I think the most at that point in time, because I could still demonstrate everything to its fullest capacity, but it just doing that allowed me to transition after losing the badge and the, and the duty belt, um, smoother, I think, because I was able to take all my knowledge and all my experience and still apply it. So let's start talking about that, the knowledge and experience. Um, so you went from, you know, your body can't keep up, can't do this to, uh, you know, being able to help other people get into the career. Um, was there any specific person or moment that nudged you, a particular mentor that kind of suggested that for you? So it wasn't necessarily that I was, I did what every, you know, veteran and every prior law enforcement does when they get out and they start their own business, I started the consulting firm. And I was like, we're going to focus on safety and security and go that Me and every other hundred thousand veteran business owners or police business owners, Hey, we're going to do consulting. Um, it was good, except I had no real, I should say real business experience in doing that. You know, I ran a small business when I was a back country Ranger. I ran a business doing, uh, guiding kind of rafting and, uh, and, and fishing and stuff like that. I ran a little, little guy doing that, but, um, that was just part-time just to kill time. I, you know, I didn't have a family at that point in time, so kept me outside, kept me having fun, but I didn't get any real business experience out of it. Um, other than realizing how much it takes to actually start a business just from the admin side, then when I was looking at it for, for Armagen, and for ACT, my company now, uh, we started it, it was rolling. I was kind of, I'm not a very good networker, or at least not in the, the standard, you know, package of where you go out and you say, Hey, can you make these connections with me? Try to try to get, so I wasn't really good at networking or marketing, so it was not an ideal situation, but I'd done a couple safety reviews for some schools or some churches, things like that. And then there was a program, and I think it's closed now. I'm trying to think what is the name of it, um, where you could actually reach out to veterans that were in different spaces, but you could reach out and find mentors and things like that. I had a couple of people I followed online that kind of ran businesses, um, structured the same way. So they didn't run a similar business, but structured the same way. And then I reached out to these individuals and they said, put all your knowledge out there. Just put it out there on social media and see what happens. And I made a video of how to become a police officer and it just blew up. And I was like, Oh, okay. Uh, so I made a couple more videos about some things in getting into law enforcement and those took off. And I was like, okay. And I came back to that advisor and I said, Hey, this is what I got. They're like, Hey, I think this is where, where your, uh, where your knowledge is best served right now. This is what people want to hear. And then the more I got into it, the more that I had to learn because yeah, I was federal my whole career. I've applied to local and state agencies. Um, and I was successful with a lot of them, ultimately deciding to stay federal and turning them down. But, uh, but I can tell you law enforcement in Florida is not the same as law enforcement in California. Sure. Sec isn't the same as law enforcement in Canada. And once again, uh, Ontario or Toronto is not the same as RCMPD in Canada, or we've helped individuals in Australia, South Africa, England. There was a lot to it. And then getting into it and realizing, Hey, you know, there's court for core disqualifying factors in law enforcement. Um, one is being a convicted felon, mostly because you can't own a firearm. Uh, second is being a current user of major substances, most likely because you can't own a firearm. Uh, three is having a, some type of, um, major credit issue. Right? So like you're, you're not meeting your financial obligations and then four is being dishonorably discharged from the military once again, because you can't own a firearm, right? So even that, you know, I came out with an honorable discharge. I didn't have any issues, no, no pages or any, any issues in the military. So I just assumed everyone applying would be very similar to me now. Well, sometimes I'm helping a candidate that has a general discharge under honorable conditions, which some departments will accept, others will not. Right. Other times, um, you know, and maybe I'm helping someone with an admin discharge for a injury, like a medical discharge that went into admin, but once again, still general, right, then it didn't give them their honorable status just because, you know, things happen and admins make their, they're like, ah, well, you know what, we don't care. This is what we're giving you. You want to fight it, go fight it. Right. That's, that's government one-on-one right there. So it was a, there was a whole learning curve to that, to, to get into it. And I'll just, a lot of it winded up being really, really eyeopening to me that I still had a lot to learn. And I've always said this and I can't, once again, I can't take credit to it. This was taught to me by, you know, an FTO, a former mentor of mine. The minute you're done learning is the minute you should retire and hang up the duty belt anyway. Right. Because if you're, if you say, you know, everything, you're the next person that's going to get someone hurt that doesn't need to be, or you're the next person going to jail as a police officer. But once again, a lot of stuff I can't, my first arrest was a police officer. First person I ever arrested was a police officer, fellow police officer. I was still an FTO. My first real big case up in DC, winded up getting into a foot pursuit, chased these two individuals down that DC Metro had been looking for, they just robbed a store, had guns on them and everything like that, winded up getting into a foot pursuit, chasing both of them down, managed to coordinate and get them taken. And then everyone's, you know, shaking hands with the brass from my department. Like it was a really big arrest. And as I'm getting ready to walk over there to talk to everyone, my FTO comes over, it's like, what are you doing? So I was going to go, he's like, why? And the people that weren't even on the bus, you know, fellow, you know, same level trainees as me. He's like, why? You did your job. We still got another half a shift to do. Let's get back to work. And it just, so much of it changed my perspective. You know, that first arrest, my, my lead, my supervising officer said, what came to me when I had no idea what else, he's like, what would you do in this situation? I was like, I don't know. The Academy did not prepare me for my first stop being a DUI of a, you know, of a sheriff deputy with his sober wife in the passenger seat and his two little girls in the backseat, and he's drunk with his gun and his badge on it. And I'm, I have no idea. And he's looked at me and said, what would you do if it was anyone else? I was like, they'd be arrested already. He's like, well, there you go. And it just, all that, I just can't take, I, I just don't know if I would've made the right decision by myself without the, that mentorship. So that's, that's kind of where, where it all encompasses and kind of comes to that, that full circle moments for me. Okay. And now, you know, since, you know, today you train and coach law enforcement candidates, they can succeed through the hiring process and such, what are the top one or two things that candidates think that matter that actually don't? Um, it depends on the candidate. I have the most squeaky clean candidates that get in their own way because it's squeaky clean. So they think the simplest thing is, is going to mess them up like a speeding ticket 10 years ago, or maybe they tried marijuana one time when they were in high school and it's 15 years later, they are so scared, so nervous about that, about admitting to that, right? Because everyone has this image of them and they're afraid to break that image of themselves, that, that gets them in trouble that they don't want to admit to that. And I'm sitting here saying is, I just got someone hired yesterday that tried marijuana 2000 times. What are you talking about? Stop, because you're just going to mess up. So a lot of people, what I see the biggest of general is people go into it and they don't take it serious. They'll go in and they'll think, I got to do well on my PT tests. I got to do well on my, my written exam. I got to do well on my board interview. Yeah, that's true. Then they'll say, ah, the psych's just a, uh, catch all that they're, they're not really about really worried about the psych, except the psych is the number one disqualifier now, right? Number one disqualifier for all law enforcement. And it's usually the last step. So departments has invested hundreds, if not thousands, to put a candidate through the hiring process at this point only to fail at the site. So that is one where I see an individual not worry about something, but it is something, or I'll see them over worry about something that's not a major factor as long as they can articulate it. I've also seen candidates, my, my fastest hire, I got her hired in two months. She almost admitted to multiple felonies she never committed because she couldn't understand the legal jargon in her PHS, which is her background packet. And in an attempt to be honest, she was overt. So, you know, she's saying, yeah, I've stolen a vehicle. I'm like, whose vehicle did you steal? And it's a, well, I borrowed my mom's car when my truck broke down. Okay. Well, were you not allowed to borrow the car? Well, no, but it said, did you have explicit permission at the time? I'm like, were you ever told not to use the car? Well, no, I just didn't ask specifically at that time. And it said explicit permission to use the vehicle. Like that's not what that, that is a legal definition of a, of a crime that you're not understanding is you would think of it in common language as grand theft auto. Did you commit grand theft auto? No. Okay. Well, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle is the legal terminology for auto theft. And they just won't understand that type of stuff. So the biggest thing that I really see when it comes to them, you know, thinking something's important and, and it not being is kind of the opposite of that. They don't take it serious enough to know that it is important rather than think something's like, this is the most I need to focus on my PT test. Well, you, you do you, because guess what happens if you go to the PT test and you do, you barely pass. Well, if we get to the end of the hiring process and there's only 10 billets, but I have 15 applicants that pass everything. The first place I'm going to go look is to see how well you did on your testing. It's a multitude of things, but that's kind of where I see candidates struggle the most. Yeah. And so, yeah. So you've been talking about the psych eval and that, you know, some things that veterans or other candidates do to kind of shoot themselves in the foot, so to speak. Is there some particular hard truth that you have to tell them that they usually don't want to hear? I think it's just, if you don't prepare in general, you're, you're not going to make it. I shouldn't say you're not going to make it. Some people are just naturally charismatic. We'll go in there, go through, but even, you know, even someone that comes out of the, out of the, um, the military, right? Say you filed for disability and say something was mental health. That's going to come up. You don't get to use the ADA like you can, but you know what? They're just going to tell you, just like, okay, you're not the right fit. We decided you weren't the right fit. Hey, tell me about your, your, your disabilities. Hey, I don't have to under the ADA. Okay. I do not have any disability. So I am apparently Google wants to hear me too. Um, but the, the aspect of it is you can say that, but at the end of the day, this is the big misconception you're still asking for employment. You're still asking someone to employ you. So you can't just sit here and say, I see, just look at any of the comments on our YouTube channel or any of our social, oh, I did everything. I passed everything and they still didn't hire me. F this career or what have you, you're still asking for employment. You wouldn't be mad if you went into a job interview at a fortune 500 company, you had 500 applicants that went through that with you. They had three positions and you didn't get selected. You'd be like, man, it's just super competitive. It's just, oh, well they can't be that picky if they're that short staff. Yes, they can. They can, they get to make the rules. So it's, it's such a misconception to go into it and just think, Hey, I'm, I have this on lock, I'm going to go do the psych, my, my military disability won't be brought up. My last psych exam with one of my departments, the psychologist was yelling at me because it was, they were asking about my, my helicopter crash and some specifics about, I said, absolutely. I will tell you everything you want. Go get the DOD to approve it because I signed a nondisclosure that I can't talk about this for the next 10 years. So go get them to waive that. And I will 100% tell you everything until then. I can tell you what I was told. I was a lot. This happened, it was X, Y, and Z, and that's it. I can't tell you anymore. And he said, you have to tell me I'm your psychologist. I'm the one that determines whether or not you're fit for duty. Like then call the DOD. I don't know what to tell you. You're asking me to break the law as a law enforcement officer right now. By the time I got back to our, our headquarters for the department, I got called into my captain's office. I'm like, oh, this isn't going to be good. Captain says, Hey, uh, pass your psych. I was like, yeah, I figured as much. He's like, but he was really mad at you. And I was like, I figured that as he's, he kept asking me about military stuff and I wasn't allowed to disclose it. I, I mean, once again, I will tell you anything you want. As long as you put a document in front of me that the DOD waves, any type of nondisclosure or NADs or, or anything that's classified that I can, I can fully disclose, that's not going to happen. Yeah. Good, good luck is what I'm going to tell you. Let me know when the Pentagon sends the email back to you. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's what I see a lot. You know, if you're going to go into it and think anything is, uh, is going to be, oh, I have a sealed record from when I was a kid. They can still ask about it. Well, I don't have to disclose it. Okay. Then they're going to find a reason to not say you're the best fit. So the real trick, the real hack to becoming a law enforcement officer is knowing all your hurdles and then knowing how to articulate them so that they're reasonable. That's, that's the real trick to it right there. You can have hurdles. We know that no one's perfect. Question is, is can you articulate them so that they're reasonable enough? And most people, they are reasonable enough. They're just really bad at articulating. So shifting gears a little bit, uh, multiple times you said that, you know, you, you really can't take any credit for, you know, uh, success and things like that, you know, it's just really good mentors that have fallen to your spot by, you know, God's graces. Um, when you look at that pattern, how did these mentors tend to show up? Did you seek them out or did they just find you? God's grace. I mean, they were just there. I think mentors are always there. That, and you know, the funny part is I make this joke and part of it's true. You know, I'm lucky that I've gotten to the successes I have because I've listened to my mentors 50% of the time. Imagine what would have happened if I listened to them a hundred percent of the time, right? Now I'm not saying that everything is perfect. Sometimes a mentor or an advisor can be someone that doesn't do it right. Another story I tell for my, my candidates is I had a instructor that was trying to teach me room clearing in, uh, in FLETC. And she wasn't, she had no real experience doing it herself. Um, and she, uh, she kept telling me to do some things that were really dangerous for, you know, the, the front man and point and everything like that, that could have caused them to get seriously injured. And ultimately it was yes, sir, no, ma'am, whatever you want me to do. And then a few months after I'm out of the Academy, she gets arrested with her husband for impersonating a police officer. Well, that's a, that's a mentor to me, right? I just learned, Hey, what not you can learn what not to do from people as long as you have the people in front of you to show you what to do, right? So those mentors, I don't know. I sought them out or they fell into my lap. Some of them, I can't even remember their names, but man, they made a profound impact on me and I wish I could to kind of send them a call or a thank you email. And that's, that's just the funny part about it is I had a, you know, I guarantee you, he's going to be the MCPON of the Navy one day. Um, but I had a first class who then made chief who then made senior, senior chief all within the time within like a three year timeframe, I was like, Oh, he's good. He's going to go to me. I'm not going to disclose who it is because he's really close to probably getting to MCPON at this point in time. But, um, he, uh, when I was in training, when I was in C school, I was like, man, I just, I'm just wondering if I, uh, if any of this is even worth it. And he just told me to shut up and to do my job. And at that point in time, it's exactly what I needed to hear. He's like, just shut up and do your job. That's all you got to do. Just shut up and do your job. Next thing, you know, did that. Honor graded the, my C school went out to the fleet, you know, got selected super young to go on some big missions. And it was just do your job. That's all you got to do. Yeah. It's you, you agreed to it. When you, when you accepted the employment, just do your job. Now, if something's dangerous or unsafe, yes, speak up or illegal, right? Other than that, just do your job. And it was some of the best advice. Now that doesn't mean that I don't get upset with stuff or I don't have like feelings like this is dumb, but this is one of my chiefs. I want you to listen to whatever your superiors tell you, unless it's dangerous, dumb or illegal. Okay. That's the easiest orders I've ever got. Anything that's told to me from a superior officer, unless it's dangerous, dumb or illegal. Do what you're told Roger that chief easiest orders in the world. And it just, once again, that's stuck with me. So that's what I advise people to do. And it's led to a successful career for me so far. So you've said that, you know, vets who still crave duty and camaraderie, you know, that law enforcement is, you know, the closest thing that they're going to get on the civilian side. What makes it that close? Like what overlaps the most? The danger, mostly, you know, if you think about it, you know, what's the term they use now in psychology for why we're trauma bonding. Right. So that's a big one in psychology. Now they use, that's why military gets so close so quickly. Right. And I mean, it starts with bootcamp. That's what they say is they break you down. Well, now they put a beautiful coin term on it. So some psychologists can make a lot of money trauma bonding. Um, I guess it's still there in that aspect. There's a very real risk of, of, um, safety as a law enforcement officer. You learn it when you're in the academy, you know, bootcamp, they break you down and they, you know, beat you down and they build you all back up together. Uh, academy does it with less, I mean, they use physicality, but they do it, do it with more, um, mental fear, so to say, like, Hey, you make this mistake. Someone's going to lose their life. You make this mistake, you could end up in jail. Here's your road that you have to stay in and here's your lane and don't go outside of it. Uh, so there's that aspect. But then once you hit the street and you get into a situation where you stop someone and next thing you know, they have hundreds of pounds of fentanyl in the car or something like that, you know, real quick, okay, this person is probably really dangerous and the person that I'm about to really tick off is losing millions of dollars because, so at what risk level is there for me, for my colleagues, for my family, um, it's all there, but then at the same point in time, it's, I'm not going to say there's not an excitement to it either. Right. There's an excitement to get out there and bust a case wide open or to, or to catch, you know, uh, a burglar or to, you know, stop, uh, stop, uh, an assault or something along those lines. It's, there's a lot to it. You know, everyone wants to kind of, everyone wants to work into K-9 or work into SWAT or work into detective, you know, and there's that steps of growth. So when you're coming out as a veteran and you're looking for purpose, well, you went into military for the fact that you're, you know, you crave a little bit of excitement, something new, something that's not going to be the same every day. Well, that's still there in law enforcement. The difference is, is you're doing it on your home front instead of overseas. Typically. Uh, the other aspect to it is for the individuals that do get on board with that team mindset, which is a lot of times other veterans and still non-veterans too, of course, but I mean, you, you could make a best friend or a brother or sister that you can do same thing in the military. I can pick up the phone right now, call one of my military buddies I haven't spoke to in years and we'd pick up the conversation. Like we seen each other yesterday, right, right where we last left off. I mean, obviously he asked about family and new stuff, but same thing happens. Actually. I just had a law enforcement buddy. He went to a different department and, uh, after I left, uh, DC and he picked up and he was telling me about this big case. I can't go into detail, but this big case that, uh, that he just got done working on and I was like, Oh man, you're crushing it out there. You're doing so good. Uh, I did some training for, for him in the past. Right. Uh, and then we winded up working as partners together for some time, but we just pick up the phone and we probably talk a couple of times a year, but we live hundreds of miles apart and we still, you know, how's the family? How's everything doing? Hey, you, a couple of times they were down here. We got together for some golf, you know, it just, it's, it's all the same except not everyone gets on board with it. So you can still find it. It's still there, but instead of it being 75% of the time in the military, you know, 75% you're, you got that camaraderie with everyone. Cause not everyone in the military gets along either, but then I can make fun of a Marine. If you're not in the military, you better not make fun of a Marine in front of me. Right. Um, but, uh, but the same point in time, it's still there, you know, take out the 75%, it's 50% of the time, because once again, I have to trust the person that's going to back, come back me up on the call. If I call for additional units and I'm working with a shift that I don't trust, I don't want to work for that shift. I don't want to work on transfer me. I, you know what, let me leave the department. Let me go to another department where I can find people that I can trust to respond, you know, not people that are, you know, sitting on their phone way outside patrol sector so they don't get caught, you know, watching, you know, the Sunday night football game. If a veteran came to you and said, uh, you know, I want to go into law enforcement, uh, what are some questions you would ask them to make sure they're really ready and, you know, doing the right things for the right reasons? Oh, this is, this is good. So anyone that, uh, that jumps on an initial coaching call, you're going to get a preview right now. Um, we will, we will ask them first. We'll let, we'll kind of go through, we'll get an idea where they are. So who they are, how old they are, um, where they live, right. Uh, and where they live, because it helps us know, you know, if you're telling me you're applying in Las Vegas, right, you're going to apply to Las Vegas Metro. I know that if you apply to Las Vegas Metro Henderson or North Vegas, if one of them turns you down, none of the other ones are going to touch you. Right. Because they're that tight. They, they all work with each other that much. If they turn you down. Okay. We're either applying to a County in like Reno, Nevada, or we're going out because you're done in the Vegas area. If they tell you, no, uh, at least until that time has lapsed so you can reapply. Uh, and typically it's not that case. If you apply to one department and one department tells you, no, another department would typically evaluate you individually, those three. No. So we want to know where they're applying. We want to know how old they are. If you're, you know, if you're 41 or 42 and you're trying to apply federal to the U S Capitol police or secret service, they have an age cap at 37. So that's not going to work right now. Most state and locals don't, but you know, that that's a factor. So who they are, where they're from, and then we're going to want to know what experience they have. And most of the time they're trying to tell me, oh, I have this, that relates. No, no. I just want to know what you've done for the last few years. They say, oh, I, you know, I work as a Uber driver. I know it's not a, no, no, no. I'll show you how to translate that experience later. How long have you worked for Uber? Okay. Well, I've worked for Uber for six months. Okay. Well, where'd you work for before that? Uh, I worked at, you know, this restaurant. Okay. How long did you work there? Six months. Okay. Where'd you work at before that? And I'm trying to establish at least a three year history, because if I see they change jobs every year for three years, that's going to be another hurdle that they're going to have to get over for law enforcement, because work history is a very prevalent part of your background, right? And then from there, we'll ask them about military, right? That's one of our core questions. Uh, tell me about your experience. What do you do for work? Any college, any military? Well, why do I care about military? Once again, if they got in trouble in the military, it was an honorable discharge, you ever get any page, any UCMJs, articles, anything like that. Cause that's going to be public records. I mean, the military does not hold back when a law enforcement department reaches out to them. If they get a release of information, they will give it everything over to it's government given it to government. So they don't really care. Right. So I want to know what, what do we have to articulate? And then after that, we'll open it up. Oh, and then we'll ask them what departments they've applied to. Uh, main reason for that is if they've already applied to 10 departments and they've been told no, you know, five, six times, I want to know why. And I want to know where, because that's going to tell me where I think they really need to focus opposed to Chris, what you were asking me, where they think they need to focus, right? What they think is important words is what my experience and training has taught me is important to focus on the hiring process. Then we open it up. We let them ask all the questions that they want. We answer them in full detail, and then we'll, at the end, we'll kind of dive into really where they are and we'll ask them a set, a set of questions. So first one is okay. List anytime you've been, uh, any involvement with law enforcement, that's arrest, detention, speeding tickets, camera tickets. They were called your house, your school, even as a child. Next one is substance use. Anytime you've ever used an illegal substance or misused a legal substance. Next one is going to be work history. Anytime you've been fired or reprimanded from any place of employment. And then the last one is going to be credit history. Anytime you've had anything sent to collections or repossessed. And the closer it is to that date, the harder it is to get hired. So if you got a good separation, I always say time and distance is your biggest factor for any of your hurdles, because it can make the hurdles, you know, as small as a speed bump or as tall as a mountain, your articulation of those hurdles can do the exact same thing too, though, but it's way easy to articulate something that happened seven years ago, opposed to, you know, Hey, yes, I got a, you know, I got a DUI 10 years ago when I was 19, um, because I blew a 0.07 and, but I was under the age of 21, so I couldn't have any alcohol in my system, right? So I blew a 0.07 and I got a DUI opposed to, Hey, I got a DUI last year. Okay. You should probably wait a couple of years. Come on back to us. Then we'll talk about it again because a DUI last year is not going to fly. DUI seven years ago, 10 years ago. Absolutely. But does that, hopefully that answers it. I went around, hopefully that was good. Yeah. Good questions. Um, so you're doing all of this while running a brand and, you know, as your advisors say, you know, you're being the face of it. Um, so kind of flipping over to the business side, it's like you mentioned that, uh, you're on a big media and brand push right now, you know, podcast, different media things. Not because you need the leads, but, you know, to curb the, you know, curb that knowledge information. What's the core message that you're going to, you're trying to get out there. The core message is that law enforcement is still an honorable profession and it's still a profession that's highly needed. Right. And we want to, if you ask me the one sentence slogan is we want to put good officers on the street. If I see one more cop on YouTube doing something illegal, I'm going to lose my mind at this point. Right. It's, it's real simple. I'd rather you let 10 bad guys go than arrest one innocent person because you are wrecking their life. I mean, completely wrecking their life. Law enforcement have a lot of power. Um, they don't have any special rights. Matter of fact, you lose rights as a law enforcement officer because you don't have the right to privacy as a law, your, your government official. Uh, if I hear law enforcement say, oh, I have the right to do no, no, you have authority granted to you by statutory legislative or case law. Right. So the message is real simple is law enforcement is still an honorable profession. Everyone says, Hey, I want to put law enforcement. I want to build the bridge back to law enforcement. There shouldn't be a bridge, law enforcement, civilian law enforcement, their community members. We should be standing on the same piece of ground. Is every law enforcement always going to do it? Perfect. No, we should get those ones out of there. Law enforcement should hold themselves accountable because if they started doing that, the community would get behind them in a heartbeat. If you see a fellow officer doing something wrong, stop them. Like it's, it's that simple, but my, my message to these, to these younger candidates out there, I shouldn't say younger candidates, these newer candidates, it's real simple. It's a great profession. We make great money. As long as you're, you know, I'm not saying you're going to become a millionaire with law enforcement. You can, if you can invest, right. But we make great money. The option is there. And the money always properly reflects the area in which you live for the cost of living and people still want to be in law enforcement. They just don't openly talk about it anymore, but it's simple. Get out there. If you have a desire to serve, whether you're a veteran or you're just a regular civilian, and you wanted to do it, the barriers, the only barriers to you serving are the ones you put in your own way, even, even individuals that got denied for the military can still be in law enforcement, right? A lot of people say, I've always wanted to serve in the military, but I got denied in MEPS, right? Our medical evaluation. Well, yeah, you got denied because you were non-deployable because maybe some underlying condition that required you to be around, you know, a medical facility, if you, if that condition, you know, worsens and that makes you non-deployable, therefore the military won't take you. But in the US or Canada or North America, we should say that's where we predominantly operate. First world country, you're around those medical facilities. So those aren't as big a barrier of entries. They can be, but they're not always as big a barrier of entries getting into law enforcement. So if your desire to serve it, in my opinion, military and law enforcement are the most rewarding careers that you could possibly ever get into. Right. They're very risky careers, but maybe that's what attaches the, it being so rewarding is you're really willing to sacrifice everything for someone else. Your advisors are telling you that you're the face of the brand, but you've told me that you, you really don't really want to be the face of the brand. What's the fear that comes up? What, what is, why not? It's not fear. It's just, I guess it's, it goes against what I naturally always envisioned by company. You know, I always envisioned having a successful company and, you know, being the one in behind the scenes, you know, coming up with all the ideas and, and things like that, and just, uh, it not being as, um, out there as it is, you know, as for someone that teaches articulation, I'm not coming up with the right word right now, but the, the big fact of it is, is that that was a fallacy. That was a fallacy in today's day and age. I mean, that's almost impossible to do. Not that you can't, but it's, you're, you're, it's like, you're putting yourself in handcuffs and trying to get into the round, uh, ring with Mike Tyson. Like, you know, without using social media and media to get your, your message out there, um, you know, I, I created Armageddon that the name stuck out for me and because it was a, it was a naval term. It was a 19th century naval term, roughly translated means it's a perfect day to start a new journey. And I create, came up with that name before I even really was focusing on law enforcement candidates, but it just, it was fortuitous. It just fell right into place with it. I mean, absolutely perfect. Uh, but it was always, I wanted to always be about Armageddon, about the company, uh, because eventually I won't be here, right? So if, if I want to have something that goes on past me, it needs to be something that can stand on its own. Um, but to get it to that point, I have to be willing to be out front, you know, take all the blows and successes that come with it as well. And don't get me wrong. I, there's a lot of people out there that will have no problem telling me how much they hate law enforcement. But at the end of the day, it's, it's what we say. That's why we call it a shield, right? That's why the badge is called a shield. Everything hits the shield. None of it's meant intentionally for you. I, when I take the uniform off, I was like, you know, no one knows I'm a cop. Apparently I still look like a cop. Cause everyone's, Oh, you're in law enforcement or military or something like that, like I was, I'm not anymore. I'm, I'm retired. Yeah. Sometimes it's the way you carry yourself. I think that, yeah, I think I still keep the fade and I don't let the facial hair get too long and I always try to keep it trim and I'm, I'm a shorter stocky guy. You know, I'm only five eight and I'm a little heavier right now, but I'm 195. So it's, yeah, I'm not, I'm not the tallest or biggest guy, but I'm just, I guess I still look like I'm either law enforcement or military, but yeah, no, it's once, once the uniform's off, I mean, once again, I'm just back to every regular civilian, eventually. So you're going to have to retire or you're going to have to hang up the badge and the duty bill. You're going to have to hang up that EA. You're going to have to law enforcement is what we do. It's not who we are. Who I am is I'm a, I'm a, I'm a father. I'm a husband. I'm a brother. I'm a son. Right. Uh, that's who I am. While law enforcement is a career, while the military is a career, it's not who I am, it's just what I do now. Is it meaningful? Yes, it's meaningful to me, but it's, it, I can't ever let it define who I become and I can't let it consume my life because then it, it will fully, um, that's where you go off the rails, I should say. That's where you, you lose it. And that was part of getting back to your original question. That was part of why I was, uh, you know, didn't think like, oh, I don't, I'll make some videos. And then as soon as that, we, we got enough money to get one of the other instructors in there and have them make the videos. We're going to do that. And I was like, ah, we're, we're there. Let's start weaving in another instructor. And then my advisors are like, cool in five more years. And that was said to me this year. So I was like, what do you mean five more years? You're like, no, dude, you're, you're, you're stuck. There's, you're not getting out of this one. That's kind of speaking of the, speaking of five years to, um, what does success look like for your company? You know, five years from now, you know, specifically in terms of how it impacts veterans, say that last part one more time, uh, specifically in terms of how it impacts veterans. Okay. Uh, so with veterans specifically, I would love, we are getting ready to host, uh, or we're starting it's dropping this week, a scholarship program for, for coaching, for some, uh, for a person, right? So they go in, they, you know, just like you would for college education, you fill out, you submit why you're, you feel that you're the best candidate. Um, and then I will personally be coaching them, you know, until they get hired. We I'd love to do that as well, and then make a separate scholarship specifically for veterans. And we were going to do that at first, but we just don't know how many we're going to get that apply for the scholarship. Right. So I think I'd love to do that as well, as well as have a whole veteran focused, um, branch. You know, uh, one of the biggest mistakes when it comes to recruiting that I see individuals, uh, make is they feel that their department or their branch of the military, that it's so good that they don't need to do any recruiting. Well, we've seen that to be false in law enforcement, right? Applicants are down significantly. Same in the military. We see that to be down and we can ride the wave and see when, and then next thing, you know, I, I just, I just saw reenlistment bonus and email came across my, my, uh, desk from military times about reenlistment bonuses, um, in the tens and multiple tens of thousands of dollars for certain things. And when I went in, there was no bonuses, right? At that point, well, I guess there was a bonus for, for seals, uh, but it was very, it wasn't very big. Um, but when I went in, there was a lot of people going in, right. And it, like I said, it ebb and flows and I'm sure that has to deal with politics. But right now, law enforcement numbers are starting to climb back up, but we had a mass exodus in 2020 from retirements and things like that. And departments haven't caught back up. So full scale, I would love for, for Armigan, ACT, Armigan Consulting and Training, I would love for that to be able to be the number one, just recruitment firm. And when I say recruitment, I don't really mean working specifically with the departments. We would probably teach them how to recruit, but I don't want to deal with all the red tape that comes with those contracts, right? So I'm perfectly content with training that, but with training, you know, the direct with the candidates, I won't ever rule it out because once again, I listened to my advisors, but for the most point is I would love for that to be a standard. You know, I think anyone would, you know, with this, the staple to be, Hey, this is the standard in which we hire, train, and prep new officers, whether that be from the applicant and candidate side, all the way to the point into which they're off FTO. I can't go into too much detail because we haven't finished these programs out and they're still covered by like even redesigning new, the new ways we do the FTO program, you know, filling in some of the gaps that I saw while I was in FTO, while I was in FTO, and then also, which is the field training officer program. It's what we do after the Academy. Imagine the Academy, your A school in the military, and then your C school would be FTO. I would, I would even like to possibly work on improving that and then just keep going where it goes. I probably have no real limitations other than just seeing how far we can take it. So as we begin to wrap things up here, what, what is a concrete action that veterans can take over the short term here, to go from, you know, being stuck to moving, you know, moving toward law enforcement or something else? So the number one thing that we start with is prep is always key, right? So if you're going to do any, anything, don't think that, Oh, you know, Hey, I'm going to apply in six months. So I'll start prepping then. No, you need to start prepping now. And that doesn't mean you have to get coaching or training or take any of our courses. Shoot. We put out new pieces of content free all week long. There's, there's no limitation to it, but just even, or we're getting some type of mentorship. Be careful, right? Just because I see this all the time. Hey, yeah. Officer. So-and-so that used to work with this department or works with this other department over here told me to lie. Don't do that. It's, it's, it's going to bite you in the butt. Those officers we're catching them now. And now they're 15 years of great service. They've been great police officer for 15 years. And we found out they lied on their application and they're being fired and losing their entire pension. Some of them are being prosecuted, right? Don't do it. You don't want to be a cop in jail. I promise you. But the, the main factor for what they should be focusing on is prepping. That PHS packet is anywhere from 20 to 60 pages of your entire life. And some will say, Oh, the department that I'm applying to only wants 10 years history. Cool. That's one department. What happens if they tell, you know, and then the next department you apply to once your entire life history. Right. And you're not prepared. And sometimes they give you seven days to fill that out. If I asked you gentlemen right now, Hey, I need a neighbor from every place you've ever lived, including, including your military housing. You guys going to be able to get it to me in seven days? Not likely. It's, it's, it's going to be hard, right? It's going to be hard. If you have to provide me a reference from every barracks you've ever lived in or every housemate that you've ever lived in, in the barracks, right? That's just one consideration. And then what if you've rented? I need to know your landlord's name for every place that you rent it in your entire life. Right. Do you guys have that once again, has anything ever went to collections in your entire life? Right. You're like, well, shoot, man, I'm 40 some years old. How am I supposed to get that? And you know, this is where the younger applicants have the advantage over that. But then at the same point in time, they have a disadvantage because one of the big things that they need to prove to everyone in the hiring process, the polygrapher, the background, the board is, uh, are you mature enough where, you know, a 40 year old applicant, as long as their life experience demonstrates that they don't have to prove that they're mature enough, so it ebbs and it flows as to what's pertinent with each applicant. But specifically, if you're trying to get in into law enforcement, this applies to everyone, but veterans specifically, you need to have all that done prior to even wanting to apply. And then you need to identify your top three departments. Don't go out there and shotgun your resume out there. It's the worst thing you can do. Back in the past. Yes, that worked. But now departments, you get in front of their chief or their sheriff and they say, Hey, why should I hire you for my department? It's too much. It costs too much money to recruit and put someone through training for them to just leave a year into it. And if you have applied to five, six, seven departments, or you have that many open right now, and you sit here and say, oh yeah, I'm really committed to your No, you're not. You applied to seven other departments, opposed to if you apply to your top three and you come in saying, sir, ma'am, I've, uh, I identified my top three departments out of every department that I was willing to apply to and your department's at the top of the list. So, um, I am 100% committed, committed to working here. That goes a whole lot farther than saying, yeah, I'm committed to working here, but you got 10 applications out there. Prep is the number one thing you can do. No one has ever, ever experienced a hiring process like law enforcement, unless you've been through it. Even the military does not compare to this. You know, a recruiter says, oh, just lie on your maps form. Cool. We'll find out during the polygraph. The president not taking a polygraph or a psych police officers, you're taking a polygraph and a psych. Then I guess just, uh, you know, finally real quick, as we're getting kind of closer to wrapping this up here. Uh, when you think about your life and your mission now, what does successful transition really mean to you in what aspect I would say, like in specifically in where, where do I see myself transitioning or seeing other people transition either, or like, what, what would you consider, I guess it could be in your own kind of, you know, what you feel, what would you consider a successful transition from. Retiring at 40, um, seriously. Um, I don't know if I, the goals are there to, you know, to have success, but I really am when I say I'm just pushing it to see how far I can take it. That's, that's all I'm looking for. I have, I have two little girls of my own. I want to spend as much time with them and my wife as possible. You know, I think we can all relate to, uh, especially if you're a veteran or you've been through any type of, uh, combat or any type of serious, uh, safety situation, you know, no one on their deathbed ever said, I wish I worked more. Right. Um, so I want to spend as much time as possible with my family, but at the same point in time, what I, what I'm doing here is I get so much feedback from some, so many people, I mean, every, we can't even, we had to do a whole week of, of success, uh, stories and in our short form content, just to tell everyone, we're so proud of them and congratulate the highlight. And we didn't even touch a fraction of a percent of how many of those come in each week and everyone's saying how much of an impact we're having on their lives and their futures. I think the goal is just to keep doing that. That's my next transition is just to do it bigger. All right. Well, Frank, I really appreciate you being on here with us today and being willing to talk about, um, not just successes, but failures, injuries, and the struggle you've had to get to the point where you are really appreciate that. Well, I appreciate you all having me on and thank you again. It means a lot. Absolutely. And then for those listening, we, um, you know, if you heard yourself in any of this, you found something that interests you, you want to follow up, um, whether it's something you're cleaning to or something that, uh, you know, you're looking forward to, um, you're not alone. There's a lot of others going through the same thing and find, find the mentors. They're the ones that are going to guide you or possibly, you know, we'll have information to be able to contact Frank and, and talk about, you know, if you look into transitioning to law enforcement, this might be a place for you. Uh, to all the listeners and everyone who's tuning in, we appreciate you for hanging out with us. Listen to us, uh, you know, jabber on for a bit. Hopefully it's helping you out. Cause that's what we do. That's why we do this. Um, and if it's, if it's talking to you, you know, make sure you like subscribe, you know, follow up for more reach out if you need to, and, uh, just, you know, remember if you're struggling, you know, you're, you're not alone. You don't have to carry the burden by yourself. You're not alone. There is resources out there and we're hoping that we're helping you find them if you need them. All right. So on that, we thank you for being here and we will talk to you next time.