speaker-0: Today, on Lead with Bubba Scott, I'm joined by my longtime friend and fellow Naval Academy graduate, Lang Barth. And while we talk about Lang's leadership journey from the Naval Academy to serving as a surface warfare officer to building a career in tech, the heart of this conversation is about what he's building now. After more than a thousand conversations with veterans navigating life after the military, Lang saw the same problem over and over again. For many transitioning veterans, the issue is not finding a source of employment. Rather, it is about finding meaning in their post-military profession. So, he built Civilian Compass, a platform designed to help veterans explore different careers, learn from veterans already doing those jobs, and ultimately make a more informed decision about where they belong professionally. And what I love about this idea is that Lang isn't just helping people find jobs. He is actively trying to give veterans a process, a network, and a set of tools they can come back to throughout their careers. If he gets this right, I believe Civilian Compass could become a game changer for the veteran community, not just during the transition, but for years after. This is a conversation about leadership, curiosity, asking for help, and taking ownership of what comes next. Let's get it. Langley Barth, welcome to Lead with Bubba Scott. How are we doing?
speaker-1: I am doing great today, man. For you and the rest of the audience, feel free to call me Lang.
speaker-0: You and I obviously we've known each other for quite some time since our time back at the academy. But to get this thing going, let's just talk about your upbringing, who you were like, what you were like when you were younger.
speaker-1: Yeah, from is always like the toughest question for me. the simplest way to say is that I was a military brat, but it's not perfectly true. so my dad was Navy, got out when I was like two, and then stayed in the nuclear contracting world. So I bounced all around the country. So I born in Maryland and then went Las Vegas, Nevada, East Tennessee, Northern Virginia, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then off to the Naval Academy. I think I was an introvert. Born into a family of extroverts. I'm the middle of three brothers. And I don't think I was like the standard person that goes off to the Naval Academy.
speaker-0: Man, I so I would love to hear more about about that last statement. What what do you think about you sets you apart from the standard guy who goes to the Naval Academy?
speaker-1: Well, I feel like it's sometimes it feels like less righteous, you know, because like I feel when I'll talk to people and they're like, my gosh, like they have this incredible backstory of like why they wanted to go and like normally when it comes up for me, it's like, well, it's probably the best school I got into and I really didn't want to have to pay for college. And so for me, I was like, a new challenge, like let's do it. But that was certainly like very eye opening when I showed up and wasn't necessarily prepared for all that came my way, but rolled with the punches, learned a lot and had a great time.
speaker-0: Yeah, and I guess beyond the obvious free education and the academic prowess of the school, what was it that drew you to the Naval Academy and drew you to service initially?
speaker-1: you know, like I feel like with most colleges nowadays, people lean into like one strength that they're just gonna say, like, I'm leaning all the way into being exceptional at this one thing. And I thought the Naval Academy was a little different in that it really rounds you out and polishes you and helps to make you more well rounded, not just as professional, not just like as an officer, but I think also as like a person.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's a phenomenal answer and I agree wholeheartedly. And certainly there are many things that you can get involved with at the Naval Academy. I think, you know, we've had a lot of guests on the show who went, but we have not had a club founder on the show yet. So in your time at the Naval Academy, you founded the Naval Academy Investment Club. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that. And, you know, early on in your life while you're in college, where did that entrepreneurial instinct come from?
speaker-1: I was just like a nerdy dude in high school and I there was a class called Walk Down Wall Street that my calculus teacher taught and he was the man. Shout out Mr. Urpenbeck. and we would play like the stock market game and all that stuff. And I thought, like, this is fun. So I was working as a bus boy at like a four-star restaurant, which was a whole nother bag of stories, very fun. but I found like, Hey, let's just take all these tips and invest them and play it like real fun. And so when I got to the academy, I think I was also under I was under the impression that like Naval Academy would have like business majors, you know? And so when people are like, what are you gonna major in? I was like, business. And I think it wasn't until like the academic year started after pleep summer, and I realized like, they don't have that. And someone's like, yeah, probably econ for you. And I was like, okay, I guess I'll do that. And so yeah, I just was trying to find a place for other people that were interested in like the personal finance and investment space just get together and have some fun. We did like some cool trips to like Wall Street and also out to like Omaha to like a Warren Bef Buffett thing. That was super cool.
speaker-0: wow, yeah, that's I I didn't realize it was that in depth even when we were there. I I would love to hear more about whether or not the club is alive and well. I certainly know there's a lot more going on at the academy with regards to the midshipmen looking into business opportunities. but that was not something that I was aware of either as we went there. And and I will say to to my chagrin that West Point does offer some more robust majors in in line with management and things like that. whereas the naval academy is focused just on building the next generation of war fighters, which is not a bad thing by any means. Anyway, you end up graduating from the academy and I would love to just hear your path as a junior officer.
speaker-1: Yeah, so I went surface warfare officer. my whole family prior to that was like submarines. My dad was submarine officer, my older brother was submarine officer. they made me do like the service assignment like review board to say like do submarines. And I was just like, I don't want to. I'm a rather large guy, and so I wasn't loving the thought of like hunching all the time. but yeah, went straight to the fleet, and it's like really eye-opening because You immediately graduate and you're in charge of like thirty enlisted personnel between the ages of seventeen and forty-two that know remarkably more about everything than you do. And you're like quote unquote, like in charge, you know. So that was certainly an interesting experience. And I very quickly learned what right looked like and what wasn't exactly right.
speaker-0: Yeah, I would love to hear a an example or two of that experience. So you get there, you're working with a bunch of highly trained, highly technical sailors, you're appointed in front of a group of people who seem to know what's going on when you're just trying to figure it out. What's an example of a time early on where you had an interaction that made you realize what right looked like?
speaker-1: Yeah, I remember very early on, I think I was more interested in the first couple of months of like, gotta make sure everybody likes me, you know, among your sailors, where like that's not exactly the move. And so I think I figured out in the first like three to four months, it's way more important to like earn their respect on the front end. And generally, if you're running things in an effective manner and leading effectively. and you're gaining their respect, like they will end up liking you. but like the respect is kind of the prerequisite for those folks I found. And because they know so much more than you, like they have so much to teach you. And they're really willing to do it. And so I find those parallels a lot today. It's like human nature, people like talking about themselves. So like in circumstances where it could be helpful for you, why not let someone else talk about their experience and you can learn and grow from it.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's such a great insight that, you know, when when you're in a leadership position, I think the adage is it's leadership, not likership. But ultimately, especially in the Navy and Marine Corps, people want to be challenged. They want to be held to a standard. And by facilitating that in a meaningful way and in an efficient way, that that is gonna ultimately lead to a rapport that is much stronger than if you're just looking to be well liked. I wonder then, if there was a billet or Or an opportunity that you had as a junior officer or later on that played a big impact on shaping you beyond what we just discussed as well.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think probably like my second role is as like a second tour division officer. I'm the navigator on the destroyer. we deployed the beginning of COVID and like my collateral duty as like navigation off navigator and department head for admin and medical. Like you don't really think about that stuff. It's not a huge deal. Until you deploy in January of 2020, and then a unprecedented pandemic comes up, and then you're sitting in department head call with the captain, and he's asking you about like, Are we supposed to wear masks? Is this a thing? We don't have them. Can we use something else? Like, what do you think, nav? Like for me, that was just like how am I in this circumstance? You know? And so I'd be like trading emails with my wife and saying, Well, what does the news say? Like what's the most effective thing to do? And so, like, long story short, they major shortages of masks. And so we ended up taking shirts from the ship's store and cutting the sleeves off. And like those were the masks that people were issue. So not perfect science, but we were making it up on the fly.
speaker-0: Yeah. So really just being put on the horns of a rather absurd dilemma and responding in a way that would indicate adaptability, flexibility. that's definitely a great a great takeaway. So as as you think about that and you you go to actually make your transition, can you talk through like what that actually looked like for you? Your your decision process to get out of the Navy, you know, w why were you getting out and what did that process look like for you?
speaker-1: Yeah, I think on my first tour on the ship, I was doing like really well and being like recognized for it. but it it was just like a bad command climb. And so over time I was starting to figure out that like maybe this is a sign, but I had a lot of senior leaders that I trusted that said, hey, this isn't the best ship. Like you're gonna find a way better one, like the the future of the Navy needs you, type stuff. And so I was hardcore chugging the Kool-Aid. And so I show up to my second ship, like real optimistic. And like to be honest, the command culture was like probably a little bit worse. And so it's kind of like a fool me once situation. so from there, I had like a kind of life-changing moment at like a barbecue on July 4th. I had like a Navy veteran older guy approach me and say, like, Hurt you're in the Navy. Yeah. He said, Are you thinking about staying in? And I never really said it out loud before. three months into my second tour at this time. And I said, I don't think so. And he said, okay. Like, yeah, I I only did like five years, so probably the same. And he's like, We should get lunch sometime. And absolutely wonderful, man. that was kind of a transformational moment to me. And I think it showed me that it's okay to talk to people and to ask for help and show some vulnerability in the process. And not only is it okay, but I think sometimes it aids you in helping to figure out what you want to do.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. The use of vulnerability to gain rapport and and grow a relationship with folks is absolutely critical, especially as a leadership tool. So talking about this transformational moment, you talked about how you noticed or that was the first time that you spoke about your transition out loud and you had that first conversation or you had that opportunity to go and have that first conversation. And throughout your transition or or kind of the genesis of some of your work that you're doing now. You saw the power of those conversations with other veterans during the transition process. Can you talk about the power of that beyond that initial contact, that initial vulnerability, and then ultimately how that shaped your work in building the civilian compass field guide?
speaker-1: Yeah, so it kind of led me down a path personally. so I talked to this really nice individual. We have like a two hour launch, and from there he recommends you should talk to these three other people. And I decided like, wow, I'm learning a lot from this and like this is fun. I'm learning about myself, I'm learning about the market, I'm learning about the city I want to be in in San Diego. And so for me, I found that one, that's an extremely helpful path. And then two, I started to find as he and other people recommended, like, hey, you should just reach out to other veterans and like see what their work is like. The veteran community is so incredibly supportive. It's insane. I find that on average, like 90% of the time, if a veteran reaches out to another one, like they're gonna hit them back, which I think is. So special and so unique to veterans, because I think, like, if you're looking at that for like any other profession or affiliation, maybe 20 to 30 percent. but I think sometimes it's hard for veterans because in our military experience, frequently when you're in whatever service, most of the time. Asking for help is seen as like a sign of weakness. And so it leads to be a bit of a paradox in that once you get to the other side, being able to ask for help and show that vulnerability is sometimes your biggest strength. And so I think sometimes if you can put your pride aside and say, I'm just trying to learn. And I think when my nervous brain creeps in. I like to just think about what's the worst case scenario, you know? The worst case scenario is someone's just not gonna respond, or you have a conversation and maybe it wasn't the best conversation. But in terms of the best case scenarios, like there's so much opportunity out there. And so I find having conversations with folks like I'm still using my own playbook and reaching out to different people, trying to have conversations because I feel like that just magnifies your luck in a way.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's is such a powerful sentiment. And and it makes me reflect a ton on the introduction that you have at business school. I know obviously you you got your MBA and and I'm sure you had a similar experience at Wharton talking about intentionality with regards to networking. And I I think that in the military we see the term networking as something kind of dirty or gross, or yeah, it's it's kind of self-oriented. It's meeting people with a, you know, kind of the design purpose of getting something out of it very transactional. Where, of course, you know, in the specific scenario you're talking about, when you're just trying to gain information and trying to get some advice, obviously that's not the case. But I do want to focus on this idea of intentionality and kind of the systematic approach. If you're trying to figure out what you want to do and you want to use advice or you know, speak to as many people as possible, of course, we we talk a lot about the use of data to inform decision making. This is all a very circuitous way of of drawing out your approach as you were getting out, because I know we've talked about that and I think it's really powerful. And of course that influenced some of your work. So can you talk about your intentional and systematic approach to outreach to other veterans during your transition, as well as those when you were on the other side?
speaker-1: Yeah, so my approach was certainly tedious. I probably like blown an insane asylum for like if you actually looked at it, because like I would have an Excel spreadsheet. This is all pre-AI. And I would reach out to different people, just ask, like, hey, like, just want to learn more about your path, understand like what led you from the Marine Corps into biotech. And I called it kind of trying on hats, you know, in each given conversation. You're just showing interest in what they've done. And you want to foster a sense of curiosity and I would say like a growth mindset. And after each conversation, because I'm crazy, in my Excel spreadsheet, I would put like date, name, what company they're at, how do I know them, what industry they're in, what cross-functional role they're in. Last time I talked to them, and then I would just rate it, scale one to 10. And so at the time I just called it vibe check. So that's kind of what I still call it. no real criteria. It's just getting off a call and saying, how'd I feel about that? And just for the fun of it, I always included decimal point, 7.2, 8.1, 4.3. And so I found that over time, just having these ratings, I like Excel. So I figured, why not just use some pivot tables to have more fun here? I think I ended up with like 300 conversations over the course of years. And what I found was that like when you're doing something like that, if you're not rating things, like it's okay, you're still gonna learn. but the things you're gonna remember are mainly the good conversations, some of the bad conversations, and probably none of the middle. but like when you have this whole aggregate and you're trying to like pull the signal out of the noise, I find that rating it is so powerful. Because nowadays it's way easier with AI that you can essentially just say, like, all right, I've rated these 30 to 40 conversations with different veteran professionals. My initial hypothesis was that I wanted to work in product management at a tech company. Right now I have product management with a sample size of 13, rated at a 6.4. But I've talked to seven people in data analytics, and right now that's rated at 8.2. That's kind of pushing me to think that maybe I should talk to more of those folks and maybe that's my people. And that's kind of what you're doing. You're trying to get confidence in your initial hypothesis and you're trying to say, who are my people? You know?
speaker-0: Yeah, that's incredible. I I love the example too, because I think if you're if you're, you know, collecting all that data, it wouldn't necessarily be surprising that you were drawn to data analytics. I I would also say it does it does sound a bit intense, I think, for most people to talk about creating a spreadsheet to to track what is effectively kind of these quasi-professional, quasi-social interactions. But actually it's it's there are quite a few people who do that. It's it's certainly less rare than I thought that it would be. And I think that particularly in this case, however you want to describe your inclination to create spreadsheets and pivot tables, I think the ultimate outcome is going to be really positive for a very large group of people. So I'm certainly grateful that you fell in love with pivot tables at a young age for some reason. So I do want to talk a little bit about going back to your transition itself. And and talking about kind of your your construct or your your field guide. So you talk about the different transition postures as you're getting out. You talk about the exploratory, tactical, and the urgent. Can you describe what those three are and can you just give us a walkthrough now we've heard your initial system, then what you've ultimately developed over time and what you're hoping to use it for?
speaker-1: Yeah, so it's interesting, man. Like I have a problem with like saying yes too much to things. and it came to a head when we got pregnant with my second child. So last January we're pregnant again. I was like, let's go. The same week I it's a normal week. Like five different veterans reach out and say, like, hey, like, would you be willing to talk about whatever? And I always say yes. But I was just thinking, like, man. I'm gonna have two young ones very soon. Like, I don't think I'm gonna have the bandwidth to do this forever. And so, luckily, like in my day job, it's kind of what I do is like help talk to users and design very friendly, easy to use software. And so the thought came about that I should just try to create a platform that could automate some of these things. So on the front end of all of it, I try to keep it real simple. I ask people, what service are you from? let's answer a couple of questions to make a direct relationship from military to civilian world. Location in the military is location in the civilian world. You look at like your command type or platform, the place where you would be stationed, let's just call that industry. Then you look at like your billet, that's just going to be your cross-functional role on the other side. So when you have your best guess on the front end and say, all right, I'm interested in getting into finance in the med tech industry, you know, like boom, you put that in on the front end. What I was able to do is just like connect it to AI to tackle some of the tasks that would be tedious or even boring for a veteran to try to look into or even overwhelming. So I've had 1300 of these conversations with veterans over the last like four or five years. Wow, people reach out at such different points of the transition. Some like, hey, I'm already out and I'm now working at Company X and I don't like it. Like I just want to talk about what's next. Some are, hey, I need a job in one month. I would say the majority, I would say the I'd say more median than mean. would be like around six months. They have six months to go before they want to be hired for a role. And that's an okay spot to be. But how I generally break it down is if you have under three months, you're in urgent mode. That's a different set of recommendations. You don't have time like all the time in the world to do like the self-reflection, talk to a bunch of different veterans, discovery. You should focus on trying to land that next role. And if it's not a great fit, like you can go back to the drawing board. That's the thing on the other side that like some veterans just don't see is that like at any given point, if you're really dissatisfied with your role, you can leave that company. You do not have like a contract with the US government at that point to have to stay there. if you're at three to nine months, I call it tactical mode. Tactical mode is a little bit different. You have some time to play with, but you still have a little bit sense of urgency. So you're trying to stay accountable. make sure that you're having the conversations, might want to be learning a little more quickly. Now, exploratory mode, nine months and beyond, that's the sweet spot. Every time someone reaches out and they are like a year plus, some people are even like two years before they can even get out. And every time I'm just like, it warms my heart. I'm really proud of those folks because I'm like, my gosh, so many levers are at your disposal right now. And if you start early, this is gonna be so easy. So yeah, we take all that into account, give you like a company list, essentially, saying like based on your criteria, here's a list of companies that seem to somewhat fit it. And what I recommend people do on the front end is just reach out to a few veterans at each company. You're just trying to have conversations, you're trying to learn about their role, what their transition journey looked like. They're gonna recommend that you talk to tons of other people. It's the hardest part is starting. And so If you can reach out to three veterans at five different companies that you think would be interesting to potentially work for, that's how you're gonna start to get the sample size and really understand what might feel like a right fit for you.
speaker-0: Yeah, man, there's there's so much that you covered that is just awesome. I think particularly on that last point, just you know, what is and and this applies to veterans, it applies to and anybody with, you know, some shared background. People always if if they have some affinity for your background, they are much likelier to respond. That's one real strength of the veteran community. Like you said, the response rate when you're doing cold outreach is way higher. on the veteran side. I also was thinking about your your point about the greater than nine months being kind of the ideal spot. So I think that's an important thing to touch on because, you know, there are a lot of people who are quite critical of the government or the military's transition program itself, where you know, we have programming to help people who are transitioning out of the military. I would say it's actually pretty good. I mean it's it's significantly better than nothing. and you know, obviously that's not necessarily the the greatest compliment ever, but I actually found the programming to be pretty decent. And I think in particular, depending on where you're at, right? Like it it can be excellent for you. I think the key issue with it is that the what what you're supposed to the the timeline at which you're supposed to be given the opportunity to get that training versus the timeline that it actually happens, there's such a great delta that it's it's it's pretty bad. I think You're supposed to be able to access that training 18 months before you get out. It might even be longer at this point. However, most folks don't really get to see it until significantly under nine months. And in in my experience, there were guys and gals who were getting out who didn't have it 30 days before they got out, which I think is just, yeah, exactly. You you fall into that category. And so it's tough because it's, you know, we wanna be we wanna be critical of the program because we we wanna see better results. We want people to be set up for success. when they transition out of the military. I mean, that's what the American taxpayer wants. That's why that that program is funded. That's why there are all these other programs to help with that transition. But ultimately it's the actual implementation of that program. So I think that, you know, as as long as the Navy is deploying ships, as long as the Marines are forward deployed, the the airmen, the soldiers, as long as the military is doing doing its job and being forward deployed, there are going to be holes in the system. Even if it's perfectly implemented, right? And so that's why I think it's so powerful what you're doing, because it is an easy, easy to use. That's kind of your bread and butter making software for people like me who have a hard time engaging with with with tougher systems. And it's very easy to use and it's filling that gap. And I obviously it provides a lot more. In all of your conversations, obviously you've been collecting a ton of data. just in your own in your own head, but then also in your own systems that that you've created. What are some of those major trends that people are are tend to be struggling with as they're transitioning out?
speaker-1: Yeah, I find most commonly veterans fall into one of two buckets. One is I have no idea what I want to do. And they don't know how to figure out what they want to do either. The other bucket is I know exactly what I want to do, and I want to be a project slash program manager in defense. So let's take them one at a time. For having no idea what you want to do. Like that's okay if you have time. Or even if you don't have time, if you don't want to put a tremendous amount of thought into it, like that's why these placement companies exist. And so for people in urgent mode, I recommend leaning into the programs that exist to help them find a role. For the people that come to me and say, I want to get into program management at a defense company, I like to push back only because I too had a phase of wanting. To get into program management at a defense company. And there is nothing wrong at all with this type of role. A lot of veterans get into this type of role. I went through this phase for probably nine months. And everyone told me, you're a naval officer? Yeah, like you liked it. yeah, you should go work at some defense company in program management. It'll be great. And as I started talking to more people that worked in those roles, Just wasn't exciting to me, you know? And I am a curious learner type guy. And when I thought about going into a role that was eerily similar to what I was doing in the military, that just wasn't the most exciting thing for me. I also had a really influential person in the process when I was going through a four-block nonprofit, super cool group. program back in like 2019. And I said, I'm Lang Loubarth, naval officer, and I want to be a program manager in defense. And he pulled me aside later on. He said, Do you actually want to do that? And I said, yo yeah. That's what everyone says I should do and what I'm qualified to do. And he's like, buddy, you can do whatever you want, but like, don't just go into it because you think it's the only thing you can do. And that kind of led me to think like, hmm, maybe I can forge my own path. Maybe I can figure this out. so that's what I encourage veterans to do. That's kind of the ethos of everything at Civilian Compass is that like you got this community of super supportive veterans that like there's millions of them working in any field you can imagine. You're not gonna be the first person working in whatever field. Go find the people that already did it. Get the notes from them. Like this is similar to the military. I once had a department head that said plagiarism is authorized in saying, like, don't recreate the wheelband. Like go to people that have done it before you, get a great template and try to follow that path, you know.
speaker-0: We talked a little bit as well about, you know, the the initial interface that a person transitioning out of the military will go through. But of course you've had, you know, you you didn't arrive at your current iteration of civilian compass on day one, right? Like you've you've grown it over a period of time. Can you talk about you know, what you started with and ultimately how the actual application or software looks today? And and ultimately I think that will give us an insight into A a full picture of what it's offering to the veteran community.
speaker-1: Yeah, so I'm not good at sitting still. So when I had my second child and had three straight months of parental leave, I work very intuitive full time. they're great at work-life balance. They don't want me working on their work. I can take care of the baby, but like while the baby's it's middle of football season, the baby's in like what I call like potato mode. You just kind of put them on you and they're happy. Got to do something to engage the brain. And so I thought, mm, I'm gonna vibe code this out and try to figure it out. So I did exactly that, was able to make something that worked, but found that like this just isn't as scalable and robust as I want. There's certain things that I would like. if I'm gonna attach my name to this and put this out in the public sphere, I want it to be right, I want it to work, I want it to do good for veterans. So a common trend as I get older. Is realizing when you're not great at something and you should just pay someone that is better than you to help you. So I found a developer to take the framework of what I've built and a lot of like the methodologies and essentially create it into a platform because what I'm trying to do is I'm just one person. I can have conversations with veterans, but like I would hate to be the bottleneck. So I prefer to find ways to scale that impact more broadly. So I'm building the platform that acts as your hub where phase one, you're having conversations with other veterans at target companies, you're learning. And I try to keep it as simple as possible. Just rate the conversations after every five. You get a trend analysis that lets you know this is what your ratings are looking like in terms of following the right sort of conversations. This was your initial hypothesis, but maybe you should consider this other direction, diversify your experience. Once you get to a level of confidence, nine or 10 out of 10, move on to the next phase. Phase two, you have your industry, you have your role selected. From there, you need to really lean into it, learn about it. So you're going to pull a few jobs down, literally just grab the URLs, we'll strip everything out. You go through, you stop light code, you say, Green, I have this experience. Yellow, I have somewhat of this experience. Red is a big gap for me. From there, you're on a search for future versions of yourself. You're looking for people that are doing the job that you want to do. And it's funny, but like I promise, whatever you want to do, there are veterans today that are doing them. So you can reach out to those folks. And what I frequently find is you have a ton of red on your spreadsheet and you say, I'm not qualified for this stuff. But then when you talk to a veteran, they say, yeah, I mean, I wasn't either. Here's the things that matter, here's the things that don't exactly matter. And you really figure out after a certain number of conversations and you have confidence that maybe there is something that you could do in your free time to become a more qualified candidate. But I would say a lot of the time it's just a narrative crafting exercise. You did a lot of these things in the military, but you got to understand what is the right verbiage to talk about them in the right way, just to be just above the bar to get an interview. Find veterans do real well in interviews. Moving into phase three, you're applying for jobs. It's a smart job tracker. You dump the URL in, it strips the information out about it. And throughout this whole time, the crux of the situation and the hardest part of this whole journey when you don't have software, I found, is just keeping up with people. So it helps to remind you after every conversation that you rate a five or above. Every three months, it'll ping you and say, Hey, just drop a note to John Smith. You can have the most minimal note. John Smith is a Steelers fan. You're checking in on what are you thinking about Aaron Rodgers? John Smith talked about his kids starting school. You mentioned that. You ask about their company. You have a follow-up question. You tell them something's going on in your life. And after a few check-ins, like you are building. veteran advocates at all of these companies that you're hoping to work at. And like if you've applied to jobs recently, it's not the greatest market right now. And so it's certainly helpful to have a leg up by having friends that are willing to advocate for you. And you can take control of that if you start early and are consistent.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's that's so awesome. it made me think again back to my school experience here at Wharton where in class recently one of the professors was asking, you know, how do people feel about networking? How do they do this? And, you know, there were various people who had, again, a surprising number to me, more more than, you know, two or three who had implemented some type of spreadsheet. with alerts to help them make sure that they're keeping up with these people. And so what I think is incredible is obviously those individuals, much like yourself, highly motivated, understand the importance of these things and they're gonna implement engineering or administrative controls to ensure that they're being successful in this endeavor. What I think is so cool about what you're doing is that you've kind of democratized that for, you know, a lot of people who A, they don't know that that's something they should be doing or could be doing, right? Like whether or not they should necessarily Use a tool for that, who knows? But it's certainly not a bad practice. It's a very good practice to to network, to identify people with similar interests and roles that you'd like and then cultivate relationships to learn from them to get that mentorship, even if it nothing ends up happening in terms of yielding a job, like you pointed out. You know, it's like you've now got a network of people at various various companies that you're interested in that of course can only yield in the worst case. you know, helpful insights about places where you can improve. So I think that's a really wonderful part about what you're doing is you're making it so much easier for people to tap in to this, you know, really procedural and and systematic approach to this by leveraging, you know, all the tools that you've developed in your professional life.
speaker-1: This process isn't easy, you know? But like, you know what else isn't easy? Cold applying to jobs and getting rejections at two in the morning randomly. Like, that's demoralizing. And so for me, I think you're really just trying to cultivate a growth mindset and get really excited about learning and model curiosity because like everybody wants to work with someone that's curious and shows up like ready to learn. So, like if you can model that in this search, it's one, you're more likely going to end up in some sort of role that you're excited about. it's kind of the situation of like, don't let life happen to you, you know, take it into your own hands. Is it gonna be a little bit extra work? maybe it depends. Might be less work. The cool thing about veterans is they've already put in a lot of hard work and this is just a different kind of work to show them. And so I just want to give them the tools for guidance and accountability.
speaker-0: Absolutely. And and again, I can't I can't speak highly enough about what is effectively I mean, it's not a product, right? 'Cause you're not like selling it, but it is a platform that people can actually use to do these things. Because again, I just want to point out all of these upsides to this, right? Like you're you're a person transitioning out of the military. There are people who are ahead of you on that track who can help translate your experience, who can help you understand the language that you need to use that may be different. and they can, you know, for to to use a kind of more popular term these days and you know, I don't know if it's the correct term, but in in a way, code switch, you know, from their time in the military. They obviously understand what you were going through, but then also they've been working in industry for a period of time. So they're able to help you along the path to understanding what is appropriate. That's what's is so powerful about the Veterans Club at Wharton, right? Like the second years to me made such a big impact on me because there were things that they helped as you were navigating what what's it like to not be in the Marine Corps anymore. There were guys ahead of you who who knew what it was like to be in your shoes and were able to help you along that path. And just having that safe space to talk to people about things in a way that, you know, you're not gonna have those same conversations with everyone, even if people have the best intentions and want to hear them, right? You need that shared experience. So to professionalize that and and s you know, create a system for that, I think is deeply powerful. So what I what I do wanna talk about now is you've you've collected all this data, not, you know, you're not like Collecting it in the sense that we think about with yeah, with with all these data tycoons. But like just over time throughout your processes, you've had conversations with so many veterans that in in a way it makes you an expert on the transition and an expert at least on what people experience. And so as you've helped veterans navigate this transition, you mentioned the importance of you know, crafting or or using the appropriate verbiage, crafting your story. Why is it do you think that veterans struggle initially with telling their story? I think this could be a helpful insight to a lot of veterans and a lot of non veterans as well.
speaker-1: I mean, so many things. I would say a a very interesting like related tangent. I assumed when I was getting out, the only people that would ask for help would be people that were also junior officers that were getting out. And I was incredibly wrong. I would say 60% of the people that reach out to me are 10 or more years of experience. And probably a third of the total people that reach out to me are 20 or more years of experience. I find that When you're in the military ecosystem for a longer time, it's kind of like when your friends that may have gone to normal college or not, like they had their find themselves phase. Like you and I went to like a service academy. We didn't really have that. Like you're given, like, all right, here's here's your bars. Like you're now an officer. You don't necessarily have a time to go explore and figure out what your passions may be. And so I find with veterans that are getting out, if you're told by someone that you respect, hey, you should go into this field, you're probably gonna do that. And maybe it's a great fit. Like that's awesome if it is. But if it isn't, it just doesn't hurt to have more than a few conversations. To like what I say about civilian compass is this does not exist for you to like, we're here to. Guaranteed get you a job. Like, that's not what I want to do. What I want to do is I make three promises that people are going to learn a tremendous amount about themselves. They're going to learn a tremendous amount about the market. And they are going to grow a network of veterans that anytime that they're feeling like their role really isn't a fit for them, this support continues to exist. And the fundamentals don't really change, regardless of like technical innovations. Like, there's nothing that replaces sure, people like saying like networking, but I find it's just keeping an open mind to help other people. And when people reach out to you on the other side, like you reached out to ask for advice from so many people on the front end, of course you're gonna say yes, you know? And so if you can. Trust the process, learn from people that are more experienced than yourself and really have some support during your transition process. I think it's an ecosystem that continues to feed new members as 200,000 veterans get out of the military each year.
speaker-0: Yeah, what an incr incredibly powerful message. And I think it totally resonates with everything, you know, we had in our experience in the military itself, that you're always reaching back down the ladder to help the next guy or the next gal up. And so I think that that also is is a place to find purpose for a lot of people. You know, as you're navigating your own transition, you had people who helped you. And then as you're helping people as they get through theirs, that's a incredible way to give back. And I think a lot of people derive a a lot of pride and a lot of purpose from helping veterans out. So again, I think it's awesome to provide them with a system or a platform that can help them out with that. So I would love to ask you just a a couple more questions about your experience working with veterans and trends that you've noticed as they've navigated these things. So we talked about the importance of crafting a narrative. but I think it's also a really interesting thing. You know, you've got on the one hand, people who totally undersell what they did. You know, people who, you know, they always use we, they always say the team, they never talk about themselves, which is just the way we were taught. And then you've got other folks who are kind of either on the other side of it from a you know pernicious way, but really probably more just from, you know, kind of overtranslating what they did. Right. Where you see, I mean the resume is a great example, right? Like someone who had a command role for a company, which is an enormous deal and an incredible responsibility. you know, using language like they, you know, were the CEO or something like that. Where kind of effectively like, you know, they kind of were, but obviously you're not, right? And like you're, you know, you're you're twenty-eight or you're twenty-nine. and and you know, translating can be so challenging. So I I wonder, you know, what are some of the things that people underestimate? in terms of the value that they're bringing? What are some of the things that people overestimate? And what are some of the most common areas that people just kind of botch their explanations on their resumes?
speaker-1: Interesting framing. I'm gonna push back in a different way. What I'm going to say is that the other awesome thing about veterans is that they don't BS you or like blow smoke. And so like I think it's so incredible that like when someone comes to me, I'm not normally looking at the resume. I'm kind of helping from like a high view strategically like process. This is what I think you should get into. When someone gets into phase two of a process. And they're looking for future versions of themselves. I as I've been building this process and talking to folks that aren't veterans about like, hey, I like learning from people and I don't pretend to have all the answers. I'm gonna talk to as many people as I can to try to make the best thing I can. And I think it's funny because when someone maybe comes in with a thought of like, I know exactly what I want to do, I want to work for a Big three investment firm. For those that aren't familiar, those jobs are so hard to get. I'm sure like a lot of your friends are probably applying to or have done internships with them or are in the jobs now. They are awesome, but like very low acceptance rate. The great thing about like talking through your given path with veterans is that they're going to give you the real version. Like if you possibly went through like roles, requirements, and responsibilities, you stop light code. And you say, I think I'm a great fish for this thing. Cause I was pretty much the president of my part of the Marine Corps. You know? Like you're gonna get reality checked real fast. And so that's like the other super cool part of the veteran community I've found is that they're not gonna give you some fake, nice feedback. And sometimes so I work in tech nowadays. I'll be critical of tech for a moment. Tech's great. like Cool work-life balance and working on fun problems and whatnot. But sometimes it's hard to get the critical feedback, especially when you're used to it from a military component. I I would describe it as a good problem to have. Like people are too nice sometimes. I don't necessarily always see that with veterans. I find that if you come in with outsized expectations, they will tell you, buddy, this is not right for you. But if this is something you're actually interested in, I'd recommend starting in a role like this and then moving over to something like that. On the other side of the dice, I've seen many times the veterans come in, they say, like, I think I was working as like the assistant to this admiral. I was an admiral's aide for whatever. And because of that, I think I'd be like a really good executive assistant. And it's like that's not as strategic as you think. depending on the industry that you're looking at, you're probably more qualified. So let's look for different types of like strategic and planning roles that you might be a good fit for. And so, I mean, kudos to the veteran community. I find that like you're rarely misled, if that makes sense.
speaker-0: Yeah, no, that's that's super helpful. And and I was definitely thinking on the side of you know, veterans sharing their information outwards from like the the applicants and that kind of thing. But I think you certainly elucidate the power of the networking aspect and how you actually do get that that real feedback of people who are gonna give it to you straight. And and it it definitely resonates with me. There were definitely some firms or some industries that I was you know, kind of drawn to just because again, they're kind of the pipeline things that folks do in different areas during my transition. and having those conversations with some veterans who were a few years ahead of me were was very sobering and helped me navigate the process in a much better way for me. so just getting that data, getting that feedback is so critical as you you kind of arm yourself with more information.
speaker-1: And I'll add one more comment on that. For me personally, when so I went through the project management defense phase, I also went through I want to be in investment banking phase. And the phase didn't last too long. I talked to a few people in investment banking and honestly, they asked like such beautiful questions that they said, like, Okay, cool. Like, are you willing to move to these places? are you trying to start a family soon? And like, as I was answering. certain questions that would indicate a certain type of lifestyle, they were like, buddy, you don't want any part of this. And I was like, huh, interesting. And as those conversations and sample size increases, I only got more confident that that's probably not the right fit for me. And I'm I'm glad I had the conversations.
speaker-0: Absolutely. And and that's that's such a key point, especially for, you know, veterans who are at MBA programs or people who are in positions where you know, there are recruiters who come to either your place of work or your place of education. They're recruiting. So when you're asking for what life is like at a firm, it's their job to recruit you to the firm. And I I think everybody knows that, but I do think that some of these firms are so good at it. That they can get you, you know, they can get you to believe everything they're saying, which obviously, that's the role of the recruiter. And I I'm not accusing anyone of kind of being misleading, but getting that real
speaker-1: To get a veteran's second opinion.
speaker-0: Exactly. Exactly. Or someone from a shared background with that, if you can build that rapport, build that affinity, who's gonna give you the kind of unfiltered feedback on what the experience is actually like? So we're coming up on time here. So I want to ask you with Civilian Compass, you've come a long way from just vibe coding with a baby in potato mode watching football, to where you're at now. And I and I would love to, you know, open up. We've got an incredible audience here that listens who are super capable. And I think there are a lot of veterans in my you know, i in my community here at Wharton or or kind of throughout, whoever's listening who would love to lend a hand. What are some areas that people could be helpful to civilian compass going forward? How can they get involved?
speaker-1: I I I appreciate the ask because like that's the interesting thing and the easy question to ask is like, is this a nonprofit? Is this LLC? How are you making money? To be honest, I'm worried on solving veteran problems first. And if as we scale to more veterans, if that becomes a problem, we'll handle those as they come. Right now I have the luxury of being able to use the skills that I've learned at Intuit to partnered with over a thousand conversations with veterans to try to help create a platform, which is the platform that I wish I had when I was getting out, in terms of like people reaching out and wanting to help. Of course, like right now I'm in discovery mode. like so there's there's different parts. If this is like thought partnership And you just want to talk through it and see how you can help, like, let's have a conversation, man. At to this point, like I've paid all the upfront costs and I'm planning on doing that for the next X amount of months. And we'll figure that out as it comes. But to anyone that is hit up by military veterans, like let them know. This will be live first, second week of September. we're gonna launch at beta and I challenge veterans that are coming in the door. To break it, find issues with the software, let me know. Because that's my favorite part of my job. You launch a feature, you get the feedback, you make it better. yeah, and to veterans that are uncertain about what's next, know that it's not easy getting out of the military. Never really is. But if you can take a deep breath. Rely on your veteran community and try to approach the process with curiosity and hope to learn a little bit more about yourself and rely on those that came before you. I think you're going to be in a really good spot. But yeah, I appreciate anyone that wants to help out in any way. this has been a really, really fun project for me to work on.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. So everyone listening, if if you want to get involved, the best thing you can do is just send that link around. And we'll make sure to have it included in the description. We'll put it out in all of our social media posts. So any veteran looking to conduct their own transition, you're gonna have that leg up that Lang and I did not have when we were getting out, all thanks to the work that he's done from vodcoating with a potato on his chest until today. So Lang, before we Before we shut this thing down, I ask everybody the same question because this is a leadership podcast. As much as we've talked about the transition, you're a great leader. You've done a lot of great things. You've been an incredibly selfless servant leader. And you're building this incredible thing. So with that in mind, if there were one trait you would encourage a young, aspiring leader to develop and hone, what would it be?
speaker-1: If for me, and I'm still a work in progress, man, doing my best on the leadership front. But for me, I I think it's patience. Patience is tough, man. It goes throughout our day. It's in your personal life, certainly in your work life, in your transition from one role to your next one. And so I find that there's always going to be issues that challenge you. And if you can take a deep breath. And what I like to do when I'm frustrated, I take a deep breath and I say, what would an extremely mature person do right now when I'm frustrated? And almost always the answer is just wait. Like don't you don't need to you don't need to do the thing. You don't need to be angry. Just take a deep breath, be patient and wait.
speaker-0: That is an incredibly great piece of insight. Patience is key as a leader and navigating life and certainly when navigating a transition and trying to figure out what the heck you want to do with your life. Lang, thank you so much for coming on the show. You're welcome back anytime. And everybody listening, check out the civilian compass.
speaker-1: Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, man. I had a great time.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Thanks so much for listening to Lead with Bubba Scott, brought to you by the VA Lender. Mixing and editing for this podcast were performed by Mock Social. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the show and leave a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also follow along on Instagram at LeadwithBubba and let us know your thoughts on the episode. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
speaker-1: I am doing great today, man. For you and the rest of the audience, feel free to call me Lang.
speaker-0: You and I obviously we've known each other for quite some time since our time back at the academy. But to get this thing going, let's just talk about your upbringing, who you were like, what you were like when you were younger.
speaker-1: Yeah, from is always like the toughest question for me. the simplest way to say is that I was a military brat, but it's not perfectly true. so my dad was Navy, got out when I was like two, and then stayed in the nuclear contracting world. So I bounced all around the country. So I born in Maryland and then went Las Vegas, Nevada, East Tennessee, Northern Virginia, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then off to the Naval Academy. I think I was an introvert. Born into a family of extroverts. I'm the middle of three brothers. And I don't think I was like the standard person that goes off to the Naval Academy.
speaker-0: Man, I so I would love to hear more about about that last statement. What what do you think about you sets you apart from the standard guy who goes to the Naval Academy?
speaker-1: Well, I feel like it's sometimes it feels like less righteous, you know, because like I feel when I'll talk to people and they're like, my gosh, like they have this incredible backstory of like why they wanted to go and like normally when it comes up for me, it's like, well, it's probably the best school I got into and I really didn't want to have to pay for college. And so for me, I was like, a new challenge, like let's do it. But that was certainly like very eye opening when I showed up and wasn't necessarily prepared for all that came my way, but rolled with the punches, learned a lot and had a great time.
speaker-0: Yeah, and I guess beyond the obvious free education and the academic prowess of the school, what was it that drew you to the Naval Academy and drew you to service initially?
speaker-1: you know, like I feel like with most colleges nowadays, people lean into like one strength that they're just gonna say, like, I'm leaning all the way into being exceptional at this one thing. And I thought the Naval Academy was a little different in that it really rounds you out and polishes you and helps to make you more well rounded, not just as professional, not just like as an officer, but I think also as like a person.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's a phenomenal answer and I agree wholeheartedly. And certainly there are many things that you can get involved with at the Naval Academy. I think, you know, we've had a lot of guests on the show who went, but we have not had a club founder on the show yet. So in your time at the Naval Academy, you founded the Naval Academy Investment Club. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that. And, you know, early on in your life while you're in college, where did that entrepreneurial instinct come from?
speaker-1: I was just like a nerdy dude in high school and I there was a class called Walk Down Wall Street that my calculus teacher taught and he was the man. Shout out Mr. Urpenbeck. and we would play like the stock market game and all that stuff. And I thought, like, this is fun. So I was working as a bus boy at like a four-star restaurant, which was a whole nother bag of stories, very fun. but I found like, Hey, let's just take all these tips and invest them and play it like real fun. And so when I got to the academy, I think I was also under I was under the impression that like Naval Academy would have like business majors, you know? And so when people are like, what are you gonna major in? I was like, business. And I think it wasn't until like the academic year started after pleep summer, and I realized like, they don't have that. And someone's like, yeah, probably econ for you. And I was like, okay, I guess I'll do that. And so yeah, I just was trying to find a place for other people that were interested in like the personal finance and investment space just get together and have some fun. We did like some cool trips to like Wall Street and also out to like Omaha to like a Warren Bef Buffett thing. That was super cool.
speaker-0: wow, yeah, that's I I didn't realize it was that in depth even when we were there. I I would love to hear more about whether or not the club is alive and well. I certainly know there's a lot more going on at the academy with regards to the midshipmen looking into business opportunities. but that was not something that I was aware of either as we went there. And and I will say to to my chagrin that West Point does offer some more robust majors in in line with management and things like that. whereas the naval academy is focused just on building the next generation of war fighters, which is not a bad thing by any means. Anyway, you end up graduating from the academy and I would love to just hear your path as a junior officer.
speaker-1: Yeah, so I went surface warfare officer. my whole family prior to that was like submarines. My dad was submarine officer, my older brother was submarine officer. they made me do like the service assignment like review board to say like do submarines. And I was just like, I don't want to. I'm a rather large guy, and so I wasn't loving the thought of like hunching all the time. but yeah, went straight to the fleet, and it's like really eye-opening because You immediately graduate and you're in charge of like thirty enlisted personnel between the ages of seventeen and forty-two that know remarkably more about everything than you do. And you're like quote unquote, like in charge, you know. So that was certainly an interesting experience. And I very quickly learned what right looked like and what wasn't exactly right.
speaker-0: Yeah, I would love to hear a an example or two of that experience. So you get there, you're working with a bunch of highly trained, highly technical sailors, you're appointed in front of a group of people who seem to know what's going on when you're just trying to figure it out. What's an example of a time early on where you had an interaction that made you realize what right looked like?
speaker-1: Yeah, I remember very early on, I think I was more interested in the first couple of months of like, gotta make sure everybody likes me, you know, among your sailors, where like that's not exactly the move. And so I think I figured out in the first like three to four months, it's way more important to like earn their respect on the front end. And generally, if you're running things in an effective manner and leading effectively. and you're gaining their respect, like they will end up liking you. but like the respect is kind of the prerequisite for those folks I found. And because they know so much more than you, like they have so much to teach you. And they're really willing to do it. And so I find those parallels a lot today. It's like human nature, people like talking about themselves. So like in circumstances where it could be helpful for you, why not let someone else talk about their experience and you can learn and grow from it.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's such a great insight that, you know, when when you're in a leadership position, I think the adage is it's leadership, not likership. But ultimately, especially in the Navy and Marine Corps, people want to be challenged. They want to be held to a standard. And by facilitating that in a meaningful way and in an efficient way, that that is gonna ultimately lead to a rapport that is much stronger than if you're just looking to be well liked. I wonder then, if there was a billet or Or an opportunity that you had as a junior officer or later on that played a big impact on shaping you beyond what we just discussed as well.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think probably like my second role is as like a second tour division officer. I'm the navigator on the destroyer. we deployed the beginning of COVID and like my collateral duty as like navigation off navigator and department head for admin and medical. Like you don't really think about that stuff. It's not a huge deal. Until you deploy in January of 2020, and then a unprecedented pandemic comes up, and then you're sitting in department head call with the captain, and he's asking you about like, Are we supposed to wear masks? Is this a thing? We don't have them. Can we use something else? Like, what do you think, nav? Like for me, that was just like how am I in this circumstance? You know? And so I'd be like trading emails with my wife and saying, Well, what does the news say? Like what's the most effective thing to do? And so, like, long story short, they major shortages of masks. And so we ended up taking shirts from the ship's store and cutting the sleeves off. And like those were the masks that people were issue. So not perfect science, but we were making it up on the fly.
speaker-0: Yeah. So really just being put on the horns of a rather absurd dilemma and responding in a way that would indicate adaptability, flexibility. that's definitely a great a great takeaway. So as as you think about that and you you go to actually make your transition, can you talk through like what that actually looked like for you? Your your decision process to get out of the Navy, you know, w why were you getting out and what did that process look like for you?
speaker-1: Yeah, I think on my first tour on the ship, I was doing like really well and being like recognized for it. but it it was just like a bad command climb. And so over time I was starting to figure out that like maybe this is a sign, but I had a lot of senior leaders that I trusted that said, hey, this isn't the best ship. Like you're gonna find a way better one, like the the future of the Navy needs you, type stuff. And so I was hardcore chugging the Kool-Aid. And so I show up to my second ship, like real optimistic. And like to be honest, the command culture was like probably a little bit worse. And so it's kind of like a fool me once situation. so from there, I had like a kind of life-changing moment at like a barbecue on July 4th. I had like a Navy veteran older guy approach me and say, like, Hurt you're in the Navy. Yeah. He said, Are you thinking about staying in? And I never really said it out loud before. three months into my second tour at this time. And I said, I don't think so. And he said, okay. Like, yeah, I I only did like five years, so probably the same. And he's like, We should get lunch sometime. And absolutely wonderful, man. that was kind of a transformational moment to me. And I think it showed me that it's okay to talk to people and to ask for help and show some vulnerability in the process. And not only is it okay, but I think sometimes it aids you in helping to figure out what you want to do.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. The use of vulnerability to gain rapport and and grow a relationship with folks is absolutely critical, especially as a leadership tool. So talking about this transformational moment, you talked about how you noticed or that was the first time that you spoke about your transition out loud and you had that first conversation or you had that opportunity to go and have that first conversation. And throughout your transition or or kind of the genesis of some of your work that you're doing now. You saw the power of those conversations with other veterans during the transition process. Can you talk about the power of that beyond that initial contact, that initial vulnerability, and then ultimately how that shaped your work in building the civilian compass field guide?
speaker-1: Yeah, so it kind of led me down a path personally. so I talked to this really nice individual. We have like a two hour launch, and from there he recommends you should talk to these three other people. And I decided like, wow, I'm learning a lot from this and like this is fun. I'm learning about myself, I'm learning about the market, I'm learning about the city I want to be in in San Diego. And so for me, I found that one, that's an extremely helpful path. And then two, I started to find as he and other people recommended, like, hey, you should just reach out to other veterans and like see what their work is like. The veteran community is so incredibly supportive. It's insane. I find that on average, like 90% of the time, if a veteran reaches out to another one, like they're gonna hit them back, which I think is. So special and so unique to veterans, because I think, like, if you're looking at that for like any other profession or affiliation, maybe 20 to 30 percent. but I think sometimes it's hard for veterans because in our military experience, frequently when you're in whatever service, most of the time. Asking for help is seen as like a sign of weakness. And so it leads to be a bit of a paradox in that once you get to the other side, being able to ask for help and show that vulnerability is sometimes your biggest strength. And so I think sometimes if you can put your pride aside and say, I'm just trying to learn. And I think when my nervous brain creeps in. I like to just think about what's the worst case scenario, you know? The worst case scenario is someone's just not gonna respond, or you have a conversation and maybe it wasn't the best conversation. But in terms of the best case scenarios, like there's so much opportunity out there. And so I find having conversations with folks like I'm still using my own playbook and reaching out to different people, trying to have conversations because I feel like that just magnifies your luck in a way.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's is such a powerful sentiment. And and it makes me reflect a ton on the introduction that you have at business school. I know obviously you you got your MBA and and I'm sure you had a similar experience at Wharton talking about intentionality with regards to networking. And I I think that in the military we see the term networking as something kind of dirty or gross, or yeah, it's it's kind of self-oriented. It's meeting people with a, you know, kind of the design purpose of getting something out of it very transactional. Where, of course, you know, in the specific scenario you're talking about, when you're just trying to gain information and trying to get some advice, obviously that's not the case. But I do want to focus on this idea of intentionality and kind of the systematic approach. If you're trying to figure out what you want to do and you want to use advice or you know, speak to as many people as possible, of course, we we talk a lot about the use of data to inform decision making. This is all a very circuitous way of of drawing out your approach as you were getting out, because I know we've talked about that and I think it's really powerful. And of course that influenced some of your work. So can you talk about your intentional and systematic approach to outreach to other veterans during your transition, as well as those when you were on the other side?
speaker-1: Yeah, so my approach was certainly tedious. I probably like blown an insane asylum for like if you actually looked at it, because like I would have an Excel spreadsheet. This is all pre-AI. And I would reach out to different people, just ask, like, hey, like, just want to learn more about your path, understand like what led you from the Marine Corps into biotech. And I called it kind of trying on hats, you know, in each given conversation. You're just showing interest in what they've done. And you want to foster a sense of curiosity and I would say like a growth mindset. And after each conversation, because I'm crazy, in my Excel spreadsheet, I would put like date, name, what company they're at, how do I know them, what industry they're in, what cross-functional role they're in. Last time I talked to them, and then I would just rate it, scale one to 10. And so at the time I just called it vibe check. So that's kind of what I still call it. no real criteria. It's just getting off a call and saying, how'd I feel about that? And just for the fun of it, I always included decimal point, 7.2, 8.1, 4.3. And so I found that over time, just having these ratings, I like Excel. So I figured, why not just use some pivot tables to have more fun here? I think I ended up with like 300 conversations over the course of years. And what I found was that like when you're doing something like that, if you're not rating things, like it's okay, you're still gonna learn. but the things you're gonna remember are mainly the good conversations, some of the bad conversations, and probably none of the middle. but like when you have this whole aggregate and you're trying to like pull the signal out of the noise, I find that rating it is so powerful. Because nowadays it's way easier with AI that you can essentially just say, like, all right, I've rated these 30 to 40 conversations with different veteran professionals. My initial hypothesis was that I wanted to work in product management at a tech company. Right now I have product management with a sample size of 13, rated at a 6.4. But I've talked to seven people in data analytics, and right now that's rated at 8.2. That's kind of pushing me to think that maybe I should talk to more of those folks and maybe that's my people. And that's kind of what you're doing. You're trying to get confidence in your initial hypothesis and you're trying to say, who are my people? You know?
speaker-0: Yeah, that's incredible. I I love the example too, because I think if you're if you're, you know, collecting all that data, it wouldn't necessarily be surprising that you were drawn to data analytics. I I would also say it does it does sound a bit intense, I think, for most people to talk about creating a spreadsheet to to track what is effectively kind of these quasi-professional, quasi-social interactions. But actually it's it's there are quite a few people who do that. It's it's certainly less rare than I thought that it would be. And I think that particularly in this case, however you want to describe your inclination to create spreadsheets and pivot tables, I think the ultimate outcome is going to be really positive for a very large group of people. So I'm certainly grateful that you fell in love with pivot tables at a young age for some reason. So I do want to talk a little bit about going back to your transition itself. And and talking about kind of your your construct or your your field guide. So you talk about the different transition postures as you're getting out. You talk about the exploratory, tactical, and the urgent. Can you describe what those three are and can you just give us a walkthrough now we've heard your initial system, then what you've ultimately developed over time and what you're hoping to use it for?
speaker-1: Yeah, so it's interesting, man. Like I have a problem with like saying yes too much to things. and it came to a head when we got pregnant with my second child. So last January we're pregnant again. I was like, let's go. The same week I it's a normal week. Like five different veterans reach out and say, like, hey, like, would you be willing to talk about whatever? And I always say yes. But I was just thinking, like, man. I'm gonna have two young ones very soon. Like, I don't think I'm gonna have the bandwidth to do this forever. And so, luckily, like in my day job, it's kind of what I do is like help talk to users and design very friendly, easy to use software. And so the thought came about that I should just try to create a platform that could automate some of these things. So on the front end of all of it, I try to keep it real simple. I ask people, what service are you from? let's answer a couple of questions to make a direct relationship from military to civilian world. Location in the military is location in the civilian world. You look at like your command type or platform, the place where you would be stationed, let's just call that industry. Then you look at like your billet, that's just going to be your cross-functional role on the other side. So when you have your best guess on the front end and say, all right, I'm interested in getting into finance in the med tech industry, you know, like boom, you put that in on the front end. What I was able to do is just like connect it to AI to tackle some of the tasks that would be tedious or even boring for a veteran to try to look into or even overwhelming. So I've had 1300 of these conversations with veterans over the last like four or five years. Wow, people reach out at such different points of the transition. Some like, hey, I'm already out and I'm now working at Company X and I don't like it. Like I just want to talk about what's next. Some are, hey, I need a job in one month. I would say the majority, I would say the I'd say more median than mean. would be like around six months. They have six months to go before they want to be hired for a role. And that's an okay spot to be. But how I generally break it down is if you have under three months, you're in urgent mode. That's a different set of recommendations. You don't have time like all the time in the world to do like the self-reflection, talk to a bunch of different veterans, discovery. You should focus on trying to land that next role. And if it's not a great fit, like you can go back to the drawing board. That's the thing on the other side that like some veterans just don't see is that like at any given point, if you're really dissatisfied with your role, you can leave that company. You do not have like a contract with the US government at that point to have to stay there. if you're at three to nine months, I call it tactical mode. Tactical mode is a little bit different. You have some time to play with, but you still have a little bit sense of urgency. So you're trying to stay accountable. make sure that you're having the conversations, might want to be learning a little more quickly. Now, exploratory mode, nine months and beyond, that's the sweet spot. Every time someone reaches out and they are like a year plus, some people are even like two years before they can even get out. And every time I'm just like, it warms my heart. I'm really proud of those folks because I'm like, my gosh, so many levers are at your disposal right now. And if you start early, this is gonna be so easy. So yeah, we take all that into account, give you like a company list, essentially, saying like based on your criteria, here's a list of companies that seem to somewhat fit it. And what I recommend people do on the front end is just reach out to a few veterans at each company. You're just trying to have conversations, you're trying to learn about their role, what their transition journey looked like. They're gonna recommend that you talk to tons of other people. It's the hardest part is starting. And so If you can reach out to three veterans at five different companies that you think would be interesting to potentially work for, that's how you're gonna start to get the sample size and really understand what might feel like a right fit for you.
speaker-0: Yeah, man, there's there's so much that you covered that is just awesome. I think particularly on that last point, just you know, what is and and this applies to veterans, it applies to and anybody with, you know, some shared background. People always if if they have some affinity for your background, they are much likelier to respond. That's one real strength of the veteran community. Like you said, the response rate when you're doing cold outreach is way higher. on the veteran side. I also was thinking about your your point about the greater than nine months being kind of the ideal spot. So I think that's an important thing to touch on because, you know, there are a lot of people who are quite critical of the government or the military's transition program itself, where you know, we have programming to help people who are transitioning out of the military. I would say it's actually pretty good. I mean it's it's significantly better than nothing. and you know, obviously that's not necessarily the the greatest compliment ever, but I actually found the programming to be pretty decent. And I think in particular, depending on where you're at, right? Like it it can be excellent for you. I think the key issue with it is that the what what you're supposed to the the timeline at which you're supposed to be given the opportunity to get that training versus the timeline that it actually happens, there's such a great delta that it's it's it's pretty bad. I think You're supposed to be able to access that training 18 months before you get out. It might even be longer at this point. However, most folks don't really get to see it until significantly under nine months. And in in my experience, there were guys and gals who were getting out who didn't have it 30 days before they got out, which I think is just, yeah, exactly. You you fall into that category. And so it's tough because it's, you know, we wanna be we wanna be critical of the program because we we wanna see better results. We want people to be set up for success. when they transition out of the military. I mean, that's what the American taxpayer wants. That's why that that program is funded. That's why there are all these other programs to help with that transition. But ultimately it's the actual implementation of that program. So I think that, you know, as as long as the Navy is deploying ships, as long as the Marines are forward deployed, the the airmen, the soldiers, as long as the military is doing doing its job and being forward deployed, there are going to be holes in the system. Even if it's perfectly implemented, right? And so that's why I think it's so powerful what you're doing, because it is an easy, easy to use. That's kind of your bread and butter making software for people like me who have a hard time engaging with with with tougher systems. And it's very easy to use and it's filling that gap. And I obviously it provides a lot more. In all of your conversations, obviously you've been collecting a ton of data. just in your own in your own head, but then also in your own systems that that you've created. What are some of those major trends that people are are tend to be struggling with as they're transitioning out?
speaker-1: Yeah, I find most commonly veterans fall into one of two buckets. One is I have no idea what I want to do. And they don't know how to figure out what they want to do either. The other bucket is I know exactly what I want to do, and I want to be a project slash program manager in defense. So let's take them one at a time. For having no idea what you want to do. Like that's okay if you have time. Or even if you don't have time, if you don't want to put a tremendous amount of thought into it, like that's why these placement companies exist. And so for people in urgent mode, I recommend leaning into the programs that exist to help them find a role. For the people that come to me and say, I want to get into program management at a defense company, I like to push back only because I too had a phase of wanting. To get into program management at a defense company. And there is nothing wrong at all with this type of role. A lot of veterans get into this type of role. I went through this phase for probably nine months. And everyone told me, you're a naval officer? Yeah, like you liked it. yeah, you should go work at some defense company in program management. It'll be great. And as I started talking to more people that worked in those roles, Just wasn't exciting to me, you know? And I am a curious learner type guy. And when I thought about going into a role that was eerily similar to what I was doing in the military, that just wasn't the most exciting thing for me. I also had a really influential person in the process when I was going through a four-block nonprofit, super cool group. program back in like 2019. And I said, I'm Lang Loubarth, naval officer, and I want to be a program manager in defense. And he pulled me aside later on. He said, Do you actually want to do that? And I said, yo yeah. That's what everyone says I should do and what I'm qualified to do. And he's like, buddy, you can do whatever you want, but like, don't just go into it because you think it's the only thing you can do. And that kind of led me to think like, hmm, maybe I can forge my own path. Maybe I can figure this out. so that's what I encourage veterans to do. That's kind of the ethos of everything at Civilian Compass is that like you got this community of super supportive veterans that like there's millions of them working in any field you can imagine. You're not gonna be the first person working in whatever field. Go find the people that already did it. Get the notes from them. Like this is similar to the military. I once had a department head that said plagiarism is authorized in saying, like, don't recreate the wheelband. Like go to people that have done it before you, get a great template and try to follow that path, you know.
speaker-0: We talked a little bit as well about, you know, the the initial interface that a person transitioning out of the military will go through. But of course you've had, you know, you you didn't arrive at your current iteration of civilian compass on day one, right? Like you've you've grown it over a period of time. Can you talk about you know, what you started with and ultimately how the actual application or software looks today? And and ultimately I think that will give us an insight into A a full picture of what it's offering to the veteran community.
speaker-1: Yeah, so I'm not good at sitting still. So when I had my second child and had three straight months of parental leave, I work very intuitive full time. they're great at work-life balance. They don't want me working on their work. I can take care of the baby, but like while the baby's it's middle of football season, the baby's in like what I call like potato mode. You just kind of put them on you and they're happy. Got to do something to engage the brain. And so I thought, mm, I'm gonna vibe code this out and try to figure it out. So I did exactly that, was able to make something that worked, but found that like this just isn't as scalable and robust as I want. There's certain things that I would like. if I'm gonna attach my name to this and put this out in the public sphere, I want it to be right, I want it to work, I want it to do good for veterans. So a common trend as I get older. Is realizing when you're not great at something and you should just pay someone that is better than you to help you. So I found a developer to take the framework of what I've built and a lot of like the methodologies and essentially create it into a platform because what I'm trying to do is I'm just one person. I can have conversations with veterans, but like I would hate to be the bottleneck. So I prefer to find ways to scale that impact more broadly. So I'm building the platform that acts as your hub where phase one, you're having conversations with other veterans at target companies, you're learning. And I try to keep it as simple as possible. Just rate the conversations after every five. You get a trend analysis that lets you know this is what your ratings are looking like in terms of following the right sort of conversations. This was your initial hypothesis, but maybe you should consider this other direction, diversify your experience. Once you get to a level of confidence, nine or 10 out of 10, move on to the next phase. Phase two, you have your industry, you have your role selected. From there, you need to really lean into it, learn about it. So you're going to pull a few jobs down, literally just grab the URLs, we'll strip everything out. You go through, you stop light code, you say, Green, I have this experience. Yellow, I have somewhat of this experience. Red is a big gap for me. From there, you're on a search for future versions of yourself. You're looking for people that are doing the job that you want to do. And it's funny, but like I promise, whatever you want to do, there are veterans today that are doing them. So you can reach out to those folks. And what I frequently find is you have a ton of red on your spreadsheet and you say, I'm not qualified for this stuff. But then when you talk to a veteran, they say, yeah, I mean, I wasn't either. Here's the things that matter, here's the things that don't exactly matter. And you really figure out after a certain number of conversations and you have confidence that maybe there is something that you could do in your free time to become a more qualified candidate. But I would say a lot of the time it's just a narrative crafting exercise. You did a lot of these things in the military, but you got to understand what is the right verbiage to talk about them in the right way, just to be just above the bar to get an interview. Find veterans do real well in interviews. Moving into phase three, you're applying for jobs. It's a smart job tracker. You dump the URL in, it strips the information out about it. And throughout this whole time, the crux of the situation and the hardest part of this whole journey when you don't have software, I found, is just keeping up with people. So it helps to remind you after every conversation that you rate a five or above. Every three months, it'll ping you and say, Hey, just drop a note to John Smith. You can have the most minimal note. John Smith is a Steelers fan. You're checking in on what are you thinking about Aaron Rodgers? John Smith talked about his kids starting school. You mentioned that. You ask about their company. You have a follow-up question. You tell them something's going on in your life. And after a few check-ins, like you are building. veteran advocates at all of these companies that you're hoping to work at. And like if you've applied to jobs recently, it's not the greatest market right now. And so it's certainly helpful to have a leg up by having friends that are willing to advocate for you. And you can take control of that if you start early and are consistent.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's that's so awesome. it made me think again back to my school experience here at Wharton where in class recently one of the professors was asking, you know, how do people feel about networking? How do they do this? And, you know, there were various people who had, again, a surprising number to me, more more than, you know, two or three who had implemented some type of spreadsheet. with alerts to help them make sure that they're keeping up with these people. And so what I think is incredible is obviously those individuals, much like yourself, highly motivated, understand the importance of these things and they're gonna implement engineering or administrative controls to ensure that they're being successful in this endeavor. What I think is so cool about what you're doing is that you've kind of democratized that for, you know, a lot of people who A, they don't know that that's something they should be doing or could be doing, right? Like whether or not they should necessarily Use a tool for that, who knows? But it's certainly not a bad practice. It's a very good practice to to network, to identify people with similar interests and roles that you'd like and then cultivate relationships to learn from them to get that mentorship, even if it nothing ends up happening in terms of yielding a job, like you pointed out. You know, it's like you've now got a network of people at various various companies that you're interested in that of course can only yield in the worst case. you know, helpful insights about places where you can improve. So I think that's a really wonderful part about what you're doing is you're making it so much easier for people to tap in to this, you know, really procedural and and systematic approach to this by leveraging, you know, all the tools that you've developed in your professional life.
speaker-1: This process isn't easy, you know? But like, you know what else isn't easy? Cold applying to jobs and getting rejections at two in the morning randomly. Like, that's demoralizing. And so for me, I think you're really just trying to cultivate a growth mindset and get really excited about learning and model curiosity because like everybody wants to work with someone that's curious and shows up like ready to learn. So, like if you can model that in this search, it's one, you're more likely going to end up in some sort of role that you're excited about. it's kind of the situation of like, don't let life happen to you, you know, take it into your own hands. Is it gonna be a little bit extra work? maybe it depends. Might be less work. The cool thing about veterans is they've already put in a lot of hard work and this is just a different kind of work to show them. And so I just want to give them the tools for guidance and accountability.
speaker-0: Absolutely. And and again, I can't I can't speak highly enough about what is effectively I mean, it's not a product, right? 'Cause you're not like selling it, but it is a platform that people can actually use to do these things. Because again, I just want to point out all of these upsides to this, right? Like you're you're a person transitioning out of the military. There are people who are ahead of you on that track who can help translate your experience, who can help you understand the language that you need to use that may be different. and they can, you know, for to to use a kind of more popular term these days and you know, I don't know if it's the correct term, but in in a way, code switch, you know, from their time in the military. They obviously understand what you were going through, but then also they've been working in industry for a period of time. So they're able to help you along the path to understanding what is appropriate. That's what's is so powerful about the Veterans Club at Wharton, right? Like the second years to me made such a big impact on me because there were things that they helped as you were navigating what what's it like to not be in the Marine Corps anymore. There were guys ahead of you who who knew what it was like to be in your shoes and were able to help you along that path. And just having that safe space to talk to people about things in a way that, you know, you're not gonna have those same conversations with everyone, even if people have the best intentions and want to hear them, right? You need that shared experience. So to professionalize that and and s you know, create a system for that, I think is deeply powerful. So what I what I do wanna talk about now is you've you've collected all this data, not, you know, you're not like Collecting it in the sense that we think about with yeah, with with all these data tycoons. But like just over time throughout your processes, you've had conversations with so many veterans that in in a way it makes you an expert on the transition and an expert at least on what people experience. And so as you've helped veterans navigate this transition, you mentioned the importance of you know, crafting or or using the appropriate verbiage, crafting your story. Why is it do you think that veterans struggle initially with telling their story? I think this could be a helpful insight to a lot of veterans and a lot of non veterans as well.
speaker-1: I mean, so many things. I would say a a very interesting like related tangent. I assumed when I was getting out, the only people that would ask for help would be people that were also junior officers that were getting out. And I was incredibly wrong. I would say 60% of the people that reach out to me are 10 or more years of experience. And probably a third of the total people that reach out to me are 20 or more years of experience. I find that When you're in the military ecosystem for a longer time, it's kind of like when your friends that may have gone to normal college or not, like they had their find themselves phase. Like you and I went to like a service academy. We didn't really have that. Like you're given, like, all right, here's here's your bars. Like you're now an officer. You don't necessarily have a time to go explore and figure out what your passions may be. And so I find with veterans that are getting out, if you're told by someone that you respect, hey, you should go into this field, you're probably gonna do that. And maybe it's a great fit. Like that's awesome if it is. But if it isn't, it just doesn't hurt to have more than a few conversations. To like what I say about civilian compass is this does not exist for you to like, we're here to. Guaranteed get you a job. Like, that's not what I want to do. What I want to do is I make three promises that people are going to learn a tremendous amount about themselves. They're going to learn a tremendous amount about the market. And they are going to grow a network of veterans that anytime that they're feeling like their role really isn't a fit for them, this support continues to exist. And the fundamentals don't really change, regardless of like technical innovations. Like, there's nothing that replaces sure, people like saying like networking, but I find it's just keeping an open mind to help other people. And when people reach out to you on the other side, like you reached out to ask for advice from so many people on the front end, of course you're gonna say yes, you know? And so if you can. Trust the process, learn from people that are more experienced than yourself and really have some support during your transition process. I think it's an ecosystem that continues to feed new members as 200,000 veterans get out of the military each year.
speaker-0: Yeah, what an incr incredibly powerful message. And I think it totally resonates with everything, you know, we had in our experience in the military itself, that you're always reaching back down the ladder to help the next guy or the next gal up. And so I think that that also is is a place to find purpose for a lot of people. You know, as you're navigating your own transition, you had people who helped you. And then as you're helping people as they get through theirs, that's a incredible way to give back. And I think a lot of people derive a a lot of pride and a lot of purpose from helping veterans out. So again, I think it's awesome to provide them with a system or a platform that can help them out with that. So I would love to ask you just a a couple more questions about your experience working with veterans and trends that you've noticed as they've navigated these things. So we talked about the importance of crafting a narrative. but I think it's also a really interesting thing. You know, you've got on the one hand, people who totally undersell what they did. You know, people who, you know, they always use we, they always say the team, they never talk about themselves, which is just the way we were taught. And then you've got other folks who are kind of either on the other side of it from a you know pernicious way, but really probably more just from, you know, kind of overtranslating what they did. Right. Where you see, I mean the resume is a great example, right? Like someone who had a command role for a company, which is an enormous deal and an incredible responsibility. you know, using language like they, you know, were the CEO or something like that. Where kind of effectively like, you know, they kind of were, but obviously you're not, right? And like you're, you know, you're you're twenty-eight or you're twenty-nine. and and you know, translating can be so challenging. So I I wonder, you know, what are some of the things that people underestimate? in terms of the value that they're bringing? What are some of the things that people overestimate? And what are some of the most common areas that people just kind of botch their explanations on their resumes?
speaker-1: Interesting framing. I'm gonna push back in a different way. What I'm going to say is that the other awesome thing about veterans is that they don't BS you or like blow smoke. And so like I think it's so incredible that like when someone comes to me, I'm not normally looking at the resume. I'm kind of helping from like a high view strategically like process. This is what I think you should get into. When someone gets into phase two of a process. And they're looking for future versions of themselves. I as I've been building this process and talking to folks that aren't veterans about like, hey, I like learning from people and I don't pretend to have all the answers. I'm gonna talk to as many people as I can to try to make the best thing I can. And I think it's funny because when someone maybe comes in with a thought of like, I know exactly what I want to do, I want to work for a Big three investment firm. For those that aren't familiar, those jobs are so hard to get. I'm sure like a lot of your friends are probably applying to or have done internships with them or are in the jobs now. They are awesome, but like very low acceptance rate. The great thing about like talking through your given path with veterans is that they're going to give you the real version. Like if you possibly went through like roles, requirements, and responsibilities, you stop light code. And you say, I think I'm a great fish for this thing. Cause I was pretty much the president of my part of the Marine Corps. You know? Like you're gonna get reality checked real fast. And so that's like the other super cool part of the veteran community I've found is that they're not gonna give you some fake, nice feedback. And sometimes so I work in tech nowadays. I'll be critical of tech for a moment. Tech's great. like Cool work-life balance and working on fun problems and whatnot. But sometimes it's hard to get the critical feedback, especially when you're used to it from a military component. I I would describe it as a good problem to have. Like people are too nice sometimes. I don't necessarily always see that with veterans. I find that if you come in with outsized expectations, they will tell you, buddy, this is not right for you. But if this is something you're actually interested in, I'd recommend starting in a role like this and then moving over to something like that. On the other side of the dice, I've seen many times the veterans come in, they say, like, I think I was working as like the assistant to this admiral. I was an admiral's aide for whatever. And because of that, I think I'd be like a really good executive assistant. And it's like that's not as strategic as you think. depending on the industry that you're looking at, you're probably more qualified. So let's look for different types of like strategic and planning roles that you might be a good fit for. And so, I mean, kudos to the veteran community. I find that like you're rarely misled, if that makes sense.
speaker-0: Yeah, no, that's that's super helpful. And and I was definitely thinking on the side of you know, veterans sharing their information outwards from like the the applicants and that kind of thing. But I think you certainly elucidate the power of the networking aspect and how you actually do get that that real feedback of people who are gonna give it to you straight. And and it it definitely resonates with me. There were definitely some firms or some industries that I was you know, kind of drawn to just because again, they're kind of the pipeline things that folks do in different areas during my transition. and having those conversations with some veterans who were a few years ahead of me were was very sobering and helped me navigate the process in a much better way for me. so just getting that data, getting that feedback is so critical as you you kind of arm yourself with more information.
speaker-1: And I'll add one more comment on that. For me personally, when so I went through the project management defense phase, I also went through I want to be in investment banking phase. And the phase didn't last too long. I talked to a few people in investment banking and honestly, they asked like such beautiful questions that they said, like, Okay, cool. Like, are you willing to move to these places? are you trying to start a family soon? And like, as I was answering. certain questions that would indicate a certain type of lifestyle, they were like, buddy, you don't want any part of this. And I was like, huh, interesting. And as those conversations and sample size increases, I only got more confident that that's probably not the right fit for me. And I'm I'm glad I had the conversations.
speaker-0: Absolutely. And and that's that's such a key point, especially for, you know, veterans who are at MBA programs or people who are in positions where you know, there are recruiters who come to either your place of work or your place of education. They're recruiting. So when you're asking for what life is like at a firm, it's their job to recruit you to the firm. And I I think everybody knows that, but I do think that some of these firms are so good at it. That they can get you, you know, they can get you to believe everything they're saying, which obviously, that's the role of the recruiter. And I I'm not accusing anyone of kind of being misleading, but getting that real
speaker-1: To get a veteran's second opinion.
speaker-0: Exactly. Exactly. Or someone from a shared background with that, if you can build that rapport, build that affinity, who's gonna give you the kind of unfiltered feedback on what the experience is actually like? So we're coming up on time here. So I want to ask you with Civilian Compass, you've come a long way from just vibe coding with a baby in potato mode watching football, to where you're at now. And I and I would love to, you know, open up. We've got an incredible audience here that listens who are super capable. And I think there are a lot of veterans in my you know, i in my community here at Wharton or or kind of throughout, whoever's listening who would love to lend a hand. What are some areas that people could be helpful to civilian compass going forward? How can they get involved?
speaker-1: I I I appreciate the ask because like that's the interesting thing and the easy question to ask is like, is this a nonprofit? Is this LLC? How are you making money? To be honest, I'm worried on solving veteran problems first. And if as we scale to more veterans, if that becomes a problem, we'll handle those as they come. Right now I have the luxury of being able to use the skills that I've learned at Intuit to partnered with over a thousand conversations with veterans to try to help create a platform, which is the platform that I wish I had when I was getting out, in terms of like people reaching out and wanting to help. Of course, like right now I'm in discovery mode. like so there's there's different parts. If this is like thought partnership And you just want to talk through it and see how you can help, like, let's have a conversation, man. At to this point, like I've paid all the upfront costs and I'm planning on doing that for the next X amount of months. And we'll figure that out as it comes. But to anyone that is hit up by military veterans, like let them know. This will be live first, second week of September. we're gonna launch at beta and I challenge veterans that are coming in the door. To break it, find issues with the software, let me know. Because that's my favorite part of my job. You launch a feature, you get the feedback, you make it better. yeah, and to veterans that are uncertain about what's next, know that it's not easy getting out of the military. Never really is. But if you can take a deep breath. Rely on your veteran community and try to approach the process with curiosity and hope to learn a little bit more about yourself and rely on those that came before you. I think you're going to be in a really good spot. But yeah, I appreciate anyone that wants to help out in any way. this has been a really, really fun project for me to work on.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. So everyone listening, if if you want to get involved, the best thing you can do is just send that link around. And we'll make sure to have it included in the description. We'll put it out in all of our social media posts. So any veteran looking to conduct their own transition, you're gonna have that leg up that Lang and I did not have when we were getting out, all thanks to the work that he's done from vodcoating with a potato on his chest until today. So Lang, before we Before we shut this thing down, I ask everybody the same question because this is a leadership podcast. As much as we've talked about the transition, you're a great leader. You've done a lot of great things. You've been an incredibly selfless servant leader. And you're building this incredible thing. So with that in mind, if there were one trait you would encourage a young, aspiring leader to develop and hone, what would it be?
speaker-1: If for me, and I'm still a work in progress, man, doing my best on the leadership front. But for me, I I think it's patience. Patience is tough, man. It goes throughout our day. It's in your personal life, certainly in your work life, in your transition from one role to your next one. And so I find that there's always going to be issues that challenge you. And if you can take a deep breath. And what I like to do when I'm frustrated, I take a deep breath and I say, what would an extremely mature person do right now when I'm frustrated? And almost always the answer is just wait. Like don't you don't need to you don't need to do the thing. You don't need to be angry. Just take a deep breath, be patient and wait.
speaker-0: That is an incredibly great piece of insight. Patience is key as a leader and navigating life and certainly when navigating a transition and trying to figure out what the heck you want to do with your life. Lang, thank you so much for coming on the show. You're welcome back anytime. And everybody listening, check out the civilian compass.
speaker-1: Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, man. I had a great time.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Thanks so much for listening to Lead with Bubba Scott, brought to you by the VA Lender. Mixing and editing for this podcast were performed by Mock Social. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the show and leave a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also follow along on Instagram at LeadwithBubba and let us know your thoughts on the episode. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
